“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, but he cuts off the apology with the swipe of his warm tongue along the ridge of my nipple, gentle heat that demands I keep my words to myself.
“No, Loh. You don’t have to be sorry. Just be here now. Move forward with me.”
Forward.
He wants a forward. He wants to take me with him.
He wants to keep me, and it’s enough to split me apart. I feel fresh tears stinging at my eyes and catching in my lashes as I nod.
“Okay.” It’s all I can do, all I can say.
I want to promise him everything, but my words are trapped somewhere between the depths of my lungs and his lips as they tickle down my ribcage. All I can do is watch him and wonder if he can see all the promises in my eyes that I can’t speak aloud.
His lips trail a line across my hip, careful kisses pressed to scars that I’ve never let anyone touch. Each tiny brush flays me alive, tearing me open and leaving me raw for him. Every kiss is me giving over, giving myself to him…
And even though it hurts, even though I keep waiting for memories to flood back… the warmth of Donovan’s mouth keeps the demons at bay as he breathes promises into my skin that I can bemorethan what these scars always told me I had to be.
I can behis. Really and truly his.
“Donovan.” I half whimper his name, and he slides his tongue along the length of the butterfly one more time before dropping down between my legs. At first, I think he’s going to take my cock between his lips. I’ll probably fall apart before he’s even started…
But he bypasses it completely and spills down, pressing my thighs back gently and spreading my legs. The warmth of his breath against my ass makes me shudder.
“I want you to feel good, Shiloh. As good as you are, as good as you can be. Let me show you.”
I’m about to ask him how he plans on doing that when the heat of his tongue presses against my hole, and my entire body jerks. If Donovan’s hands weren’t on my hips, I’m pretty sure I’d fly off the bed. As it is, I can do nothing but squirm underneath his hold—that strength that keeps me anchored when all I wantis to fly apart—as he licks slow, deliberate lines against my ass until I’m melting beneath him.
I’ve never felt anything like this before. Then again, every sexual experience I’ve ever had has been with Donovan. Still, there’s something about this—the way his tongue laves against my hole over and over again, the tip stiffening and circling—that leaves me breathless. This feels like something more than sex, more than desire… It feels like worship, like confessions and promises written into my shattered soul.
He moans, the vibration of the sound sending little shockwaves of pleasure through my nervous system.
“You taste so good, Loh. All of you. Fuck… I missed you, baby.”
“More,” I gasp, a soft plea that doesn’t do justice to what I mean. I want him to eat me alive, wholly and completely. I want to live inside him, be his sustenance, his strength. I want to live in the heat of his chest, lulled by the thundering of his heart.
I’d let him devour me and thank him with every bite if he told me he missed me again.
Instead, he stiffens his tongue and slips the tip of it inside me, his big hands on my ass cheeks pulling them further apart like he can somehow make more space. He licks into me until I’m trembling, thrusts his tongue in slow little measures until it’s spearing inside me.
Donovan devours me until my world is a sweet, shining burn of need… and when his long, elegant fingers wrap around my cock and give a gentle stroke, I burst into a kaleidoscope of pleasure and infinity. I begged him to make me something new, and he said I had to do it myself… but this…
He’s remaking me one gentle touch at a time, and he doesn’t even realize it.
He’s doing exactly what I asked, except he’s doing it with lips and tongue instead of a blade.
He’s unmaking me and letting me fall apart around him, and the spear of his tongue as he licks into me catches all the pieces so I don’t dissolve into the atmosphere.
He doesn’t miss a beat when he lifts his head and starts licking my stomach clean, dragging his warm tongue along my cock as if he’s unwilling to let any part of me escape from this room, from his touch, from his demand that I let himshow me.
“I love you,” I whisper again, so choked that I’m not sure he can hear.
The press of his mouth against my butterfly tattoo tells me that he did.
“You are so important to me, Shiloh,” he whispers, trailing his lips up my body. He stops when he’s pressed to the curve of my shoulder, and his next words are warmth against my thundering pulse. “I need you to know that. You are… everything. My everything.”
I’ve never been anyone’sanything…let alone someone’s everything.
“Donovan…” I don’t mind that he didn’t say I love you back. Honestly, I could spend the rest of my life never hearing that and some part of me would think it was what I deserved. It’s not about that confession… it’s just about himstaying.It’s about me trying to maybe be worthy of it someday.
