Getting answers from him requires admitting my own secrets. That’s not something I’m willing to do—not even for him.
“No questions,” I say, forcing myself to add, “it’s not part of the arrangement.”
“I can’t seem to keep track of all the rules.” He withdraws his hand, and I miss him instantly. I ache for him.
I reach for his hand and bring it back to my face. Turning my cheek into it, I plant a kiss on the mound of his palm. “Okay. How’s this? We break one rule for every new one I make.”
“What rule are we going to break first, Lucky?” And then he’s kissing me, because he knows which rule we can’t follow a second longer.
We tear the walls we’ve built down and step into the wreckage together. I’ve been suffocating behind my barricades for years, and he’s air. He’s life, not destruction. He’s beautiful chaos upending my world and setting me free.
I’d forgotten how good he tastes.
Strong arms slide under me and lift me. We move together instinctually. My legs wrap around his waist. My arms tangle around his neck. We’re on a bed and I don’t remember getting there. Only him. Only this. He’s not a boy. He’s a man. I feel the proof of it on my fingertips. I fumble for his belt, but he pushes my hand away and smiles. It’s unguarded. Vulnerable. Stripped to show he’s here with me. All of him. He lifts my arms and pins our clasped hands over my head. When his mouth meets mine again, he lingers with slow lips. He whispers into the kiss. “This is just the first course, Lucky. I want to take my time. I need to savor ever fucking inch of you. I need to taste you.”
Sterling’s attention slides along my neck, his lips murmuring wicked promises as he descends. Fabric snaps and I’m vaguely aware that he’s ripped something off of me. My dress falls open and finally — blessedly – my skin meets his. He pauses at my stomach and suddenly, I’m painfully aware that I’m not the girl he fell in love with. I know what he sees: the tiny, silvery lines and soft skin. I shrink, trying to hide my flaws but there’s nowhere to run.
“Don’t you dare hide,” he says in a gruff voice. Sterling lifts his head from his devotions and blue eyes pierce through me.
“I know I don’t look…I know I’m not the girl you…before…” I struggle to put words to my sudden and crippling self-awareness.
He kisses my belly. “I don’t want that girl. I want you. I’ve never wanted any one like I want you right here and right now.” Pushing onto his hands, he brings his face to hover over mine. “The only thing I ever needed was more of you and, Lucky, I got my wish.”
We collide, crashing into one another. Drawn by some invisible force neither of us can resist. Giving into it unleashes a savage awareness of each touch until our bodies entwine like our hearts. There’s never been anyone like him. I moan as he slips inside me, as he stretches me, as he releases me.
Sterling pushes deeper, carefully, allowing my body to adjust to his size. “You feel even better than I imagined.”
“Been imagining it, huh?” I murmur.
“And you haven’t been thinking about this?” He lifts an eyebrow and plunges fully inside me. I writhe with delicious fullness under his smug gaze.
“Guilty,” I groan. My fingernails sink into his broad shoulders for leverage as he rolls his hips languidly against my cleft.
“I’ll punish you later,” he teases but I don’t miss the dark flash in his eyes. Another reminder that I’ve only caught glimpses of the man he’s become. A curated collection of portraits—the pieces he allows me to see.
I want to see all of him, but that will take time. But it starts here. It starts now. His teeth sink into my shoulder and I whimper, circling against him faster. Sterling clutches my hip and forces me back to the slow, deep rhythm.
“A few things have changed,” he says through gritted teeth. “I’m in control now. I’m going to make you feel so fucking good, but you’re going to have to let go and finally give in.”
His words unlock some hidden door in the wall I’ve built—one I didn’t know existed. Maybe I’d lost that part to him. Maybe no one else ever found it because it opens for him alone. Maybe he holds that key.
Because for once I don’t fight him, I do exactly what he says. I open my mind like I’ve opened my body and allow him to fill me entirely.
I’m drawn to Sterling, because he’s part of me. Separately, we don’t work and maybe we aren’t perfect together, but we are whole. That’s the messy truth of it. Wholeness isn’t neat or orderly. It’s give and take. It’s accepting all the parts of each other. I don’t know why he left. I don’t know why I stayed. I only know one thing. Together our beautiful chaos makes sense. Maybe just to us. But that’s all that matters.
“That’s right. Give in,” he coaxes. “You belong to me.”
His words thrust into me and take control. I am his. I always have been. But he’s mine, too. I tighten around him, my body forcing him to give me as much of him as he’s taken from me. His forehead presses to mine, slick with heat. He moves faster. He plunges deeper. He thunders, roaring into me and I shatter beneath him.
This time I don’t care how much of me he’s taken.
He can have it all.
We stay in bed after. Sterling’s head rests on my stomach, his fingers drawing pictures on my skin of all the places we’ll go together.
Neither of us seem in a hurry to leave the bed yet. That is until he hears my stomach growl.
“Hungry?”
