Page 77 of Devotion

“I can take care of you if you want.” I’ve still made no moves toward his groin.

“Please,” he rasps.

Stifling a whimper of relief, I adjust my position so I can reach his cock. I hold his shaft in one hand as I lean over to suck on the tip.

His hips buck slightly in response. He doesn’t have much control this morning.

Adjusting my lips, I take him farther into my mouth, establishing our familiar rhythm of sucking and bobbing my head. He moves his hands to hold fistfuls of my loose hair.

I’m thrilled and overwhelmed with a bone-deep tenderness as I suck him off and revel in his helpless responsiveness. He’s going to come soon. I can feel it in his erection and all through his body.

He needs it. He needs me. And I’m capable of giving him what he needs.

He’s guiding my head. Rocking his hips up toward my mouth.

I’m prepping myself for him to come soon when his soft moans and grunts turn into words. “Please. Please. I don’t… I don’t… I don’t want to do it.”

It slams into me like a blow. I freeze. Then very slowly let him slide out of my mouth and straighten up, my fingers and my lips and my heart all trembling.

He blinks up at me groggily. “What’s going on?”

“You… You said you don’t want to do it.” A couple more tears stream out of my eyes.

It’s clear he has no idea what he just said. After a minute of orienting himself and processing the explanation, he says, “I didn’t mean you, baby. I’d never mean you.”

“But you don’t want me to do this for you anymore?”

“No, that’s not it. I did want it.” He’s distracted from the pleasure now. He’s still hard, but he’s lost the momentum of his climax. His eyes are focused. “I wasn’t talking about anything connected to you.”

“Then what…?” I can’t get the whole question spoken through the tightness of my throat.

“Fuck, baby,” he breathes out with a slump of his shoulders. His eyes close for a minute. “I didn’t even know I was saying that out loud.”

“You were.” I want to touch him so badly I have to clench my hands into fists to resist the impulse. “I know you’re allowed to keep it to yourself. And I can see that whatever it is must be a real struggle to deal with. But why… I don’t understand why you can’t tell me. I’m your partner.” I swallow hard. “I’m not just your partner in bed. I’m your partner in life. If something is this hard for you, I’m the one you tell.”

The final words feel familiar. Like an echo in my memory. I realize Gabriel spoke them to me in the past.

Maybe he recognizes them too. His face twists dramatically, his eyes squeeze tight, and his shoulders shake a few times.

A surge of fear pushes me into action. I’ve never seen Gabriel so broken before, and I’m not sure I’m strong enough to handle it. I reach out to grab one of his big hands and hold it in both of mine. “Gabriel, please tell me.”

“I don’t… I don’t even know how to start.” He’s gotten control of himself again, clenching all his deep emotions tightly inside him. He finally meets my eyes, and he lifts his hips to pull the towel out from beneath him so he can cover his groin. He’s no longer even a little bit hard.

“It happened in your meeting with the president the other day. Did he not like your plan?”

“He—” The word chokes him. He clears his throat with a short cough. “He said he did. He said most of it was good. But there were… there had to be changes before it was presented to anyone else.”

“I thought the council was supposed to decide things like that.”

“That’s how the public believes it works, but it’s not how things occur in reality. He’s not going to let something get presented to the council for discussion unless he already approves of it.”

I’ve often wondered why President Vincent so often sits back and listens during council meetings instead of expressing his opinions and pushing for decisions. This is evidently why.

All his decisions are made beforehand and in private.

“So what changes did he want to make?”

“He said it was too… too generous. It gave people too much power. So he wants to add some…boundaries, he calls them.”

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