Wrapping my thighs around his waist, he lowers his mouth until it’s almost touching mine, taunting me before he takes my bottom lip between his teeth and bites hard. I moan and run my fingers through the hair on the back of his head, my nails scraping roughly over his scalp. He hisses, but I know he loves it. He likes a bit of pain with his pleasure too.

He moves his mouth down to my neck, licking and nipping me before he brands me with yet another mark. I don’t try to stop him. I’ll walk around covered in hickeys tomorrow with a fat fucking smile on my face.

“You think I still love you?” he asks, his tongue gliding across my throat.

“I know you do.”

“How’s that?”

“I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t. Not after what I did.”

He hums. “Maybe you’re here because I hate you. Maybe I want to punish you.”

“I don’t think so. You know what the opposite of love is?” Grabbing his hair again, I force his head up so I can look him in the eye. “It’s not hate. It’s indifference.”

He yanks his head out of my grip, our foreheads knocking together. He reaches up behind his neck and grabs my wrists, slamming them down on the pillow above me. Then he fucks me even harder than before, his fingers digging into my hip.

The thought of him bruising me makes my dick leak.

“Easton. I’m gonna come.”

He stops abruptly, licking his lips as he looks down at the pool of precum on my abs. It’s as if he can’t decide whether he wants to fuck the cum out of me or suck it out of me.

A few seconds go by, and then he’s pulling out and dropping down on his back, grabbing my hips and helping me straddle him.

Fuck it out of me, it is.

“Sit up,” he demands. “I want to watch you come all over me.”

With his help, I lower myself onto his dick, bracing my restrained hands on his chest for balance. He takes the hem of my shirt and shoves it into my mouth, not to shut me up, but so he can see my body, I’m assuming. His blunt fingernails dig into my outer thighs as he fucks up into me, and I moan through my teeth. White-hot pleasure races through me, and we both watch as my dick pulses, thick ropes of my cum hitting his stomach and chest. He scoops some up with his fingers and pushes them into his mouth, sucking them clean. Then he scoops up some more and lifts my ass up, coating his dick with my release before he slides back inside me, fucking me with my own cum.

I collapse on top of him and wrap my arms around his head. He wraps his arms around my back, his fingers hooked over my shoulders as he fucks me hard and fast. When he comes inside me, he drags his nails down my back, making me cry out into his ear.

“Fuck, Easton. I have to get up on that podium again tomorrow night.”

“I know,” he breathes, unashamed.

“Asshole.”

“Brat.”

I smile and bury my face into his neck. Still inside me, he teases my sides with his knuckles as we catch our breaths, our hearts beating rapidly.

Being here, in his arms…it feels like home. I’m finally home.

And I’m afraid to move—afraid of what I’ll find the next time he looks at me.

Will he regret this? Will he hate me? Will he tell me to leave now that he’s gotten his fill of me?

“Are you sorry?” I whisper.

It takes him a minute, but he eventually says, “Never.”

CHAPTER 27

ADAM

THREE AND A HALF YEARS AGO