Page 287 of Eternal
His hands were on my waist again, kneading my skin, lifting me slightly to caress my back. I was bare, already marked, still twitching from what he’d done before.
“You think we’re done?” he muttered against my lips.
“I was hoping not.”
“Good.”
His mouth trailed to my neck, my collarbone. Then lower, andlower, and when I laughed, breathless, at the way he growled when I tugged at his hair, he only bit down harder at my hip.
But then, he stopped, and looked up at me, his voice shifted seriously. “We didn’t use anything.”
A pause. My heart kicked.
He lifted his head, brows drawn together. “I’m sorry. I didn’t bring a condom. I wasn’t thinking—Ijust?—”
And I smiled. “I know,” I said, voice small.
And I did, I knew, but I wasn’t scared, for once I wasn’t scared.
I looked at him, at the sweat on his chest, the mess between my legs, the worry in his eyes that wasn’t about him, but aboutme. The way his hands still held me like I could break.
“I’m clean,” I murmured. “And I have an IUD.”
He relaxed a little, not all the way. Just enough to breathe.
But I didn’t tell him the rest. The part I never say out loud.
That it wouldn’t have mattered.
That something broke years ago and never healed right, scar tissue and silence, pain I never had words for, doctors I never saw, things that happened when I was too young and too alone, and no one noticed what was taken until it was too late.
I didn't want to see the look on his face if I said it. That this moment could probably never make a life.
I didn’t even want to think about it, because I was in his arms, under his touch, and all I wanted was for him to keep making me feel normal and okay.
But his jaw flexed, then eased, still watching me like he was memorizing every blink. Then he said it, rough again. “Okay, I can continue.” He dragged me to the edge of the bed so my legs hung off, and dropped to his knees.
“Damir…”
“Let me ruin you,partner.”
His mouth was on me again before I could breathe.
This time it was slow, leisurely, like he had all night to taste everything. And when I came again, on his tongue, legs shaking against his shoulders, he only laughed into me.
“Still think we’re done?”
“Fuck you.” I breathed almost laughing at myself.
“You will, I promise.”
And I did, twice more, against the door, and again, later, with my knees over his shoulders and the whole room smelling like heat and want andhome.
I must’ve fallen asleep at some point, or blacked out.
Whatever it was, it came with my head against his chest, my limbs thrown across his body like I never wanted to be anywhere else. And I didn’t, not now, notever.
His fingers were dragging absently through my hair, slow and calm like he didn’t want to wake me up. Like he was touching just for the sake of touching, because he could.
