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It’s an order I don’t think she needs, but she blinks in agreement and inhales every damn drop, lids heavy.
Fuck me. Game on.
I dive into the pool, scooping her into my arms as she squeals. I have to give it to her. “Goddamn, baby. Round one: Celeste.”
CELESTE
We sink in a mess of tangled limbs and bubbles blown from shrieks of laughter. And something about falling through the water with this unhinged man, completely submerged, after a day of drowning my haggard grief, is like coming up for air. Other than Ivy, I haven’t shown myself to anyone since Ben passed.
But I was too depleted to care tonight, too weary to fret over whether he’d judge me any more than he already had. While some of those judgments have been so vastly off base that they bounced right off me, one was more poignant than I’d been prepared for. He labeled me a chameleon, claiming I don’t know my own color, and maybe I don’t—not beyond the smoke and fire. Because that horror has charred every moment after, and the only way to breathe in smog is with a mask.
What if I choke without it?
His golden hairs waggle and sway, buoyant and directionless as we tumble and drift. He’s the kind of freedom I crave. Unapologetically him, even in the brashness. Floating through the weight of life like I long to do.
And he listened—really listened.
When he looked at me, I didn’t simply feel seen. I felt desired for the me no one knows. The me I’ve tried to suffocate.
Sprouting out of the water like a geyser, Liam coils my body around his as sprinkles from our reentrance rain down on us. His stature swallows me while his presence bolsters me stronger somehow. Every inch of him is chiseled, like he’s forgone carbs for a decade, or maybe it’s the calisthenics with the log I watched. That would do it. Regardless, he’s an electric blanket of heat and comfort, thrill and energy, on this chilly night.
His lips collide with mine in a frenzied kiss, a soul-searing one. He’s changed. His intensity has shifted.
Determined.
For what, I’m not sure, but his tongue seems intent on learning the deepest parts of me. Marking and branding me. For this one night, I want to let him—to know what it would be like if I wasn’t me and I could be his. The truth in what he said is an oppressive anchor.
“The goodbye you can’t bear.”
Maybe so. Just another one to carry.
But that isn’t tonight. And now, there’s a throbbing between my legs that desperately needs to be tended to. I’m fully confident he can obliterate that. When he lapped at my clit in the most divine rotation I’ve ever experienced—good God, I had to stop it. I’m already tipping, plummeting possibly. My heart is entangled in a dangerous, possessive tango that I refuse to entertain. It was vital to remind him and myself who was running the show—a feat I feel I conquered tenfold.
’Cause I fucking blew him out of the water. Pun totally intended.
“You’re in for it now, Carver.” His scruff bristles my cheek, prickling as his lips lift into a smile. “I was already planning to render you speechless and dumbfound you for days, but I’m upping my game.” He captures my lower lip between his teeth before licking over it. “It’s going to be downright lethal, baby girl. You ready?”
“Do it. Annihilate me until I’m catatonic,” I challenge against his lips, unable to disguise how parched I am for his touch. Bringing him to his knees left me desperate to spread mine wide open.
His forehead drops to mine. “That was incredible, Ace. You are … you’re so much more.” He locks those mesmerizing hazels on to mine, clutching my face as though he’s holding something precious. “I’ve been waiting. I see you.”
I turn my head and sigh. Fuck, he’s going to make this hurt.
He grips my chin, consuming the whole of me with another claiming kiss. “Don’t do that. I get all of you tonight.”
Right. One night.
Always keep them guessing.
“Ticktock then, Graves. No sense in wasting our time on sweet talk. I’m a sure thing … for the next few hours.”
“Seventeen,” he says, hand roaming beneath the water. Ass. Hips. Inner thighs.
“Seventeen?”
“Hours,” he explains, inching further. Two fingers dive inside me, curling to hit the perfect spot before retreating and circling my clit. “No one will be home until one tomorrow.” He flicks and swirls and plunges. “You’re all mine, Celeste.”
His.
