The table groans under him. Petals scatter. Jasmine coils in the air, sweet and curling between us.
He looks utterly wrecked, shattered beautifully, and I haven’t truly begun.
My shadows surge forward, eager to worship Levi in ways my hands haven’t even imagined yet. One encircles his thigh, possessive and slow. Another drags up his spine and nuzzles behind his ear, making him shiver like I just whispered what I plan to do to him when he begs.
“Hayden,” he breathes, and hearing my name on his lips like this, head thrown back, chest rising, will never get old.
It’s not a plea. Not yet. It’s permission. A door swinging wide, an unspokentake me.
And fuck, I do.
My hands go to his hips first, thumbs pressing into the softness just above the waistband of his jeans. He’s still warm from the walk home, from the wine, from the residual glow of being adored.
“You have no idea,” I rasp, fingers sliding under the hem of his shirt, “what centuries of waiting feels like.”
He lifts his arms like he’s being stripped for my taking, trusting me to bare him slowly. The sweater hits the floor and suddenly all I can see is skin I’ve craved since the moment he let me see it.
His skin gleams, flushed, freckled, already dewy with sweat. I want to mark every spot with my mouth. Lick every freckle. I press a kiss to the hollow of his throat and he tips his head back with a soft gasp.
“I want you here,” he gasps, voice shaking. “With my plants watching. With the whole greenhouse knowing what you do to me.”
Fuck, he’ll be the undoing of me.
I kiss my way down his chest, pausing to graze my teeth across his sternum. He gasps again, louder this time, less restrained, and I feel his hands in my hair, sifting through the strands like he doesn’t know whether to pull or praise. I kneel between his legs like I’m taking communion, popping the button on his jeans so slow it makes him curse under his breath.
“Say what you want,” I demand.
“I need you,” he says, voice wrecked.
His jeans drop, pooling at his feet. My palms trail the backs of his thighs, shadows settling into the spaces between my fingers as if to anchor me there, right between the legs of the man who is slowly, impossibly becoming mine.
I mouth the inside of his thigh, feeling the muscles tense under my lips, and when I pull down his briefs, his cock springing free from where it strained against the soft fabric, I take him down in one slow, greedy slide. Tongue pressed flat, jaw loose, and hecomes apart like the first crack of thunder. Moans like he’s dying. Like he’s never been touched like this. Like he’s about to lose his mind and thank me for it.
The kind of sound that starts in the gut and blooms out from the throat. The kind that comes out like surrender. Levi grabs the edge of the table, one hand clutching the worn wood, the other flying to the back of my head. But he doesn’t push, he just holds.
Shadows coil around his waist and wrists like restraints, want made visible. Not binding, just reminding him exactly who’s worshipping him tonight. He whimpers at their touch, at mine. At all of it. His legs shake and lips tremble as I take his dick deeper.
“Hayden,” he pants. “I—oh god…”
I take my time because I’m not ready for him to fall apart just yet. Savoring the weight of him on my tongue, the salt of his pre-cum flooding my mouth like a shot of serotonin.
Levi’s hips buck beneath me but I pull back just enough to leave him aching, my breath ghosting warm over his sensitive skin.
“Baby,” he breathes, raw and dripping with desperation. My new favorite sound. I want to bottle it and ruin him with it later.
I glance up, taking in the flush that paints his cheeks, the way his chest rises and falls in ragged bursts. One shadow circles his throat like a collar. No pressure, just promise. Another teases lower, swirling around his thighs, grazing along the sensitive curve beneath.
“Do you trust me?” I ask, mouth still wet on his thigh. “Enough to let me watch you come apart?” I realize it’s not just his trust in me that matters, but mine in him, too. Trusting Levi to see me fully, shadows and all, and accept me without fear or hesitation.
His eyes widen slightly, vulnerability and anticipation colliding beautifully in his gaze. His grip tightens in my hair. “I do,” he breathes. “I trust you.”
“Good,” I murmur, leaning back, letting my shadows move in.They surge forward, exploring him with an intimacy that makes me ache. They ripple across his skin, leaving goosebumps and shivers in their wake. Levi’s head falls back, eyes fluttering closed as he surrenders to their touch. “If it changes, you tell me.”
He nods.
I rise, stepping back into the darkness of the greenhouse, becoming more an observer than participant as my shadows claim him. Watching him writhe? It’s obscene. It’s divine. My cock throbs just looking at him, arched and panting like sin incarnate.
Fucked by shadow and praise alone.
