Barely touching.
Like he's learning the shape of something he's not sure he gets to keep.
"This is a terrible idea."
"I know."
"We should stop."
"I know."
He tips my face up. Eyes very dark.
"Tell me to stop." Quiet. Serious. The kind of request that means he'll actually listen.
I don't tell him to stop.
He kisses me like he's been thinking about exactly this and has finally decided to stop pretending he won't. Thorough. Deliberate. His hand stays on my jaw. His other hand finds the back of my neck.
I grab the front of his shirt.
Everything that's been building since that stairwell — the service tunnel, every charged silence in between — unravels all at once. His mouth. My hands. The soft sound I make against him that I will absolutely be embarrassed about later. He swallows it like he was waiting for it. His grip tightens.
When he pulls back, his eyes have gone almost black.
"Fuck," he says. Quietly. Like it's not for me.
"Eloquent," I breathe.
He almost smiles.
Then he drops to his knees.
My brain, ever helpful, chooses this exact moment to remind me that I'm wearing borrowed sweatpants and a hospital undershirt, that I haven't shaved in seven days, and that the last man who saw me like this was a radiologist named Kevin who cried after — a situation I have aggressively refused to examine and am not examining now.
Luca kisses the inside of my thigh, and my brain shuts up completely.
He looks up at me from the floor with an expression that should require a permit. He takes his time with the waistband of my sweatpants, pulling them down slowly — watching my face the whole time, cataloging every flicker like he intends to use what he finds.
I brace both hands against the wall behind me because my legs have formally resigned.
He starts slow.
Deliberately, infuriatingly slow — learning me the way he learns everything, methodical and complete, filing away every catch of breath and every involuntary sound. His tongue finds my clit and stays there, unhurried and precise, and I make a sound I don't recognize as mine. Raw. Unguarded. The kind of sound I'd be embarrassed about if I had any remaining capacity for embarrassment.
I don't.
He groans against me like he's the one coming undone — low, rough, helpless — and the vibration alone makes my thighs shake. His hands grip my hips, hard and possessive, holding me exactly where he wants me. He doesn't let up. Doesn't rush. Just works me with focused devastation — pulling back when I get close, then starting again, learning exactly how to take me apart with the patience of a man who has decided this is the only thing that matters tonight.
"Luca—"
"I've got you." His mouth drags lower, tasting all of me, then back. "Let me hear you."
I stop trying to be quiet.
My head falls back against the wall. My fingers fist in his hair. The orgasm builds, crests, and crashes through me like something breaking loose — sharp and helpless and nothing like the quiet, controlled way I came alone two nights ago in his sheets, thinking about this exact mouth.
I cry out.
