Chapter 9: The Confession
The silence stretches between us like a wire pulled taut. I can feel his breath on my face, see the fine tremor in his jaw as he grinds his teeth. His knuckles are white where he grips the counter's edge on either side of my thighs, and the dust motes drift through the late afternoon light like they're suspended in honey.
Don't leave at all.
The words hang there, and I watch him watch me, and I know he's waiting for me to laugh or deflect or find some way to make a joke out of the raw, bleeding thing he just handed me. But I don't. I can't. Because I feel it too, this thing that's been growing in my chest since the first time he touched me, this thing I've been lying to myself about every time I told myself I was just craving the danger.
"Then don't let me," I whisper.
Something shifts in his eyes. They go dark and soft at the same time, and I watch the words land in him like stones dropping into still water. He doesn't speak. He just hooks his arms under my knees, one hand sliding to the small of my back, and lifts me off the counter like I weigh nothing.
My dress rides up my thighs as he carries me across the cramped room. His mattress is on the floor, a tangle of dark sheets and a threadbare blanket that smells like him and tobacco and something else that makes my stomach clench. He lowers me onto it like I'm made of glass, like I'm something precious, and for a moment he just hovers over me, his palms flat on either side of my head, his eyes tracing my face like he's memorizing it.
"I've never wanted to keep anyone before," he says, and his voice cracks on the last word. "I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be... this."
I reach up and touch his face. The scar above his eyebrow is rough under my thumb. "You don't have to know how," I say. "You just have to not let me go."
He kisses me then. It's slow, devastatingly slow, his mouth moving over mine like he's trying to taste every part of me at once. His tongue slides against mine and I moan into his mouth, my fingers twisting into the collar of his shirt. He pulls back just enough to look at me, and then his mouth is on my throat, trailing down the column of my neck, teeth grazing my pulse point.
I arch beneath him, my head falling back against his pillow. "Hugo..."
He doesn't answer. His hands move down my body, pushing the fabric of my dress up over my hips, and then he's kissing his way down my sternum, over my stomach, his mouth hot and damp on my skin. I feel every inch of him moving over me, and there's something so tender in the way he touches me that it makes my chest ache.
He settles between my thighs, and when he looks up at me from there, his eyes are dark and hungry but soft around the edges. "You're so fucking beautiful," he murmurs, and then his mouth is on me.
The first stroke of his tongue makes me gasp. He eats me out like he's starving, like I'm the last meal he'll ever have, but he's slow about it. Dragging his tongue through my folds, circling my clit with agonizing patience, pressing his mouth flat and letting me grind against him. My fingers twist in his dark hair and I can't help the sounds I'm making, low and desperate, my hips bucking against his face.
He moans against me and the vibration shoots through my whole body. He curls his tongue inside me, and then his fingers are there too, sliding in alongside his tongue, and I'm so close already I can't breathe. The heat builds behind my eyes, in my belly, between my thighs, and when he presses his thumb against my clit and sucks on it, I come apart.
I cry out his name, my thighs clamping around his head, and he doesn't stop. He rides me through it, gentle and relentless until I'm trembling and oversensitive and pushing weakly at his shoulders. He crawls up my body, his mouth wet, his breathing ragged, and kisses me. I taste myself on his lips, and I moan against his mouth and pull him closer.
"I need you inside me," I breathe. "Please. Hugo. I need it."
He reaches down between us, and I watch his face as he positions himself. His jaw is tight, his eyes burning, and when he pushes into me, slow, inch by inch, I feel every millimeter of it. He fills me completely, and the sound I make is almost a sob.
He holds still for a moment. His forehead drops to mine, his eyes closed, his breath coming in short, sharp pants. "Fuck," he whispers. "Adaeze. I'm not gonna last."
"Then don't." I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper. "Move. Please."
He does. Slow at first, long strokes that drag against every sensitive spot inside me, his eyes locked on mine, never leaving. He's watching my face like he's searching for something, and I watch him back, and it feels like he's seeing all of me, every guarded, curled-up part of me that I've never shown anyone. It terrifies me. It makes me want to hide. But I don't look away.
He speeds up, his hands sliding beneath me, gripping my hips and tilting them up so he can drive deeper. The mattress creaks beneath us. Sweat gathers on his skin and I lick it off his shoulder, tasting salt and him. He groans, his pace roughening, and I can feel his cock throbbing inside me with every stroke.
"Look at me," he says, his voice cracked and raw. "Don't look away."
I don't. His eyes are glassy, vulnerable, wrecked. I've never seen Hugo Vidal look like this. I've seen him angry, cocky, cruel. I've never seen him stripped bare.
I reach down between us and rub my clit in tight circles as he fucks me, and the pressure builds again, fast and sharp. He feels me tighten around him and his whole body shudders. "Yeah," he breathes. "Fucking come for me. Come on my cock."
That's all it takes. I splinter apart, crying out as the orgasm rips through me, my body convulsing around him. He drives into me through it, deeper and harder, and then he groans my name and I feel him spill inside me, hot and thick, his hips jerking as he comes with a sound that cracks on the last breath.
He collapses against me, his weight heavy and warm, his face buried in my neck. I feel his lips move against my skin, a kiss, then another, and I wrap my arms around him and hold him there.
"Don't go," he whispers, his voice muffled.
I run my fingers through his damp hair and stare at the water stain on his ceiling. Outside, the sun is starting to set, orange light bleeding through the grimy window and painting the room in gold.
I'm not going anywhere.