Chapter 12: The Morning Light and a New Vow
Sunlight, thin and pale, cut through the gap in the curtains, painting a hot stripe across Cymra’s closed eyelids. She swam up from a deep, dreamless sleep, her body heavy and languid. Then she felt it: the scratch of stubble on the soft skin of her inner thigh. A warm breath. The press of lips.
Her eyes flew open. She was on her back in their bed, the linen duvet a tangled heap at her feet. Pedro was between her legs, his head lowered, his dark hair stark against her pale skin. He wasn’t looking at her; his focus was absolute, a study in concentration. He kissed the sensitive flesh where her thigh met her groin, a slow, open-mouthed kiss that made her muscles tense.
“Pedro…” Her voice was a sleep-roughened whisper.
He looked up then. In the clear morning light, his eyes were the warm brown of old sherry, dark with an intensity that had nothing to do with performance. A faint, easy smile touched his lips. “Buenos días,” he murmured, the accent softening the words. Then he lowered his head again.
This time, his tongue found its target. He didn’t tease. He licked a slow, firm stripe through her folds, already slick from sleep and the residual arousal that seemed a permanent hum in her blood now. She gasped, her hips lifting off the mattress. He pushed her legs wider, his hands firm on her thighs, holding her open. His tongue circled her clit, once, twice, with a lazy, devastating precision that coiled tension deep in her belly.
“Oh, god…” Her head fell back, a moan trapped in her throat.
He hummed against her, the vibration shooting straight to her core. He settled into a rhythm, his tongue flat and broad, licking her like she was something precious and delicious. Then he focused, his lips closing around her clit, sucking gently, then harder, his tongue flicking the peak. It was a slow, building torture. He was reading her body’s responses like a script, adjusting his pressure, his pace, drawing out every gasp, every twitch.
One hand left her thigh. She felt his fingers, slick with her own wetness, probing gently at her entrance. One finger slid inside, deep and easy. He curled it, rubbing a spot that made her back arch. “Right there,” she panted. “Don’t stop.”
He didn’t. He added a second finger, stretching her, filling her in time with the relentless suction of his mouth. The dual sensation was overwhelming. The coil inside her pulled tighter, hotter. Her hands fisted in the sheets. Her thighs trembled against his head. The pleasure was a wave gathering force, dark and inevitable.
“I’m gonna… Pedro, I’m…”
He redoubled his efforts, his fingers pumping faster, his mouth sucking harder. He let out a low, guttural groan against her, and the sound, raw and unfiltered, pushed her over the edge. The orgasm crashed through her, a silent, shattering convulsion that locked her breath in her lungs and turned her vision white. He rode it out with her, his tongue gentling, his fingers stilling deep inside as she pulsed around them.
Slowly, he withdrew his fingers. He crawled up her body, his knees nudging her thighs apart further. He was fully naked, his cock hard and flushed, lying thick against his stomach. It was slick at the tip, gleaming with her arousal. He positioned himself at her entrance, but didn’t push in. He braced himself on his arms, looking down at her, his face serious.
“Last night…” he began, his voice rough with sleep and need. “That was goodbye. To the old world. To the pretending.” He lowered his hips slightly, the head of his cock pressing against her, a blunt, insistent pressure. “This… I want this to be just us. No weight.No audience. Just this skin. This bed.” He searched her face. “Okay?”
She reached up, tracing the line of his jaw. Her body was still humming, utterly receptive. “Okay.”
He entered her then, not with a thrust, but with a slow, inexorable sinking that stole her breath. She was so open, so wet, he slid in to the hilt without resistance, a perfect, full ache. He held there, buried inside her, his eyes closed, his forehead touching hers. “Dios,” he breathed, a prayer.
Then he began to move. He set a languid, deep pace, withdrawing almost completely before pushing back in, a slow-motion piston. Each stroke was a revelation. The tenderness was devastating. It made her eyes sting. He kissed her, his lips soft, his tongue tangling with hers in a mimicry of the rhythm below. She could feel every inch of him, the hot slide, the friction, the profound connection.
He shifted, hooking her legs over his forearms, bending her almost in half. The angle changed, and he went deeper, hitting a spot that made her cry out. “There?” he whispered, his rhythm faltering.
“Yes. There.”
He focused on that angle, his thrusts gaining a little urgency, a little more force. The bed began to creak in a soft, steady rhythm. Sweat bloomed on his shoulders. The tender ache was sharpening into something brighter, more urgent. She met his thrusts, her hips rolling, taking him deeper.
“You feel… fuck, Cymra… you feel like heaven,” he grunted, his composure fraying. His thrusts became less measured, more desperate. “Tell me you’re mine.”
“I’m yours.”
“Again.”
“I’m yours, Pedro. All yours.”
A ragged groan tore from him. He drove into her, hard and deep, and held there, his body bowstring-tight. She felt the hot, liquid surge of his release inside her, a pulse that seemed to go on and on. The feeling triggered a second, softer climax for her, a series of fluttering contractions that milked him dry.
He collapsed onto her, his full weight a welcome anchor. They lay like that, joined, his face buried in her neck, their breaths slowing. The room was silent except for the distant hum of Los Angeles waking up.
After a long while, he softened and slipped out of her. He rolled onto his side, pulling her with him, tucking her back against his chest. His arm was a heavy, possessive band across her stomach. He nuzzled her hair.
“From now on,” he whispered, his lips against her temple. “Every morning starts like this. No cameras. No plans from Sharyn. No fucking script except the one we’re writing right here. Just us. In this bed.”
She placed her hand over his, lacing their fingers. The simple gold band on her finger felt different.It felt real. “Just us,” she echoed.
They dozed, a tangled knot of limbs, until the shrill ring of Pedro’s phone on the nightstand sliced through the peace. He stiffened behind her. The caller ID would be Sharyn. Or his publicist. Or the studio.
He let it ring until it went to voicemail. Silence returned, heavier now.
“We can’t ignore it forever,” Cymra said quietly.
“I know.” He kissed her shoulder. “But we can ignore it for today.”
He got out of bed, his body a beautiful, weathered landscape in the morning light. He padded naked to the bathroom. She heard the shower start. The domestic normalcy of it was a surreal counterpoint to the raw intimacy of minutes before. She lay there, feeling the sticky evidence of him between her thighs, smelling their sex on the sheets. A private, fragrant victory.
When he emerged, a towel slung low on his hips, his hair damp, he looked at her still curled in their bed. “I’m making coffee. Then we’re doing nothing. We’re reading the scripts for real. We’re talking about the characters. We’re being… artists. And partners.”
She smiled. “No meetings?”
“Fuck meetings.”
The day unfolded in a lazy, sun-drenched bubble. They drank coffee on the patio in robes. They talked about Cylene’s motivation in episode three. They argued about Adrian’s wardrobe. They ordered takeout sushi at noon and ate it with their fingers. They were, for the first time, simply a couple who lived and worked together.
But the world had a texture now. Every touch was loaded. When his hand brushed hers reaching for the script, a spark jumped. When she leaned over his shoulder to point out a line, he turned his head and captured her mouth in a slow, deep kiss that tasted of green tea and possibility.
As the afternoon sun slanted low, they were on the living room floor, script pages spread around them like fallen leaves. Cymra was on her stomach, making notes. Pedro lay on his back, one arm behind his head, reading aloud in his rich, accented voice.
He stopped reading. The silence stretched.She looked up.
He was watching her, his eyes dark. “I can’t concentrate,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because all I can think about is how you looked this morning. How you tasted.” He sat up in one fluid motion. “And I want another taste.”
Her breath caught. He crawled over to her, displacing pages. He didn’t kiss her mouth. He hooked his hands under her arms and flipped her onto her back with a gentle decisiveness. He settled between her legs, pushing her robe aside. He didn’t bother with foreplay this time. He simply lowered his head and put his mouth on her, his tongue spearing deep inside her in one firm, claiming stroke.
She cried out, her hands flying to his hair. This was different from the morning’s tender worship. This was hungry.Possessive. His tongue fucked her with a rough, relentless rhythm. He sucked her clit between his lips, applying a pressure that bordered on painful, then soothing it with the flat of his tongue. He was marking her, reminding her, claiming her all over again.
“Pedro… wait… I can’t… it’s too much…”
He ignored her, his hands sliding under her ass to tilt her pelvis, giving him better access. He was ravenous. She felt another orgasm building, too soon, a shocking tidal wave pulled from the depths by his utter determination. She bucked against his mouth, her heels digging into the rug.
He pulled back abruptly, his chin glistening. He looked feral. “I want you to come again,” he commanded, his voice thick. “And then I want to fuck you until neither of us can remember any other name but the one we’re saying.”
He pushed her robe off her shoulders, yanked his towel loose. His cock sprang free, fully hard, veins standing in relief. He didn’t wait. He pushed her knees up to her chest, positioned himself, and drove into her in one deep, solid thrust.
The force knocked a sob from her throat. He didn’t pause. He set a brutal, pounding pace, each thrust jolting her body up the rug. The pages fluttered around them. He leaned down, bracing his hands on either side of her head, his face inches from hers. “Look at me,” he growled.
She forced her eyes open. His expression was strained, a mask of raw need.
“This is what’s real,” he panted, driving into her. “Not the articles. Not Sharyn. Not the fucking premiere.This.Me. Inside you. Making you mine every single day.” He shifted, hitting a spot so deep she saw stars. “Come for me. Now.”
The command, the sheer physical force of him, the emotional torrent of the day—it all fused into a single point of white-hot release. She screamed, her body seizing around him in a violent, clamping orgasm that ripped through her like a shockwave.
He felt it, and his own control shattered. With a ragged shout that was half-English, half-Spanish, he buried himself to the hilt and came, his hips stuttering, his release hot and endless inside her. He collapsed on top of her, his weight pinning her to the floor, their sweat-slick skin sliding together.
They lay there, wrecked, in the ruins of their work. The script for Seed of Friendship was crumpled beneath them, the words smeared and irrelevant.
Later, as dusk painted the sky purple, they showered together. He washed her hair with a tenderness that felt like an apology for the roughness. She soaped his back, her fingers tracing the muscles that had powered into her.
Wrapped in fresh towels, they stood at the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out at the city that demanded so much of them. Pedro’s phone buzzed again on the coffee table. They ignored it.
He pulled her close, his chin resting on her head. “Tomorrow,” he said, “we’ll deal with Sharyn. We’ll make a plan. A real one. On our terms.”
She nodded against his chest. “And tonight?”
“Tonight,” he said, his hand slipping inside her towel, his palm warm on her belly, “we practice.” His fingers slid lower. “We need to be very convincing.”
His fingers were still tracing possessive circles low on her belly when the phone rang again. This time, it was Cymra’s, a sharp, digital chirp from the bedroom that severed the quiet. The sound was an ice pick. She felt Pedro’s hand go still, his whole body tensing against her back.
“Let it ring,” he murmured into her hair, but the spell was broken.
She slipped from his grasp, the cool air hitting her damp skin as she walked away from the window and his warmth.The phone screen glowed on the nightstand: SHARYN. A rectangle of cold light in the dim room.She watched it until it went dark.
“She’s not going to stop,” Cymra said, not turning around.
“I know.”
She heard him move, the soft shuffle of his bare feet on the hardwood. He came up behind her, but didn’t touch her.His reflection in the dark window was a ghost over the city lights. “We can’t hide in this bedroom forever. No matter how good the practice is.”
“Is that what we’re doing?” She finally looked at him over her shoulder. “Hiding?”
He met her gaze, his face unreadable in the shadows. “I’m rearming.” He reached past her, picking up her phone. He held it for a moment, his thumb hovering over the screen. “Every time it rings, it’s a piece of the old world trying to claw its way back in.Telling me who to be. Who we should be.” He tossed the phone onto the bed, where it landed softly on the rumpled linen. “I’m sick of other people’s scripts, Cymra. Even yours.”
The words, calmly delivered, landed like a physical blow.She flinched. “What does that mean?”
He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated.“It means I recognized myself in Adrian because you wrote him that way. You see me.You always have. But what if…” He trailed off, staring at his own reflection.“What if the person you see is just another role?The oblivious friend? The safe gay husband?” He turned to face her fully now, his eyes searching hers. “What if you don’t know what happens when I stop following any script at all?”
The air between them crackled, charged with a new and dangerous tension.This wasn’t about Sharyn or the premiere. This was the fault line beneath their eleven-year foundation, finally trembling.
“Then show me,” she heard herself say, her voice quieter than she intended. “Show me what’s off-script.”
Something shifted in his expression.The frustration melted, replaced by a dark, focused heat. He closed the distance between them in two slow strides.He didn’t kiss her. He grabbed the towel still wrapped around her and pulled it open, letting it fall to the floor. His eyes scanned her naked body, not with lust, but with a stark, unnerving assessment.
“Okay,” he said, the word a low vibration. “No script.”
His hands came up to cup her face, his thumbs pressing into her jawline. He kissed her then, but it wasn’t the tender kiss from the shower.It was hard, almost punitive, a claiming devoid of pretty sentiment.It stole her breath. When he pulled back, his breathing was already ragged. “Turn around.”
She turned, facing the darkened window, her own ghostly reflection wide-eyed. He pressed against her from behind, his own towel dropping.His hard cock nestled against the cleft of her ass. He wrapped one arm across her collarbone, pulling her back flush against him. His other hand slid down her stomach, through the coarse curls, and found her center.
She was still slick from earlier, from the shower, from the constant hum of this day.He pushed two fingers inside without ceremony, a deep, filling invasion. “You’re still so fucking wet,” he growled in her ear, his accent thickening. “Even when we’re fighting.”
“We’re not fighting,” she gasped as his fingers curled.
“Aren’t we?” He pumped his fingers slowly, relentlessly. “You’re trying to understand me.I’m trying to be something you can’t write. That’s a war, corazón.” He removed his fingers, glistening in the ambient light.He brought them to her mouth. “Taste.”
She opened her lips, and he pushed his fingers inside, the taste of herself and him and their confusion salty and metallic on her tongue. She sucked them clean, her eyes locked on his in the glass.A rough sound escaped him. He used his grip on her collarbone to bend her forward slightly, bracing her hands against the cool windowpane.The city shimmered, indifferent, below. He guided his cock to her entrance, the blunt head nudging, spreading her open.
He pushed in with a single, devastating thrust that filled her to the point of sharp, exquisite fullness. She cried out, the sound smothered against the glass.He didn’t wait for her to adjust. He set a punishing rhythm, each deep drive forcing a gasp from her lungs.This wasn’t making love. This was a confrontation.A statement.
His arm across her chest held her in place, a bind of muscle and bone. His other hand slid from her hip down to her clit, his fingers rough and demanding as they circled the sensitive nub in time with his thrusts. The dual sensation was overwhelming, a brutal manipulation of her body’s responses.
“This is off-script,” he snarled, his hips slamming into her. “This is me, so deep inside you it fucking hurts.Not Adrian.Not your best friend.Me. You feel it?”
“Yes!” The word was a sob.
“What am I?” he demanded, his rhythm faltering for a second, the question hanging in the air between the sound of skin on skin.She couldn’t answer. The pleasure was a twisted vine, tightening around her spine, pulling her toward a precipice. His fingers worked her clit harder, a relentless, clinical pressure. His thrusts lost all rhythm, becoming a ragged, frantic pounding.The windowpane rattled softly with each impact.
“What am I, Cymra?” he asked again, his voice breaking, and in the crack she heard the real question, the vulnerability beneath the performative roughness.
The combination—the raw physicality, the emotional fracture, the filthy, perfect rhythm of his hand and his cock—detonated her. An orgasm tore through her, violent and silent, clamping down on him with a force that ripped a guttural shout from his throat. He drove into her one final, searing time and held there, pulsing, as his own release flooded her, hot and endless.
They stayed like that, folded over against the window, his weight sagging onto her, both of them shuddering with aftershocks.Their breath fogged the glass.Slowly, he softened and slipped out. He turned her around, his hands gentle now on her arms where he’d held her too tightly. In the faint light, she could see the sheen of sweat on his chest, the stark uncertainty in his eyes.He looked wrecked.
Before he could speak, before she could find words for the tempest in her chest, the phone rang again.Not hers.His.
It buzzed aggressively on the nightstand, spinning slightly with each vibration.SHARYN. The name glowed, persistent and accusatory.Pedro looked at it, then back at Cymra. The moment of vulnerability snapped shut behind his eyes. He wiped a hand over his mouth, smearing the remnants of their encounter.He walked to the nightstand, picked up the phone, and stared at the screen. His thumb hovered over the decline button.Then he swiped to answer.
He brought the phone to his ear, his voice dropping into the smooth, professional baritone he used for press. “Sharyn. I was just about to call you.” He listened, his eyes fixed on Cymra, naked before him.“Yes. I understand the timeline… No, that won’t be necessary. We’ll be there.”
He ended the call and let the phone drop from his hand.It thudded on the carpet.“The premiere,” he said, his voice flat. “The car picks us up at five.We’re walking the red carpet together. We’re giving them the performance of our lives.” He took a step toward her. “And after, when the last camera light dies, you and I are going to finish this conversation.”
He walked past her, into the bathroom, and closed the door.The shower started again.
Cymra stood alone in the middle of the room, the taste of him still in her mouth, the ache of him deep inside her, and the chilling understanding that the most convincing performance was still ahead of them. The phone on the floor began to ring again.