Page 182 of These Secret Years

“Whose whore, baby?” The line of concern is back. Well earned, I think.

“Your whore. My body is⁠—”

I gasp as we hit a particularly illicit spot, and I’m forced by my own needs to shut the fuck up and take what pleasure I can from it, which is a lot. So much, my dick thrums, and precum pours onto Knight’s shirt, which I never even bothered to push up. I should fix that, I think distantly.

He does it himself, pulling his shirt up to reveal those abs. The abs of an elite and coveted athlete. Those abs that belong to me as much as they’re his.

“Your body is what?” he rasps through his constricted airway.

“It’s just for us. You and me. No one ever has to know.”

“Because you know. Don’t you? Oh fuck—baby…”

Whore? Baby?

What does it matter when he’s so close. To me, to coming. “I wasn’t okay⁠—”

“I know⁠—”

“I mean without you. I’ll never be okay without you.”

He gasps roughly, his hands bruising my hips as his back arches from the mattress, and he spills inside me. I cry out at the knowledge of it. At the gushes of cum he sputters and moans through with my hand still wrapped around his neck with so much love and also something that isn’t love—which I guess I can work on in fucking therapy.

“Jesus,” he groans as his orgasm goes on and on. “Holy fucking shit.”

With one rub of my dick across his abs and his wicked tongue plundering my mouth, I lose it. Every shred of what went wrong for us vanishes for a crystalline, perfect moment. Rushing back in are all the things about us that are so right it makes me want to sob. I love this man, and I’ve claimed him now, too, haven’t I? My orgasm is long, and hard-fought. It leaves me wrung out and vibrating.

It’s late when we’re lying next to each other, kissing and feeling and forgiving.

“I’ll do anything to keep you forever,” I tell him.

“Is that the orgasm talking?” he asks. “Because mine has a lot of shit to say, too.”

“Just say okay and you love me.”

“Tip of the iceberg,” he murmurs before pressing a soft kiss to my nose.

“Fuck you for making me want to know more about icebergs right now.”

I feel his smile when he presses his mouth to mine again. “Here’s what you need to know. They are vast, and most of the important things about them all lie beneath the surface.”

“Is loving you enough?” I ask.

“Loving each other is a start.”

“Just the tip?”

“There’s the prodigy. Yeah. It’s just the tip.”

“In terms of the rest, I’m yours,” I promise him. “Whatever that means, and whatever it takes.”

His kiss is deep and long, and I’m so happy that it happened here. In a ruin that only love and time can heal.

The shape of our love is infinity.

EPILOGUE

Sullivan