Chapter 119: Don’t Leave
- RAYA -
Dex is quiet the whole way home. He doesn’t ask what I want for dinner, which is fine because my stomach is full of restless nerves. He doesn’t ask how the day went. And I see him curling his hands on the steering wheel, his knuckles white. Those unspent powerful emotions are still there—just under the surface, waiting for an outlet.
When we walk into the house, he turns the lights on and then holds his hand out—waiting. My stomach drops even further than it was, but when I reach into my bag to retrieve the journals, there is also a deliciously powerful emotion that starts uncoiling within me, too. I’m terrified for him to read what’s in these, but I’m also... crazily thrilled at the idea.
He looks at the journals in his hands, staring at them for several moments. And then his eyes lift to mine. There is still that wild within them, but they have softened a little bit.
My hands start shaking when he turns and makes his way to the couch, and I have to clasp them together to control it. I’m not sure what else to do, so I just stand there watching him until he sits down and pats the cushion at his side.
How am I going to sit next to him while he’s reading them? But I come to his side anyway, dropping my bag next to the couch and stepping out of my shoes before folding my legs up underneath myself.
Dex doesn’t look at me again. He sighs and opens the cover of the first journal and starts reading. My whole body immediately flushes with the familiar warmth of embarrassment—of humiliation.
When I finally risk a glance at him after hearing many pages turn, his eyes are flowing back and forth across a page before he slowly turns again to the next. His expression gives nothing away. He could be reading about the history of colonialism. He could be reading about the weather.
I shift uncomfortably and start to get up, deciding that I can’t sit with this awkward feeling anymore. I’ll go shut myself in the bathroom until he’s done. But Dex grabs my hand, gently pulling me back down to where I was. He holds my hand there, only letting go of it to turn the page when he’s certain I’m not going to leave.
I wiggle on the cushion, and he finally glances at me—the feral look in his eyes more present than before, and it makes my belly flutter. I want him to be finished already. How long is this going to take before he devours all of the dreams and is satisfied that he knows everything his brother knows?
When he returns to reading, I bite my lip self-consciously and feel very aware of my breathing. Every breath feels heavy—like the air is thicker. It’s like I can taste the emotions that he isn’t allowing to be released. But the air between us is saturated with them.
Finally, he closes the journal and sets it between us. Instead of opening the next one, he sets it on top of the first.
"You aren’t going to read the rest?"
"I know the rest. I shared the rest with you," he says. His voice is thick just like the air, and we sit together for a small eternity like that—with the journals between us, not saying a word.
"What are you thinking?" I finally whisper, exhaling heavily afterward—aware of every single movement and frozen position of my body. My chest is the only thing moving—my chest and my heart.
Dex wets his lips and rubs a hand over his beard, and I feel both of those things as if he has wet my lips, as if he is caressing my face. It’s like every fiber of my being is entangled with his.
Instead of waiting any longer for an answer, I lean over and kiss him. I would crawl into his lap, but this dress doesn’t offer much freedom of motion.
It’s like Dex can read my thoughts though, because he reaches down and hitches the hem of my skirt up before lifting me onto his lap—making me gasp into his mouth with how effortless and fluid the motion is and how quickly I find myself straddling him. And then when I pivot my hips against him and the very prominent bulge under the soft material of his suit pants, that’s when the powerful storm of emotions is finally unleashed.
Dex’s hands thread desperately into my hair as he growls into my mouth, and then he’s unzipping the dress, sliding it off my shoulders, unbuckling his pants. And he can’t be inside of me soon enough—our clothes don’t even get a chance to come all the way off.
My dress is crinkled around my midsection—raised from the bottom and lowered from the top so my breasts are exposed. No bra was needed for this dress, and Dex immediately takes advantage—his mouth devouring each breast in turn and leaving the nipples erect against the cold when he lets go.
He brings my mouth back down so that he can devour that next, and then with one hand on my ass, he slides into me—filling me all the way, as far as he can go. We’ve never been in this position before—not in reality—and he’s so deep, my eyes immediately roll back like there’s a button he’s pushed that sends me flying into the depths or the heavens or wherever it is that we go together—into ecstasy.
"Oh my god," I whimper, and he growls again, taking my mouth into a fiercely punishing kiss that is meant to possess—that is meant to consume.
"Not god, Raya, me," he says in a tone so deep and so feral, I feel it in my bones. I feel it in my most essential, deepest, darkest, most sacred parts. He thrusts hard, and the breath rushes out of me.
"Say my name," he rumbles from the depths of that wild within him, and then he takes the skin of my neck into his mouth, rolling his tongue against it, and I feel it everywhere—somehow I feel it everywhere.
"Dex," I whimper, gripping his hair and pressing myself harder against his mouth and his teeth and his heat. I wish he could bite me. I wish he could draw blood.
And then I start riding him—riding this hard, perfect, erect part of him that fits entirely, that’s buried to the hilt and is grinding against the most thrilling sensation I’ve ever felt in my life. "Oh my god, Dex," I whimper again, and he’s pulling my skin so desperately into his mouth, that it hurts. It’s pain and it’s pleasure at the same time, and my hips ride back and forth, chasing this thrilling sensation before it can try to escape until he has to let go of my neck, because my back is arching as our bodies become one fluid, beautiful, divine wave of motion.
When I reach the peak and cry out—beginning then to slow my movements, beginning to go limp against him—he takes over. With our foreheads pressed together, he grunts into his release, trembles raking him while my body is draped over his—exhausted and satiated and completely dazed with the heaven that has claimed both of us entirely.
"Do you think less of me?" I whisper, breathless while his head is buried against my chest.
His honey brown eyes lift to find mine, eyebrows tented in that look of adorably pained concern.
"No. Why would I think less of you?"
Tears well in my eyes, and I cover them with my hand so they won’t be seen.
"Raya," he says, pulling at my hand and kissing it before wiping the tears that have started falling. "Why would I think less of you, love?"
I shrug, avoiding his eyes, and then he starts kissing me everywhere—little kisses on every inch of my face until I finally have to let go of the pinched sadness and start giggling instead.
"I can feel it when you laugh," he smiles against my face. "Do it again." And then he continues peppering me with kisses to make it happen.
When I giggle again, I feel what he means. It makes me clench around him where we are still joined.
"No, I could never think less of you," he whispers, turning serious now. "Please don’t think that. Please don’t ever think that."
His hands reach up, caressing my hair, smoothing it around my face. Then he gives me one reassuring kiss on the forehead, one kiss on the nose, and one sweet, lingering kiss where our mouths entangle together.
"Fuck, I love you," he whispers. "I love you. I love you. I love you. Please don’t leave me. Please don’t ever leave me."
