Chapter 121: My Sweet Half
- RAYA -
"Fuck, Raya," Dex groans above me, leaning on the tiled shower wall with big drops of water splashing all around like rain, pebbling my skin with its translucent beads and clinging to my eyelashes.
I release him from my mouth and look up to see his corded neck and forearms bracing against the sensation I’ve been building in his body. My own flame of desire has never stirred like this before, burning my body deliciously from the inside out just by giving someone else pleasure. But it is so incredibly sexy seeing Dex on the edge of losing control. He’s so careful to keep it. He’s so afraid of losing it and hurting me.
I can hear it in his growls and snarls, and now I can see it in the bulging veins that crawl across his powerful body. It’s taking everything he has not to take over, not to thrust, not to grab my hair, not to pull me closer and choke me with how engorged he is. He is being eaten alive by the sheer willpower it takes to let me be in control and gradually work him closer to that peak that promises to give him release.
And then when my tongue swirls around the head of steel straining against his skin, another feral growl releases, and he grabs my arm, guiding me up onto my feet and devouring my mouth with all of the urgency and desire that has been coursing under his flesh this whole time. I whimper into him, and it only makes him growl again, eating my sounds, taking them into himself, possessing them and keeping them as his own.
I’m backed against the cold tile, flinching from the temperature change and arching further into Dex and his blistering heat as a result. The contrast of flames and icy cold is thrilling, and before I know it he’s lifting me from the ground and sliding me up the slippery wall until my legs wrap around his waist and he thrusts into me without pretense or hesitation.
All the patience has bled out of him—all the caution gone as he buries himself inside of me as far as he will go and I gasp, head dropping back. I’m spread so far and so quickly without any chance to adjust that I’m left reeling in the depth of this sensation. But that one gasp is all I’m allowed until Dex has claimed my mouth again, feasting on our shared air—our shared fire—while water falls around us like stars bleeding from the sky.
Both hands support me, fingers curled under my thighs and teasing the entrance where we’re joined and where his hips roll, spreading me further. He’s claimed me in my dreams over and over again—knowing exactly how to touch, how to tease, how to make me see stars—but this is different. Those dreams I tried to forget ghost my thoughts, returning to my memories as mere shadows that can’t compare to the brightness of this reality.
"Dex," I whimper, fingers digging into his shoulders and then reaching to thread through his wild wet hair that has come undone until I’m cradling his head in my arms.
"Raya," he moans so deliciously near my ear before taking it in his mouth and pulling it between his teeth.
My hips arch into him, reaching for him every time he pulls away and offering their resistance when he returns.
"You feel so good," he groans. "So fucking good."
Agreement hums in my throat and then tears in cries from my lips when he sends me toppling over another edge and then he chases me over it. When his movements slow and he’s panting against me with the gentle sound of water falling around us, an entirely unexpected emotions swells.
Dex feels it immediately or maybe it’s the staccato of breaths that make my chest convulse, because his head lifts and eyes zero in on the tears. I try to stop them, sniffling to make them cease, but more flow and before I know it, I’m weeping in his arms.
These aren’t tears like before when I feared he would think differently of me because of the written contents of those journals. These are tears in the aftermath of something so beautiful, there is no other possible response. It just flows forth like a wellspring has been tapped between us.
Dex kisses me gently, releasing me from the wall I’m pressed against and turning for a towel while my legs are still wrapped around him, holding him firmly inside. I’m afraid to let go. He belongs here—he belongs inside of me, and to lose him doesn’t feel right yet. I want to keep him as long as I’m able until he becomes as soft as me.
While I cling to him with arms curled around his neck, he wraps the blanket around me and carries me to the bed. He stops next to it with every intention of letting me go, but I continue to cling to him and he smiles, dropping his forehead against mine. Our breaths mingle as he silently rubs the towel over my back.
"I love you," I whisper.
It sounds so mundane—so ordinary. How many times have those three words been strung together and uttered by people throughout time? There isn’t a number for it. But I feel the difference now. There is magic laden in every syllable—in the sacred shape of their meaning and the power we have both given to it. It’s not the words. The words are a vehicle for something that spills out and can’t be contained.
Instead of answering, Dex kisses me again—slowly, like he’s worshiping my lips, cherishing them, making them feel loved and adored and in return that adoration shoots straight into my center, resonating on an unseen cord that connects us all the way down to where we are literally connected.
He breaks from my lips and kisses across the curves of my face before leaning over the bed, dropping me to my back and following after me, rolling onto his side and pulling me into his arms.
"It doesn’t seem quite right," he muses while my head is tucked under his chin and my fingers play against his chest.
"What?" I frown, pulling back so I can see his eyes.
If I don’t understand what Dex is saying, I’ll understand it by his eyes. They bare everything to me—I’ve never seen him look at anyone else the way he looks at me. Granted, I haven’t seen him with that many other people, but it’s like doors open wide, granting me access to his soul and the deep truths it contains.
"Just saying ’I love you, too.’ I do by the way," he smiles, gaze caressing my face like a feathery touch. But his actual touch is trailing down my arm, sending sparks under my skin. "I remember thinking when I was young how it was strange how my mother always called my father different things other than his name. In Italian she would call him ’my heart,’ ’my life,’ ’my sweet half.’" He chuckles, and my smile mimics his.
"That’s cute."
He nods once. "I get it now, though," he says quietly, fingers trailing back up my arm and then down my back. "Because it’s what I feel. You are my heart," he says meaningfully, eyes dropping to my lips before he kisses them gently. "My life," he says next before kissing me again. "And my sweet half." This time he kisses me with a smile he can’t contain.
God, this man. He is the sweet half. And I don’t know what I’m going to do if he gets any sweeter. I don’t think I can take it. Maybe I’ll have to go back to believing this is all a series of heavenly dreams.
My stomach chooses now to growl so loudly that it rivals the feral sounds that usually come out of Dex. My hands fly up to my face in embarrassment when I see surprise widen his eyes.
"Fuck, I haven’t fed you. What the hell is wrong me?" He says, rolling out of bed and giving me a beautiful view of his muscular ass as he goes to retrieve clothes.
"Oh no, I distinctly remember being fed," I counter, cheeks warm as I sit up and watch him, covering myself with the towel that was wrapped around my back.
He shoots me a sexy smirk before it disappears behind the shirt he’s pulling on. I stare without an ounce of shame as the shirt slides over the beautifully ribbed muscles of his abdomen and he grabs a pair of loose shorts.
"Come down when you’re ready," he says, returning to the bed to kiss me again. "I’ll have something delicious waiting for you." And then he’s out the door before I can try to protest his departure.
I’m torn between jumping out of bed to follow him and reveling in the pleasure still humming through every inch of my body. A satisfied sigh rushes out of me as I drop back against the pillow, towel held against my chest. Poor Moira jumps on the bed and gives the sheets a few tentative sniffs.
"The sexiest man alive just called me his sweet half and is now making me dinner, Moira," I tell her. "I really don’t know how life could get any better than this."
