Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Lina

I didn't know how I ended up in my own bed.

One moment I was in the bar, the world spinning softly at the edges, and the next I was here, in my room, in the quiet, with the familiar weight of my own mattress beneath me. My eyes were too heavy to open properly. Everything felt warm and slow, like being wrapped in something thick and comfortable that I didn't want to leave.

But then I smelled it.

His cologne.

That was what pulled me back.

Warm and clean and distinctly him, the kind of scent that didn't just sit in the air but settled into it, like it belonged there. My nose found it before my eyes did. And something in my chest, something that had been tightly wound all evening, loosened just slightly.

I opened my eyes.

Just barely. Just enough.

And there he was.

Mick was sitting at the edge of my bed, close enough that I could see every detail of his face in the soft low light of my room. He was holding my hand. Both of his hands wrapped around mine, gentle and warm, and his lips were pressed softly against my knuckles.

He didn't know I was watching.

For a moment I just let myself look at him.

The sharp line of his jaw. The quiet concentration on his face, like holding my hand while I slept was something that deserved his full attention. His lips, soft and pink and so unbearably close, that I had spent years pretending I wasn't thinking about.

Years.

I had spent years talking myself out of this feeling, pushing it back down every time it surfaced, reminding myself of all the reasons it was a bad idea. He was Millicent's cousin. He had always looked at me like a little sister. He was the kind of person you loved quietly and from a safe distance, because hoping for more only led to one place.

But he was right here.

Real and warm and holding my hand like it meant something.

I pushed myself up slowly.

He noticed immediately. His eyes lifted and found mine, and for a second neither of us said anything. We just looked at each other in the half-dark of my bedroom, our faces closer than they had any right to be, the space between us suddenly feeling like something that required a decision.

I made it without thinking.

I leaned forward and kissed him.

It was soft at first. Barely anything. Just the lightest press of my lips against his, uncertain and questioning, like a sentence that doesn't know yet how it ends.

Then he kissed me back.

And every careful, sensible thought I had ever talked myself into dissolved completely.

He kissed me slowly. Deeply. Like he had been holding this back for longer than tonight. His hands came up to my face, warm and steady, tilting me toward him, and I felt the last of my hesitation leave my body entirely. His tongue parted my lips gently and I made a sound against his mouth that I didn't plan, something soft and desperate that gave away everything I had been trying to hide.

My arms found their way around his neck.

He shifted, guiding me back against the bed, and hovered over me without breaking the kiss. His lips moved slowly against mine, unhurried and deliberate, like he wanted to memorize this. I could already feel warmth pooling low in my stomach, my body responding to him before my mind had fully caught up.

When our lips finally parted I was breathing too fast and thinking too slowly. I looked up at him through heavy eyes, his face above mine, his own breathing unsteady, his eyes darker than I had ever seen them.

He bent down and pressed his lips to my neck.

A soft, careful kiss.

I bit down on my lip hard to keep the sound in but it came out anyway, a small, stifled moan that escaped before I could stop it. A tingling sensation ran all the way down my spine, settling somewhere low and insistent.

His hands began to move.

Slowly. Exploring. Like he was in no hurry and wanted me to feel every second of it. His left hand cupped my chest through the fabric of my dress and my breath caught sharply in my throat. Then his other hand found the hem of my dress, lifting it slowly, sliding it over my head and setting it aside.

The cool air touched my skin.

His eyes moved over me.

All of me.

I was left in nothing but my underwear, completely exposed under his gaze, and he just looked. His eyes moved slowly, taking his time, dark and hungry and completely unashamed. He didn't reach for me. He didn't rush. He just looked at me like I was something worth looking at, something worth slowing down for.

Why aren't you touching me?

The thought was loud and impatient. My skin felt like it was waiting. Every nerve ending tuned to him, aware of how close his hands were and how still they had gone.

I sat up and pushed my hands under his shirt.

He let me pull it over his head without resistance. His chest was warm under my palms,firm and real in a way that made my heart knock hard against my ribs.

He lowered his lips to my ear.

"You're so sexy," he whispered.

The words moved through me like a current. My whole body shivered. A deep, insistent throb settled between my legs.

Then his fingers traced the waistband of my underwear,slowly, back and forth, not going further, just tracing, and I nearly lost my mind.

“Tell me you want me," he murmured against my ear.

"I want you," I said. My voice came out faster than I intended, embarrassingly eager.

"What do you want me to do?" His lips moved down my neck as he asked, placing slow, deliberate kisses along my collarbone. Each one landed like a small fire.

I stared at him, dizzy and impatient, fighting the soft fog that kept trying to pull me under.

"I want you in me," I said quietly. Then when he still didn't move, when he just kept looking at me with those unbearably patient eyes: "I want you to touch me, I want you to fuck me. Please, Mick." I pleaded. Didn’t know what I was pleading for but I did.

Something shifted in his expression.

"Good girl," he said softly, and the smirk that followed was slow and devastating.

His eyes had gone dark.

He kissed down my neck, then my collarbone, then lower, his mouth finding my nipple and pulling it between his lips, sucking hard and slow. My back arched off the bed. I pressed my lips together trying to hold the moan in but it came out muffled and broken, my fingers twisting in the sheets beneath me.

His mouth moved downward.

Kissing across my stomach. Slow and careful, making sure I felt every single one. My stomach trembled under his lips. When he reached the waistband of my underwear he paused, looking up at me once before spreading my legs gently wider.

Then I felt his tongue, warm and deliberate, sliding against me through the fabric.

My spine went rigid.

"Mick—" His name came out broken and sharp as my fingers found his hair, pulling him closer without meaning to. My toes curled hard against the sheets. A sound tore out of my throat that I didn't recognize as mine.

He slid the fabric to the side and his tongue found me properly, slow, unhurried strokes that made my vision blur at the edges. He knew exactly what he was doing. Every movement was controlled and deliberate, like he was listening to my body and adjusting without being asked. My hips moved on their own, chasing the feeling.

The sounds filling the room didn't embarrass me the way I thought they might.

I was too far gone to care.

"Mick — I'm close—" My voice broke on the last word, my words coming out in stuttered pieces as I pressed my face into the pillow. My whole body was pulled tight like something about to snap, pleasure building in deep rolling waves that I had no control over.

Then I came apart completely.

A loud moan tore through me as the wave broke, my whole body shaking, my mind going soft and blank and white. For a few seconds I couldn't think. I couldn't do anything except breathe.

"You're so sweet, baby girl," he murmured, and I heard the quiet satisfaction in his voice as he moved back up.

He took his time removing the rest of his clothes. I watched him through half-lidded eyes, still catching my breath, still floating somewhere warm and distant. When his boxer shorts came off I stared, and whatever was left of my composure quietly packed up and left.

He noticed.

"Don't worry," he said, a small smile at the corner of his lips. "It'll fit."

He slid one finger into me slowly. Then two. My back arched immediately, a sharp sound escaping my lips as he moved them in a steady, unhurried rhythm, his thumb working in slow circles that made my legs shake. Just when the pleasure was building again into something unbearable he stopped, and I frowned at the sudden absence, opening my eyes to find him positioning himself over me.

He pushed into me slowly.

I felt every inch of it, the stretch, the fullness, the overwhelming reality of him finally being this close. My fingers grabbed his shoulders hard.

"Mick—" His name came out in a shaky exhale.

"I'm here," he answered quietly, his voice low and strained with the effort of going slowly. He pressed a kiss to my lips. "Bite me if it hurts."

I did.

When he thrust fully into me my teeth found his shoulder and I bit down without thinking, hard enough that he would feel it tomorrow. The sharp edge of pain dissolved immediately into pleasure so deep it made my knees buckle, my legs wrapping around his waist to pull him closer.

He started to move.

Faster. Harder. His hand wrapped loosely around my throat,not tight, just present, warm and grounding, as he drove into me with a focus that made thinking impossible. My nails found his back. My voice was barely mine anymore, hoarse and loud and completely unguarded, filling the room along with his low groans and the rhythm of our bodies finding each other.

I had imagined this.

Not like this. Nothing I had imagined had felt like this.

"I'm close—" I managed.

"Together," he said, his voice rough and strained. "Cum with me."

One final deep thrust and everything broke at once,my whole body locking up and then releasing, a long helpless moan tearing through me as I came. I felt him follow, a low groan pressed against my neck, his body shuddering against mine.

Silence settled over the room.

Just breathing. Just the two of us, tangled and warm and still.

My eyes were already growing heavy. The pleasant exhaustion of everything, the bar, the night, him — pulling me gently under.

And then, just before the darkness took me completely, I heard it.

Three quiet words, spoken softly into the space above my head.

"I love you."

I didn't know if I imagined them.

I didn't know if it was the alcohol or the dark or just something my heart had invented because it wanted to hear it so badly.

But I heard them.

And I let them be the last thing I felt before I slept.