Page 72 of Free Fall

I repeated my declarations over and over as she sighed and took them all, took my words and my cock stretching her out. Slack and wanting. It didn’t take long for me to pour myself into her, promises of filling her up, of breeding her, on my tongue. She cried and whimpered, her loose arms coming up around my neck to turn me to face her. Our mouths met in a sloppy kiss, one where we just needed to be touching. There was no finesse or grace to it, no urgency. We stayed there, connected, kissing and muttering to each other, until she complained her legs were going to lock up, and I needed a piss.

“You have more energy now?” I asked Zelda as she strode from the staff room at the rear of the club. I’d given her some peace, let her wander through the back by herself, taking it all in. It was all for her, after all. I had made everything in this place with her in mind. It was a one stop shop for Zelda’s talents. She could choose what to do with it. Run it, work in it, perform or just teach. I didn’t mind, as long as she was happy. The place was supposed to be at this point before I showed it to her, but I think it worked out better to let her see it unfinished, see me working my ass off to get it ready. It was proof.

My investors had goals of opening in the new year, of expanding if it was a success, but I didn’t give a shit about a bunch of stuffy old money brains. This was Zelda’s. I was Zelda’s. She was mine. Together, we were forging the fuck ahead.

She grinned, her eyes still darting around like she was learning every corner, every nook. “This place is so cool,” she said, stepping behind the bar, running her fingers along the top and eyeing up the space for the bottles I hadn’t put in yet. “You did it for me?”

I nodded, and she flushed. Fuck that. She had to know how much she meant to me. What lengths I would go to for her. We may have started in the wrong way, with shame and pain playing a large role, but there was no need to do that now.

“This is all for you,” I told her. “My last three years have been for you. Waiting for you to be ready.”

“You didn’t wait,” she snorted. “You busted in on me about to rail some other poor soul.”

I shrugged, hiding the rage that threatened to burst out of me at the thought of that man. Seren had told us one evening that Brendan had moved on, was going to drop it. As long as Seren promised never to set him up with anyone else, and bought him a new suit because the one he’d been wearing had blood stains and a rip, he would let it go. “You just pushed up my timeline. Fuck him.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was trying to do.” She shrieked and giggled when I dove over the bar top to reach her, missing by a mile. Her gaze shifted to a familiar expression, some heat bubbling behind the surface of her eyes. I matched her, stalking closer while she squirmed. Ah, my little puppet with the fear kink. We definitely hadn’t explored that in enough detail. “Oh no, mister,” she said, stepping back and waggling her finger at me. “I don’t have anything more in me! I need a break!”

She screamed when I lunged, her laugh echoing as I wrapped my arms around her and pushed her into the wall.

“Let me hear you say it and I’ll give you your freedom,” I spoke against her lips, just hovering there.

“What? Cherries?”

I shook my head a fraction, my nose bumping into hers, brushing her nostril piercing. “Something else.”

She smiled against me, letting our teeth clack together. “I love you, Luca. I’m all yours.”

Fucking yes.

Forty

Zelda

Inthetwomonthssince I’d stood on that stage and stripped myself bare of Luca, things had been busy. Christmas was on the horizon, just a week away, and the club was opening for New Year’s Eve. He’d always planned it that way, put all his eggs in the hope that I would forgive him.

I still found it ridiculous, but it was beginning to feel real with each passing day. This life with Luca. The plans he made. Seren had brought up more valid points about power disparities and moving too fast, but I knew it in my gut that there would never be too fast with Luca. Not now. Not after everything.

We’d been working our asses off to get everything ready for the big opening, but Luca had hired enough staff to do the grunt work that it wasn’t too stressful. Just a lot. It meant we could take a few days off over the holidays, enjoy some time existing in a comfy bubble. It wasn’t something we’d been able to do before, and I couldn’t wait.

But there was something I had to do before I could relax. I had to tell my parents.

Seren and Avery were a long game of penance. They refused to let me apologize or seek any kind of forgiveness, so I had to be sneaky about it. I’d resolved to be there for them in any way possible, without missing a beat, whenever they needed me. Now, a year from now, ten years, I’d be there for them like they’d been there for me.

I’d planned to tell my parents without Leo around, before we visited them for Christmas and he chattered away about his dad in great detail like he’d come to do. At first, I thought a phone call would cut it, but sitting on my bed this morning, Dad’s contact on the screen, I couldn’t do it. They had to see my face when I explained myself.

Leo had taken the news of Luca being his dad remarkably well. Acted like it was no big deal. I’d sat the little guy down in front of his favorite TV show, with some bowls of snacks he loved between us. I read on the internet that it was best to do it low key, as if it were nothing to worry about, to let him be able to switch off and sink into the comfort of distractions if he needed. At three, he had masses of resilience.

I told him that Luca, the man he’d known all his life without my consent — and I was coming round to anger about that toward Luca, but it was for a different day — was actually his daddy. That he could choose what to call him, but he would be around even more now, that we were going to have some big changes soon.

We wanted to live together, to exist as a family unit.

When I informed Avery and Seren about my plan, they hadn’t seemed upset or surprised, but resigned. They knew it was coming. I’d blathered on to them about my deep gratitude, my unwavering affection and love for them and how they’d raised Leo, but they told me it was a little bit of a relief. They’d loved every second, but both wanted to go about finding their own place in the world. And as I reminded myself, as they shoved me away, I was going to be waiting in the wings of their life to swoop in.

Auntie Seren and Uncle Avery would always be around. They were relocating just down the street, in fact. Luca was moving in here. He’d bought an apartment near the studio, but had no intention of living in it now. Cole could have it, he’d said with a shrug when I’d asked.

Everything was settling, coming together, life was feeling steady again, feeling right. But I hadn’t told my family any of this. Mom still thought I was a lonely single mother not looking to date, working dead-end jobs to make ends meet while my friends propped me up. Dad assumed I wasn’t seeing anything of his ex-bestie who’d betrayed him in such a deep and thorough way.

It hurt. The secrets we were keeping. Just like before. I was done being a secret, done hiding this. The cards needed to fall wherever the hell they had to.

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