Page 55 of Love's Ace

When his dark lashes fluttered and he glanced up, I could almost feel the walls and barriers I’d so carefully constructed, guarded so viciously, crumbling and cracking under the weight of him—the weight of what he was offering, of what he wanted togiveme.

No one gets to hurt you, because you’re mine.

Mine.

I’d neverwantedto belong to someone before.

The wordminealways came with strings wrapped in shards of glass, meant to strangle me.

But with Wren…

Fuck, with Wren it was shackles I wanted to wear. It was gossamer strands tying me to him at every point our bodies touched.

It was a red thread, trailing between his chest and mine, making my heart beat for the first time.

And for the first time, I couldn’t stop myself. I was clear, coherent. I wasn’t under the influence of the heat surging through my body and driving me to the point of breaking.

I was just drunk on Wren.

“Please.” I whispered it again, like the rain pouring down around us could somehow veil the word, make it safer. But Wren heard me, because his fingers on my thighs squeezed tight, then he slipped his arms beneath my hips to wrap around me. He sucked my cock like he was drinking down the rain, like it was the purest thing he’d ever tasted.

Wren took me to the back of his throat and swallowed around me, and I couldn’t stop the shivers that started to tear along my spine. When he flattened his tongue and licked along my base,dropping one hand between my legs to gently cup my balls, I whimpered.

“Wren, I don’t know if I can… I—” How did I tell him that I wasn’t going tolastif he kept doing this? That I wasn’t going to be good foranythingin return if he kept touching me this way? I felt like liquid, incapable of doing anything but moving to make space as he dipped below my surface.

I just had to hope he didn’t drown in the waves of everything wrong with me.

“You’re perfect just the way you are,” he pulled back and whispered against my hip, pressing a sloppy kiss there, sticky with precum. He hadn’t read my mind, but maybe he could feel the spikes of my panic through our connection.

Or maybe he just knew what to say because the red line trailing between us meant he was the only one who could ever have said it.

“Wren…”

“Just stay still and let meshow you.”

Show me.

I shivered one more time and let my shoulders drop flat to the damp earth, and nodded.

“Okay…” My fingers were careful when they trailed through his hair, slicking back the black strands so I could see his eyes as they softened.

Iwantedthis.

I watched as he lowered his head again and gave himself over to what he was doing, licking and lapping, sucking me down and working his tongue along the base of my shaft every time he came up for air. Wren fucked me with his mouth like he was on a mission, and all I could do was claw at the ground beneath us to keep from shredding his shoulders as he pushed me over the edge.

The feel of Wren hollowing his cheeks when I shoved against his shoulders in warning of my orgasm made my vision white out. When it finally cleared, he’d spread my legs and dropped his chin while still looking at me.

A thick mixture of my cum and his saliva, swirled crimson with the blood from where I’d hit him, strung from his lips and fell to his palm, mixing with the rain on his skin.

“What are you—” My voice cut off in another groan when he slicked his fingers through the mixture and dropped his hand between my legs. The hot press of his digits against my hole made me tense for a second, but then he was there—his mouth hovered just above mine, and my tongue darted out of its own volition and licked the taste of my pleasure from his lips.

“Let me in?” He whispered it against my mouth. The soft tone made me groan and spread my legs wider—it made me burn for an entirely different reason. The heat trapped beneath my skin was so tangible I felt like the rain should be evaporating. Instead, Wren licked it from my jawline as he worked one finger inside me slowly.

He was soft—patient. He brought his hand up to smear his fingers in the mixture of blood and cum, then spit in his palm again, and when he came back it was two fingers this time. My body was already so relaxed from the orgasm he’d just given me that it was easy to do what he asked—easier than it should have been… but somehow, with Wren on top of me, I was having trouble summoning up memories of anyone else.

I was dizzy with him, and every time I closed my eyes and started to drift, started to think about all the ways this could hurt, he caught my jaw with his teeth and nipped, bringing me back to the focus of his violet eyes and the spread of his wings. The feel of him pressed over me in tandem with the phantom sensation of howIfelt beneath him.

“Stay with me,” he murmured, and I couldn’t do anything else. No one who had ever touched me looked so fucking ethereal.

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