Page 15 of A Breath of Life
“For what? Being you? Hardly. I’m learning to navigate your erratic moods, and I know better than to take them personally.”
The smile faded, and the skin beside his eyes pulled into creases. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Don’t do that.” I drew him closer, hooking my ankles at his lower back to keep him in place as I angled his head and gently kissed him. “Someday, I hope you believe differently.”
He slid his hands up my thighs and around my waist before wedging them under my ass and heaving me off the counter. The ease withwhich he lifted my weight shouldn’t have surprised me, considering the amount of time he spent at the gym, but I yelped at the suddenness of the action.
Echo barked in response and jumped playfully around us, likely thinking it was a game.
Clinging to Diem’s neck, I was about to speak when his mouth collided with mine, stealing my words. Without warning, he marched down the short hallway to our bedroom. Echo’s nails clicked on the hard floor as she followed, but the instant we were inside the room, Diem kicked the door shut with a “Sorry, girl. Give me an hour.”
“An hour?” I cocked an inquisitive brow. “Oh my, my, my. Someone’s feeling ambitious.”
He growled deep in his throat but didn’t otherwise respond as he threw me onto the bed. I bounced once, but before I could orient myself properly, Diem pinned me down with his much larger body. The look in his eyes said everything he couldn’t. Diem might have been a man of few words, but lately, he spoke volumes when the lights were off and we were naked.
After a stress-filled evening, it would have been fitting for him to fuck me hard and mercilessly into the mattress—pin me down, pull my hair, slap my ass, bite welts into my skin—if simply to expel tension, but, regretfully, that wasn’t Diem’s way. No matter how many times I made those suggestions, he refused to bring aggression into the bedroom, even as foreplay or as a kink, even if I wanted it. His ingrained fear of hurting me reigned over his actions.
I didn’t complain—much. What I got was far better. It was attention. It was affection. It was long stretches of time where we kissed with our bodies pressed together. It was progressive acts of bravery expressed through gentle caresses and intimacy.
Every touch was delicate and laced with uncertainty, but it existed in its purposefulness, in its determination. Diem took measured steps forward, skating his flattened palm over my stomach, feathering his fingers over my hip, and tracing a path down the length of my hamstring as he gradually, carefully guided my leg around his waist.
I pressed my erection against the taut ridges of his abdomen, scooting closer, kissing deeper, and seeking more.
His much larger body blanketed me with warmth and protection. Diem took control. Diem guided the process. Diem had learned what it meant to show affection, and he ran with it. Why on earth would I want anything more?
Except, sometimes, greedily, I did.
A mouth might be a tool we use for communication or ingesting substances to keep us alive, but Diem had learned to use his uniquely. With it, he expressed his love. No words. Plain, simple actions. He planted kisses over every inch of my skin, grazing his lips over my tingling flesh, but he never marked me. Even if I begged. No bruises. No hickeys. No scratch marks. No teeth.
Ever.
He took me down his throat and worshiped me with his silent mouth, drawing me to the brink over and over, never letting me tip over that edge. Again and again until I was delirious.
When he abandoned my cock too soon, I whimpered. Diem cruised lower, shoved my legs back, and got acquainted with my ass. This was a new adventure between us in recent weeks, and I was not complaining. He tongued my hole until I writhed and begged and cursed for him to fuck me already because I couldn’t stand another second of this teasing bullshit.
When he did, it was with tenderness and caution that made me hold my breath. We didn’t fuck anymore. We’d fucked in the beginning, and it had been a cold and mechanical experience.
Now, Diem made love to me. He would have it no other way, and who was I to argue?
Wrapped in a condom, he sank slowly into my body, letting me adjust to his overwhelming size incrementally.
He asked silent questions with his storm-clouded eyes, waiting for me to acknowledge I was okay. Few words were exchanged in the bedroom, but we didn’t need them.
Enough unspoken dialogue existed between us to fill a book. Out loud, it might not have had the same effect, so I listened to Diem with my heart and responded with my entire soul.
The world saw a brute, a monster, a terrifying giant of a man with scars and a fierceness in his eyes that frightened them. I saw the real Diem. A man who had spent a lifetime wanting only to be loved.
As we rocked together, the pleasure building between us, Diem closed his eyes. At one point, he rested his forehead on mine and whispered so quietly I almost missed it, “I love you, Tallus.”
“I know, D. I love you too.”
4
Diem
Tallus placed a hand on my chest, preventing me from barreling through the front door of the jewelry store like a bull in a china shop.
“Whoa. Hold your horses. We aren’t racing in there, guns blazing. Considering the establishment, you should let me do the talking. Feel free to browse, in case we end up with a stinkingly huge reward and you feel compelled to buy your boyfriend something beautiful. I’m a size nine point two five, by the way.” He waggled a specific finger on his left hand, adding a wink in case I wasn’t catching his drift.
