Page 28 of Under The Twilight Rainfall
I don’t know if I’m reading him right. If this is just wishful thinking as I press against him and rub my nose along his throat, my hands seeking out hard muscle and plush skin.
He’s been giving signals I try not to read into. I try to hold my ground, but those words do something to my self-control.
I won’t stop you.
And he isn’t. His heartbeat hammers under my palm, breaths deep and slightly off rhythm, but he tips his head back when I rest my lips on the base of his throat.
His skin pebbles under my touch, and if this is the only time I really get to touch him, then I’m going to relish every second of it.
I breathe him in, leaving barely there kisses along the length of his neck and dragging my hands up to his shoulders. He shivers when my lips touch his ear, and as soon as I drag my blunt nails down his back, he has my wrists in his hands and flips us around.
Now it’s his hips over mine, his weight pinning me down, and his grip reminding me that this is his show. I get to take what he’s willing to give and nothing more.
“Val.” His hot breath ghosts over my mouth, and I want more than anything for him to close the distance.
My chest heaves with the effort to hold myself back, to not maul him here and now.
He slides his fingers into mine to link our hands together, squeezes tight enough to cut off circulation, and a strangled breath morphs into a short cry as he drops his head to my shoulder.
“I can’t.”
Those two words burst the bubble of hope I didn’t even realize was building in my chest, but I don’t let the hurt show. I bury it down where I should have kept my feelings in the first place.
I pushed too far.
Took too much.
“It’s okay,mahal ko. I’m here. I’m always here.”
Still, he doesn’t let go of my hands, and even if his truth breaks my heart a little, as long as Dex needs me to be there for him, that’s exactly where I’ll be.
Fuck,IalmostkissedValen. He would have let me. He would have kissed me back. It would have been fucking incredible.
Fuck me, I like him. He’s cheeky and infuriating, but every time he touches me it feels like pieces of my soul aligning.
When did I start craving his touch? The brush of his hand on mine or his fingers in my hair? The way he tangles around my body at night and holds me reverently as if the world at large is non-existent—it’s only us.
Twenty-four hours alone with him has fried my defenses. We just need to get home, to shake off the lust haze hanging over us and remember that something more would be dangerous.
Home. Dammit, not my home.
Why is it so easy to fall into security with this family? It always was. But security is a lie; it’s a trick.
Unconditional love doesn’t exist, and without that, any home is only temporary.
Valen wasn’t joking when he said we’d get back late: all of the lights are off and the house is quiet. Our trip back wasn’t long compared to all the traveling from the day, but it was spent in a peculiar silence with Valen’s hand on my knee as I bounced and fidgeted in my seat. I was too damn tired and high strung to ask him to stop—it was probably the only thing grounding me and keeping me from spiraling.
In times like these, I usually hop the soonest available flight and just see where it takes me.
But I’m already working, and if I mess with the schedule Spinny gave me, he might spite me right out of the travel service. He’s threatened it a time or two.
We leave our shoes by the door, and I immediately strip out of my t-shirt, tired and sweaty and desperately needing to wash off the stress andfeelingsthat don’t seem inclined to leave.
Valen throws a look over his shoulder as he heads for the kitchen, eyebrows raised and a small smirk on his lips. “Hungry, SpecDex?”
I’ve been stuck in horny headspace for too long, because food isn’t what I think of when he asks me that.
“I need to clean off.”
