Page 108 of The Fall

He guides me to the bedroom, and the air shifts, thickens to gold. Small flames flicker from the surfaces of the dresser and nightstands, ground-level stars whose light softens the walls to suede.

He crowds me against the wall, and his hands lift to frame my head, palms flat to the wall, a gentle caging. His breath moves across my cheek. I want to memorize the look in his eyes, but I am afraid I already have.

I clutch the worn denim of his jeans, pulling him closer. The light catches his jaw, traces the curve of his mouth, and I want to tell him something important, something about time and how it bends, about dreams that feel more real than memory, but the words dissolve before they form.

He tugs my t-shirt upward and discards it. His shirt joins mine on the floor. The candlelight turns his skin to burnished gold, and I want to taste every shadow it creates. I pull him closer, and he grinds into me, a slow and perfect friction.

Then his mouth is on me, and I seize him in return. He melts into our kiss, unaware that I’m trying to change our trajectory with how much, how deeply, I love him.

His hands take mine again, lacing our fingers together as he leads me toward the bed. “I never used to believe in soul mates,” he says softly, laying me down. The words are hoarse and scraped from his throat; they are ghosts. “But you…”

My fingertips catch on the stubble of his jaw as I follow the angle of his cheekbone, the curve of his lower lip. “You are my forever.”

His eyes darken, pupils expanding until only a thin ring of stormy gray remains. His breath stutters against my palm, and when he dips his head to capture my lips, I know he’s saying it back without words.

Blair’s hands spread across my sides, each fingertip a brand against my skin. The heat of him seeps through me, and I arch into his touch, seeking more. His mouth moves to my throat, teeth grazing, and the wet heat of his tongue follows.

His thumbs move where I’ve known them before, in dreams that weren’t dreams, in a future that was real, that ended with blood and broken glass and a fall?—

I force air into my lungs, force myself back into this moment, this bed, to this Blair who’s still breathing, still whole, still mine.

I slide down his body, trailing kisses across his chest and his stomach. My hands map the terrain of his chest, following the trail of dark hair down, down, until his breathing shatters. I move between his thighs; his hands drop to my shoulders.

“Torey,” he breathes. His eyes are wide, dark pools reflecting the tiny, frantic flames of the candles as I drop open-mouthed kisses to his inner thighs.

His legs tense beneath my hands, muscle shifting under skin that tastes like salt and warmth and hope. Each exhale from him is low and trembling.

He gasps my name again, softer now, awe-struck. The taste of him lingers on my tongue; longing pools in my belly. Does he know that if I could fuse myself to his skin and stay there forever, I would?

I close my hand around the base of his shaft and draw him into my mouth.

Heat rushes through me, alongside his trust and the soft, broken noises he tries to swallow.

Salty-sweet, familiar, sacred; he is surrendering to me one heartbeat at a time.

I steady him and let my rhythm build slowly.

Every part of me aches to give him more, to carve this memory of me so deeply into his soul that even fate can’t dig it out.

He groans, and his free hand fumbles for mine until our fingers tangle. Those strong hands will go slack when?—

No. If time loops again, if I lose him again, I need these details burned into my cells. I need more than fragments and terror if I wake up alone. I want to mark him, too, to etch myself into him until I’m the air in his lungs and the blood in his veins. Maybe then time can’t separate us.

I hold on tight and take him deeper, desperate to give him everything. I am devouring him; I am worshipping him. He is hot velvet inside my mouth, and I am lost in his slick heat and my need for him. This is how I claim him, until there’s nothing left but us and the golden hush between heartbeats.

“Fuck, Torey,” he moans. “Your mouth...”

I hum around him, and he jerks beneath me. I relax my throat and take him further, and the sound he makes shoots through me.

“Wait.” His voice breaks. “Not yet.” He draws me up, crushing our mouths together and tasting himself as he cradles my face. “Come here,” he whispers, rolling us over so I’m beneath him.

The mattress dips beneath his weight, and the world tilts until there’s only Blair above me.

That look in his eyes undoes me. I want to drag him closer still, memorize every part and piece of him.

Blair leans down again; his nose brushes mine. His body settles between my thighs as I open to him. I close my eyes as he drops a kiss to the hollow of my throat, letting myself drift under the ache of wanting him and being wanted back.

“Your turn,” he breathes.

His tongue flicks over a nipple. He hums against me, vibration thrumming through tissue and nerve, and then he’s sucking, pulling my sensitive nub between his teeth until the sharp edge of pain bleeds into pleasure. My fingers twist into his hair as I gasp.

He takes his time, though, dragging his lips down my stomach, teeth grazing the cut of my hip. His breath ghosts over the trail of precome that’s leaked onto my belly.

“Blair,” I gasp. My thighs tremble as he nudges them apart and settles between them, then holds me in place as his mouth closes around the head of my cock.

The first touch of his lips sends me arching off the bed. He keeps his tongue flat against the underside, and the tight seal of his mouth sliding down nearly makes me scream. My head falls back against the pillow. “Fuck.”

He sucks me slowly, cheeks hollowing on the upstroke, his tongue hot and flat and broad.

His suction builds until black spots dance in my vision.

My hands tighten in his hair, holding on as I lose hold of everything except the heat of his mouth, the drag of his lips, the way he groans around me like he’s savoring every taste.

“Goddamn, Blair,” I pant.

His eyes flick up to meet mine, and the sight of him—lips stretched around me, cheeks hollowed—nearly breaks me.

He pulls back to tease the underside with his tongue, circling my crown until my legs shake. The tip of his tongue flicks against the base of my head while his hand works what his mouth can’t reach. I’m unraveling, strung tight and trembling, every swipe of his tongue driving me closer to breaking.

I can’t look away from him, from the way he’s worshipping me. “Please,” I gasp.

A string of saliva connects his bottom lip to my shaft when he pulls back to grab our lube from the nightstand, and the faint click of the cap is another pin dropping in the quiet room.

His hand moves between my thighs, slick fingers moving past my balls and against my taint, massaging there until my cock leaks a steady stream. His first touch against my hole is feather-light, teasing and circling my rim until I relax.

He slides in slowly, breaching me with a stretch that burns enough to make my toes curl into the sheets. He is slow invasion that melts me.

He crooks his finger, and when he finds what he’s looking for, I groan and sink deeper into the pillows.

My cock throbs, releasing another bead of precome that Blair laps up with his tongue.

Slowly, the burn fades as he works me open, finger pumping in steady strokes that make obscene wet sounds in the quiet room.

My head tips back, throat exposed as I pant. A second finger joins the first, and the fuller stretch has my hips rocking against his hand. I am dripping, lube and sweat making everything slick and filthy. My cock leaks against my stomach, untouched and aching.

“Fuck, Blair.” My eyes drag back to his face.

His jaw is tight, lips parted enough to show how he’s holding himself together while he watches me come apart.

His fingers curl again, dragging against my prostate; I won’t last much longer.

I’m a mess of gasps and half-formed pleas, and I lose hold of the next minute.

“You are everything,” he breathes. “You’re the part of me I didn’t know was missing.”

A shudder runs through him and into me. His hands shake where they grip my thighs, spreading me wider. He shifts forward, brings his cock to rest against my hole, and his eyes search mine, asking.

Yes. Yes. Always yes. This is what drowning feels like when you want to go under. This is what burning feels like when you’ve been cold your whole life.

His breath mixes with mine, warm and damp between our open mouths. Words hover unspoken on my tongue as blood thunders in my ears.

The blunt head of his cock kisses my rim, and I sigh against his lips.

He rocks forward, only enough pressure to make my hole clench.

When he pushes past that first ring of muscle, the perfect stretch blooms through me.

He’s thick enough that every millimeter feels like it’s rearranging my insides.

My body yields to him by degrees. Each shallow thrust opens me wider, his cock disappearing into me so very, very slowly.

When his hips finally meet my ass, when I’m stretched around the full length of him, we both stop breathing.

His forehead drops to mine, eyes squeezed shut, and his cock throbs inside me, hot and hard and mine.

The fullness consumes everything else. His chest presses to mine, our hearts beating the same rhythm.

His lips part on a soundless exhale that ghosts across my mouth. If we stay perfectly still, if we don’t move or breathe or blink, maybe the universe will forget to tear us apart again.

He shifts minutely inside me—a subtle flex—and I feel it everywhere at once, lightning in my nerves, fire in my blood. If he moves even an inch more I’ll fall apart for him.