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auburn

“I’m kidding,” Ledger said as I struggled to get comfortable in the long dress, finally curling into the corner of the large sofa next to him.

“You weren’t kidding,” I teased, waggling my eyebrows at him, and he laughed again.

“Alright, you caught me,” he admitted, then paused. “Are we okay?”

I let out a small laugh. “I think that’s the understatement of the century. I don’t know what we are or what we’re going to do.”

“I want to be yours, Sunshine. We don’t need labels or anything if that helps you keep the door open, but I want to be yours.” His low, gravelly voice was full of longing, and I desperately wanted to reach out and hold his face close to mine.

“It’s messy. I’m messy,” I admitted.

He nodded, but I didn’t turn around; I needed to keep moving forward.

“I talked to my mother a few days ago,” I said.

“How’d that go?” he asked.

I narrowed my eyes at him, giving him an all-knowing look. “Terribly, per usual.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

I let out a deep sigh, unsure of where to start.

“Truthfully, there’s nothing new. I can’t change my mother for who she is. She’s a narcissist through and through. She’ll never admit she’s wrong or say sorry, but at the least, I told her that she couldn’t talk to me like she had anymore. I’m no longer a child and don’t need her help.” I paused, searching for Ledger’s eyes to send me a clue as to what he was thinking, but he just sat there listening.

“I used to think that I needed her in my life. I owed her for taking care of me and Austin when I was younger, but now I realize that I don’t owe her shit. She can’t treat me or speak to me the way she did in my apartment ever again. I won’t allow that behavior in my space.”

“Because you’re strong, Auburn,” Ledger added softly.

I thought about what he said for a moment. “I spent my entire life being told how weak I was or so many other negative views of myself it’s hard to imagine myself in any other way?—”

“But—” Ledger started to say, but I reached out, grabbing his hand to quiet him.

I looked behind him to where the floor-to-ceiling windows were. It was dark outside, but the faint glimmer of the city lights below us sparkled throughout the room. Between the lights and the candles, it was the most romantic place I’d ever been. This was by far better than any fancy formal date I’d ever wanted.

“Until you, Ledger. That’s how I felt until…you.”

“There were so many reasons we shouldn’t be together, Sunshine, but there’s something about you that makes me realize how much you belong in my life. You’re like honey to tea or the waves to the ocean. You make sense being in my life.”

I got up from where I sat and pulled my dress up to sit in Ledger’s lap. He opened his legs, and I sat between them, curling my feet around him and looking up in his whiskey-colored eyes.

“It’s going to be hard, Ledger. The coach. Your career. The other guys.” I listed all the reasons we were wrong for each other.

“I don’t care about any of them, and I never said it was going to be easy, but we will get through them together. We walk through the door…together.”

Tears in my eyes, he dropped down to give me a soft kiss atop my forehead. “I’m in love with you, Auburn Hart. Nothing else matters.”

“Except Austin,” I added quickly.

He let out a small laugh. “Yeah, and we’re a work in progress.”

“Work in progress is good,” I answered.

“This is the start, Auburn. This isn’t the end.”

I loved this man. I loved him with every broken piece of my soul. It was as if someone shattered the mirror in front of me and the pieces were laying below me. I could see them, but I didn’t know how they fit together. Ledger showed me the ways they connected. He showed me the sharp edges weren’t so scary.

“Ledger?” I asked, adjusting myself so my legs were wrapped around his waist. I had to pull my dress up and my entire lower half was exposed.

“Mmm?” His words came out a husky groan.

I languidly moved my hips around his waist, thrusting forward and backward.

“The first time I was up here, you never got to show me how you’d please me.” I ran my tongue along the side of Ledger’s neck.

His brow furrowed. “I’ve done it before though, Sunshine.”

I sighed, then looked at him, giving him the biggest doe-eyed expression. “Oh shit,” he quickly added. “You want—Yes. Right now.”

I let out a soft giggle.

“Hands up.”

I lifted them over my head, and the moment the dress passed over my chest my breasts bounced free.

“No bra?” He practically salivated at my body. I loved the way Ledger looked at me.

“I didn’t have anything, so this is the best you get.”

“Mmm” was all he said, and his hands trailed up the sides of my curves, running over every bump.

“Mine,” he whispered through gritted teeth before his mouth descended onto my nipple. “Only ever mine.”

“I’m yours.” I whimpered as his teeth grazed between my breasts, rolling my nipple.

“Scream for me, Sunshine. Show everyone on this floor—hell, this whole building—how much you missed me.”

His hands went beneath my folds as he dipped a finger in, and I let out a sweet moan. “I’ll never ever leave you, Ledger. Promise me we’ll spend our days like this, though?”

I threw my head back, and he chuckled gruffly before dropping another finger inside me. “All our days.”

As the man added another finger, I let my body succumb to his touch—the safe, beautiful touch that made me feel like I was a harp, and he was playing the sweetest music from my body. I was a fool for leaving him, for treating him the way I did, for trusting the part of my brain that told me he was to be feared.

“Ledger,” I cried. He lifted me, removing his fingers, and I wrapped my legs around him as he walked down the hall with me. Our lips touched, and he navigated us to the bedroom without breaking our kiss.

He dropped me on the edge of the bed and paused. “Wait.” A smile spread across his face, touching the edges of his eyes. “I have something for you.”

He winked at me… Winked. At. Me.

He disappeared into the connecting bathroom before coming out with a plastic bag. “Two gifts.”

I was intrigued. “What’s the first one?” I spread my legs open a little bit more to distract him with my leaking pussy.

“First one is this.” He reached into the bag and pulled out a blue plastic item inside a clear plastic wrapping.

“What’s that?” I narrowed my eyes at it as Ledger threw it to me from across the room. I caught it mid-air and brought it down to his white comforter as I inspected what was inside this packaging.

“Ledger Cole!” I screamed, then dropped onto my back on the bed in hysterics. The laughter was so deep in my belly that I was going to explode. “You did not buy me a skate guard.”

He cocked his head to the side before nodding. “The one you like that you can fit in your?—”

I held up my hand. “Yes. I know where it went last time.”

“Pussy,” he said at the same time. I giggled before throwing it behind me.

“But I also got these.”

He walked toward the bed, and I moved closer to the middle to see what he was dumping onto the comforter.

I recognized the colors of the rainbow in an instant. There was a variety of sex toys. A mischievous glint in my eye appeared as soon as I picked up one of the rabbits.

“You know how much I like games,” he murmured. I nodded, recalling the list of his favorites. “This is the only way to figure out which one will be our favorite.”

“There’s no way we can go through all of these in one night,” I said, eyeing the array of dildos, vibrators of all sizes, butt plugs, and other things I’d never seen before.

“Wanna bet on it?” he challenged.

I shook my head, then picked up a circular ring. “Let’s start with this?”

“Do you know what it does?” he asked, and I shook my head. I was pretty knowledgeable on different toys that pleased me because that was all I’d been using, so I could assume this was either a couple’s toy or used for Ledger’s pleasure.

“Wanna try?”

Obviously.

I nodded and pushed the other toys to the other side of the bed, then Ledger lay on the bed as soon as he stripped. I wanted to tell him to take it slow. I wanted to take him all in, but I watched as his body flexed as he got onto the bed.

“Get on your knees and come sit here.” He touched the side of the bed next to his raging hard cock. I obliged, scurrying toward him on my knees.

“Good girl,” he moaned as he handed me the rubber ring.

“Put this on my cock, all the way down to the base.” I picked it up, and I wasn’t sure if the hole in the middle was wide enough for him.

“Will it fit?” I asked, and he let out a low reverberated chuckle.

“Stretch it,” he murmured. I obliged, pulling it open and then gently sliding it down his cock, beading with precum.

“Good, now turn it on.”

I looked down and realized there was a little vibrating piece at the top of it, and I flipped the small switch.

The vibrating noise turned on suddenly and filled the room with an anticipation I wasn’t expecting. “Oh” was all I could say in the moment.

“Sit on my face so I can suck you good before you climb onto me.”

“Don’t ask me twice,” I accidentally said out loud. I covered my mouth with my hand and could feel the red painting my cheeks.

“Don’t do that. You meant what you said. Own it, Sunshine.”

He was right. I shouldn’t feel guilty for enjoying something that brought me pleasure. I shouldn’t allow my self-doubt to undermine my pleasure.

Ledger laid me on the bed and slowly pulled off my underwear. I put one foot on each side of Ledger’s head as I lowered down. Right before I stuffed his face full of my pussy, I looked down at him with complete confidence and said, “Suck it well, Ledger.”

Then I dropped down, and his hands went to my thighs, grasping onto them as he rolled his tongue around me. I moaned, already feeling myself clench around him. It’d been weeks without him, and it was far too long not to feel his tongue on me. I heard the buzz of the vibrator behind me, and my curiosity was far stronger than my desire to have an orgasm, so as soon as he finished sucking me down like I was the best flavor lollipop he’d ever sucked on, I moved.

“I want to try that,” I whispered, pointing at the cock ring around him. He was dripping precum, and the sight itself may have triggered an orgasm out of me, but I got over to where he lay, tall and engorged, waiting for me.

I slowly leveled myself with his cock, then carefully, much slower than usual, dropped down onto his cock. The familiar fullness filled me up, and I was already so stimulated by the girth and length of him, that the moment my pussy hit the vibrator at the base of his dick, I was in over my head.

“Oh, fuck. I’m not going to last long.” I groaned as the vibrator part rubbed all over my clit.

“Move around. This is all about you, Sunshine. You get to be in control.” I stopped and stared at him, and at this moment, I wanted to devour him, but not physically. I wanted to inhale every part of him as if he was the air I needed to survive. The way that helped me find my own control. He gave me the sexual power I only begged for in life.

Tears streamed down my cheek, a mixture of happiness and an overwhelming amount of emotion as I rolled my head back, feeling the pleasure roll through every fiber of my being.

I thrust against him, the vibrations pulsing through my most sensitive spot. I bounced on top of his cock and cried out in pleasure. My hands held his chest for stability.

“That’s it, Auburn.” He matched my screams with his groans and we created the most erotic symphony of noises. No longer was the loudest thing in the room the vibrating cock ring, but it was us writing our own story—two becoming one.

My orgasm hit me almost immediately. It was coming in fast and furiously. I was high on Ledger, on the climax pulsating through my body. For once in my life, I was being worshiped.

In an instant, I came while bouncing on top of him. His orgasm squirted through my folds, leaving us both soaked.

“Ledger,” I moaned, this time softer and breathier.

“The most beautiful picture.”

I opened my eyes to see he was staring at me—into my soul. His eyes were hooded and blissed out from his own pleasure.

I collapsed onto his chest, and he rolled us over to our sides, slowly pulling out of me. “I don’t think that was sex.”

“Hmm?” His lips met the tip of my nose, where he dropped a gentle kiss on top of it.

“That was an experience, Ledger. That was…heaven on earth.”

He pressed his nose into my heart. “You’re my heaven.”

We lay there silently for a few minutes before Ledger helped me off the bed and cleaned me in the shower. We took turns washing each other. It was slow and gentle. His fingers trailed down my body as we shared gentle kisses between us.

I was emotionally spent from our day together. I was physically exhausted and would have collapsed right here, but Ledger got me back into bed. We both were tucked in with our chests touching. I wrapped my legs around his, cocooning myself into him.

“Auburn?” There was an evident shake in his voice.

“Yeah?” I whispered, our mouths mere breaths apart. Despite the darkness, we hadn’t drawn the shades, allowing the room to be bathed in the soft glow from the floor-to-ceiling windows and the city lights below.

“What’s our next chapter?” he asked.

I paused and thought about what he was asking. A life without Ledger wasn’t a life I was willing to have anymore. I wanted him. I wanted us.

“I want a partner, Ledger. My existence has been woven with threads of pain, yet in your love, it’s as though those threads are gently unraveled. You seem to possess the magic to ease my burdens, guiding me through the darkest of nights with your light.”

“But at the end of the day, it’s you, Sunshine. You’re the one holding the lamp, guiding us along the path we walk. I’ve spent so long in darkness, with only one path lit. But when I found you, it was like you were sent to show me the other paths that could exist.”

I was about to say something, but he interrupted me by pressing a gentle kiss to my lips. “Life will not be perfect. We weren’t meant to find each other and be humans who were completely healed, but I don’t want to leave your side while you find the rest of your pieces.”

“I don’t want you to either. I am scared, though, Ledger. It’s hard for me not to worry about what will happen or can happen.”

I was running through all the what-ifs. I glanced over at the door, then looked at Ledger. “It will always be there, Auburn. I’ll hold it open for you.”

Tears fell down my face because that was all I’d ever asked for. “I had to suffer alone, in my head, for so long. I don’t know if I’ll know how to do this right, but I want to do it with you.”

“At your time. At your pace. I’ll be here.”

I closed my eyes, feeling his head nestled in my curls, his chest rising and falling in a gentle rhythm that enveloped me. Growing up too quickly under a parent who prioritized themself, I had made a solemn vow to be the antithesis. Yet in doing so, I feared I created a castle, a moat, but no bridge—no way for anyone to ever get in.

Falling into Ledger’s love was effortless, the simplest act I could ever undertake. He not only opened the door for me but created a space where I could freely move in and out. Confronting the pain of my childhood and finally sharing my story with someone who listened with an open heart was a revelation.

In his embrace, I found a sanctuary where the wounds of the past could find healing in the warmth of his love. With Ledger, every scar seemed to whisper a tale of resilience, every ache a testament to the strength that bloomed within me. Together, we understood each other, trusted each other, and created an unbreakable bond. I found not just redemption, but the courage to embrace the beauty that lay within my brokenness.

“Loving you is as easy as the day that I first met you.”

“Hmm?” I whispered, unsure of what he was getting at.

“It was simply inevitable,” he replied, his voice carrying the weight of certainty. “Our paths were always meant to cross.”

I nuzzled back into him. He was right. It was as if he was there to show me that loving someone could be as easy as waking up the next day.

“I love the way you burn brightly, Sunshine,” he murmured.

“I love you,” I responded, watching as he closed his whiskey-colored eyes.

Instinctively, I reached for my heart, feeling its steady beat, a reminder of the resilience within. My son was the culmination of a journey marked by both joy and pain. But in the warmth of Ledger’s love, I found a partner to walk beside me, sharing the weight of our pasts and the promise of our future. Better yet, I discovered the courage to confront my scars and the strength to embrace them as part of my journey.

Because my scars would always be a part of my heart. They were mine to wear. But Ledger helped me realize they were not flaws to be hidden away but badges of honor to be worn with pride. They were a reminder I had weathered storms, and although I might not feel like I’d won a battle, I was here.

I wore my scars with pride, as a reminder that even in our darkest moments, we all had a little sunshine that needed to be shown.

I was a survivor, not a victim.