Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 104802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
He starts over four times but doesn’t get as frustrated, doesn’t curse or get down on himself. He simply tries again until we get to that fifth time and Cillian makes it further than on any of the others. The melody is gorgeous—melancholic, with an almost haunting sound. From there it goes into something faster, more upbeat. I can tell he hits a few wrong notes, but this time he doesn’t stop, doesn’t let it hold him back. Cillian keeps playing, lost in the chords, his hands so beautiful against the keys. His hair is in his face, his body completely into the music, into this song he’s giving to his mom, the person he loved so much and lost.
The next part of the song feels…darker. Dark and rough but equally as beautiful. Not flawlessly played, but that doesn’t matter. It’s Cillian claiming a piece of himself back, and that’s what makes it perfect.
And then…it’s over. He’s sweating and breathing heavily before an anguished cry rips from the back of his throat. I pull him into my arms, and Cillian comes easily, sobs openly and honestly—and passionately, like he does with everything. I wonder if he’s let himself do this at all since his mom died. If he’s tried to be strong and not believed that strength is found in this moment right here, when you show how you feel and let yourself feel it. He believes that for me and would with anyone else, but we’re always hardest on ourselves.
Cillian lets me hold him while he cries for a mom he loved with his whole heart, for a lost childhood and maybe even the ways he’s lost his father too.
He cries like he’s making up for lost time, and I tell him it’s okay, that I love him, that he’s strong and brave, because he needs to hear those things are a strength just like he told me they are.
And when he’s all out of tears, his lips press against my neck over and over and over again, soft but needy, desperate, like some of the moments in the music he just played.
“I need you,” he says, all breathless want.
He turns me so I’m straddling the bench, pulls me closer, my legs wrapping around his waist, and when he takes my mouth, I know this is exactly where I’m supposed to be, where I was always supposed to be. None of the other things matter. Just this. Just us.
He tastes like salty tears mixed with Cillian. He owns my mouth the way he does the rest of my body, tongue pushing in deep, making me feel needed and desirable, both things I only get with him. I’m pretty sure all the blood in my body congregates in my groin, my cock hard as stone, every nerve ending in my body buzzing with need for him. I claw at him, a surprising growl slipping past my lips when he pulls away.
“Listen to you, sounding all feral for me. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not ever going anywhere.” He takes off my glasses, then tugs my shirt over my head. I help him along, and the second the shirt is on the floor, he slides my glasses back onto my face.
Cillian goes for his own shirt, but I shake my head. Neither of us ended up putting our hoodies on earlier. It was the perfect day, cool enough not to work up a real sweat, but not cold yet, so I’m able to go straight for the buttons on his short-sleeved shirt. I open them one by one, fingers more eager as I go. I want to make this last, but we’re both vibrating with hunger for each other. I feel it radiate off him as potently as I feel it inside myself.
Our mouths fuse together again, hands grazing, touching, sliding against heated skin. I want him to touch me everywhere, want to do the same to Cillian. I want to be a part of him, want there to be no end to me because I just continue on in him.
His hand slides down my back, every place he touches on me coming even more alive. Cillian pushes his hand down the back of my jeans, cups my ass, making me moan into his mouth and roll my hips against him.
“Can I take you here? Fuck you over the piano you gave back to me?”
“Yes. God yes. I just need you.”
“You have me. I belong to you now. There’s no going back.” Cillian pulls us to our feet, my hands going to his jeans and working them open. He does the same to me, and then we’re stepping out of our pants, dicks brushing against each other, mine painfully hard, the veins in Cillian’s visibly throbbing.
“We good?” he asks, cupping my ass, gently thrusting his groin against mine.