4. Luca

It isn’t just a picture of me. It’s a picture of an ad I did for Heinz, where I’m standing by a fucking stove. As if I’m cooking with whoever’s viewing the advert. As if I’m cooking with Thorn as he has his breakfast or his lunch or whatever the fuck he does when he sits in the seat on the chair on my right and looks at the photo propped up on the shelf across from him.

It’s an advert I did three years ago. Before I met Thorn. Before I even knew he existed. It was just some shitty promo that they paid me so much money for that there wasn’t a single chance I was saying no, even though it was cheesy as fuck. It came and went and everyone moved on. I wanted to forget it so badly I removed it from my portfolio when the term was over. And no one gave a single shit about it.

Apart from my boyfriend, apparently.

“Thorn,” I say carefully, arching my back, grinding my hips to force him to focus, pulling myself even closer to him. “How long have you had that photo?”

He drops his head to my shoulder, his forehead pressing firmly against me, groaning, avoiding me as my body shakes.

“A while,” he says, clearing his throat. My chest tightens so hard I can barely get a word out. I can already feel those dreaded fucking emotions swelling inside me.

I should stop. I should fucking stop asking because I’m getting close to something that scares me too much to really say, even with Thorn.

But I’m holding him, my arms draped around his shoulders, his cock deep inside me, staring wide-eyed at this fucking picture as he meets the drop of my hips with a surge of his own.

“Thorn,” I cry out, trembling, half a question, half a pure response to the way hes lodged so firmly inside me.

He rocks back to look at me, rattling the chair as I clutch at him. Another grind of my hips and his bottom lip drops. His entire face is red as he tries to keep himself together.

“I forgot,” he moans, his fingers digging deep into my thighs, the intense bite of pain eating at me.

“What? What do you mean you forgot?”

“I thought Id taken them all down.” He chokes out, screwing his eyes closed in that way he does when he thinks he’s totally fucked up.

My entire body stiffens around him as I stare down at him, trying to process what he’s saying.

He never asks me for pictures. I’m always the one snapping photos of us when we’re out. Hell, I even changed his phone background myself.

I try to heave in a breath, but I’m already choking up.

I honestly thought there was a point where I couldnt love a person more. Like there was a cutoff or a peak. I’d get to that peak and say, okay, I’m in love with you, that’s it.

But every single time I’m with Thorn, he fucking destroys me with shit like this.

I keep thinking we’ve found our limit. That we’d just go along as we are. Some days would be better or worse than others, but my feelings would mostly stay the same.

“You, um…” Thorn’s gaze dips. “You’ve done some great shoots.” He clears his throat. “And I really like the images.”

No, he doesn’t. He doesnt just like the images. That photo is dumb as fuck. I can just fucking tell it isn’t the poses or the set or the brand or whatever excuse he might make if I ask him. He might tell me the truth as much as he can, but he hides so much from me that I have to find the right way to ask him.

“How long?”

He presses his lips together as the muscles of his jaw tense.

“Thorn, baby, how long have you had that photo for?”

He’s groaning as his chest heaves. I shouldn’t force him; I might make him close up even more. I have him pinned by his cock and I’m not letting up.

I roll my hips and he shudders again, his back falling into the chair, his body slack.

Because maybe he had the photo lying around in an old magazine or something. Maybe he found it online because Heinz refuse to remove it from their fucking online archives. Maybe he’d only had it sitting there for a few months since we started dating, and he’s taken the time to put it in a little blue picture frame, so it had to be special.

I want to hear him say it. I need him to tell me.

“Three…”

“What?” I say too harshly as I squeeze my ass around him. I have to know.

He’s gasping, his expression too stark, wheezing under me. We’re reaching the danger zone. Shaking hands, pupils blown, his mouth opening and closing.

I grind on him, trying to bring us back down, sparks of pleasure whipping through me as he responds with a thrust that has my eyes rolling into the back of my head, but theres no escaping.

If I push him any harder, he might end up hyperventilating. I try as much as I can to watch out for it, to make sure he’s always surrounded by fucking peace because he deserves it so much after what he’s been through since he was a kid. But I need answers.

“Thorn,” I say, leaning forward to nudge my nose against his cheek, dropping kisses across his forehead, trying to sooth him even though both of us are trembling.

He opens his mouth just as I place a soft kiss on his brow above his glasses, pulling back to hear him properly.

“Three years,” he rasps, barely getting the words out. But they still come.

He coughs deeply enough that it vibrates through my body. Hes panting, looking up at me with fear etched into him, and it’s my fault, Ive done that to him And I’m too taken away to control myself.

“Fuck,” I say on a hushed breath. My trembles turn into shakes as he holds me, his nervous look boring into me. I lift my hands, cupping his face, my index fingers on his glasses so he can’t escape. “Fuck, Thorn. Three years?”

“Something like that,” he says quietly. “Though I didnt start feeling like this until our first shoot together.”

And then there’s no stopping me.

I close my eyes, trying to force back the tears, but it’s useless. I choke out a cry as Thorn’s hand slides up from my thigh to stroke my neck. His arm under my knee keeps me in place.

“Thats still two years, baby.” I choke out. And I spent almost all of it treating him like shit. He made me so mad I would spend days beforehand planning of ways I could get a rise out of him, and then spend days afterwards being pissed off that I didnt. Whenever a shoot with him came up Id get worked up about him for a week, and I didn’t even realise why the fuck I was so obsessed with him.

And he’s spent the whole time enduring me, watching me play out the same thing over and over again as I tried to get his attention. Even after all that, of all those ways I taunted and teased him, he wanted me. He still wants me.

Disappointment sinks through me at myself. I mean, I felt guilty when we started dating about what Id done to him, especially after I found out about his mum. Id apologised so many times to him since, and he keeps insisting its okay.

And hes been feeling this way for years. Fucking years, and Ive barely been able to handle it for four months.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, his voice tinged with panic.

Ive been so scared to tell my boyfriend that I love him and he has been waiting this long for me to wake the fuck up and notice him.

Ive spent two months trying to find a right time, trying to figure out if I was telling him too soon, or even how the fuck I was even meant to tell him. And he’d been with me this entire time, not saying a single fucking word.

I’m hit with the weirdest mix of frustration, annoyance, and hardcore fucking awe that I’m with a man like this.

My grip tightens, squishing his cheeks as I glare at him.

“I love you,” I gasp, clutching at him as if he’s the only thing that’s keeping me alive. “I love you so fucking much and I can’t stand it. I can’t fucking deal with how good you are, Thorn. I don’t deserve you.”

And he just stares at me, his face blank, not saying a single word. Even though I know he always needs a minute to process, it’s the most terrifying minute of my life. I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do, so I shift my legs, moving around him, slowly fucking him to get him to at least react, and to give me something to hold on to.

He finally returns, cupping my cheek, and brushing away my tears with his thumb.

“You deserve everything,” he says simply, as if that is enough to take away the realisation that he has spent three fucking years with that picture and I’m such a cunt that he’s never had space to say anything. Or maybe he never would have if I hadn’t had Hayden invite him on that shoot. Or if he hadn’t messed it up. Or I hadn’t dragged him back into the studio and fell for him in the space of a few hours because he is so fucking perfect that I still can’t believe it.

“For fuck’s sake, Thorn.” I want to shout at him, to tell him off for hiding himself from me for this long, but he’s busy wiping away my tears, kissing my cheeks, wrapping his huge body around mine as he brings me to his lips and thrusts up inside of me.

I gasp as his hand drops back to my thigh, moving me, grinding my ass as I fucking cry. I cant stop and I hate myself for it.

“I love you,” Thorn says so purely that I want to devour him just so I can keep him inside me and never let him go.

I didnt know it was even possible to be furious and completely in love with someone at the same time.

“I really love you, Luca.”

I laugh through my fucking tears as I fall on him. I dont ever want to run from him. Ive been trying to escape myself for too long and hes been waiting for me to turn to him.

Pulling his lips to mine, I search his face for something that will tell me he’s hiding from me, but it’s all there. It had been there from the start and I just hadn’t seen it until now.

“I know, baby. I know.” I say as I sink down onto him as far as I can. As we both come, I’m totally certain now that he’s what I’ve been waiting for all my life, and I’m never hiding from him again.