“Breathe!” she screams, pushing harder against my sternum.
My cock jerks, my balls tightening, the line between pain and pleasure blurring until I don’t care which it is.
“Come back to me, Dax!”
Her voice is fire, thunder, holy.
And I break.
I cum with a hoarse, guttural cry, hips driving up into nothing, spilling into emptiness, my release hot and violent even as my chest convulses under her palms.
Her tears splash against my face. Her sobs are real, ragged, shaking me harder than the seizure in my lungs.
“Dax…”
Her voice is everything. “Stay. Please—stay.”
The monitors scream. My body shudders, trembling, caught between orgasm and arrest, hallucination and survival, heaven and hell.
And through it all?—
Her.
Always her.
My Butterfly.
The straps bite into my wrists. The taste of iron is in my mouth, smoke in my nose. My lungs seize like they’re being stomped flat, but that’s not what undoes me.
It’s her eyes.
Her eyes, wide, shining, fixed on me like she’s seen every sin I’ve ever committed—and won’t let me crawl away from this one.
I know she felt it.
Knows I broke apart right there, body betraying me, spilling into nothing like I was still buried inside her.
Shame claws at my throat. I turn my head, choke on a rasp. “Fuck?—”
Her hand catches my jaw, forcing me back to her. Not cruel. Not gentle. Just steady.
“Look at me,” she says, voice low, threaded with something that isn’t just fear.
I fight it. I don’t want her seeing me like this—weak, delirious, filthy in every sense. But she doesn’t let go. Her thumb presses into the hinge of my jaw, grounding me, pinning me harder than the restraints.
“Dax,” she breathes, close enough I feel the tremor of her lips. “It’s okay.”
I shake my head, or try to. “No. Christ, Cass, I?—”
“It’s okay.” Sharper now. Like she’s snapping a bone back into place. “You’re alive. Do you hear me? You’re alive. That’s all that matters.”
Her hand slides down, presses flat against my chest, over the jagged rise and fall of my ribs. Her palm burns through the sweat and grime, a brand hotter than the fever eating me.
But then her voice shifts—softer, darker, dipping low enough that my cock twitches again despite the wreck of my body.
“You think I care what your body did just now?”
Her lashes lower, a tear clinging there. “Dax, I’ve wanted you every second since you left me. Every time you breathe my name, even like this, it’s mine.”
