He shakes his head. “You didn’t break. You just… overflowed.” He squeezes my fingers. “You can do that, here, with me.”
I nod, and this time I mean it.
He gets up, walks to the kitchen, and comes back with a bottle of orange juice. He pours a glass and hands it to me. I drink, the sugar burning in my veins, and I realize how empty I am.
“You hungry?”
“Yeah, starving.”
He makes to leave but I grab his hand. “Stay, please.”
I want to say something important, something that will fix the broken parts of the night. But all I can think is that I want to touch him.
I reach for his face, trace the line of his jaw, the scar on his cheek, the soft place under his eye.
“You ever going to cry?” I ask.
He laughs, just once. “Probably not.”
I shrug. “I’ll do it for both of us, then.”
He pulls me into his lap, wraps his arms around me, and holds me until the world feels less sharp.
We stay like that until the sun starts to rise.
And when the light comes, I am still here.
Still alive.
Still me.
I survived.
After the sunrise, I feel less anxious and more curious about this new place to call home. Colt is asleep beside me and as much as I want to wake him, I don’t. The poor man needs rest just as much as I did. I memorize every inch of him: the slope of his shoulders, the way the muscles flicker and settle as he breathes, the small scar at the base of his spine.
His breathing changes as I touch him and I realize he is awake but pretending not to be. He is good at stillness, but his fingers twitch where they rest on the blanket. I wonder what it’s like to have control that absolute, to hold yourself back from the world even when you could devour it.
He turns to face me, opens his eyes, a slow, lazy smile spreading over his face.
“You want coffee?” he says.
I shake my head. “I want you to fuck me.”
His eyes go wide, then sharp. The change is instant.
I don’t wait for him to move. I crawl across the bed, straddling his lap, my knees sinking into the mattress on either side of his hips. I can feel him getting hard through the sheets, the heat of him baking into my thighs. I run my fingers down his chest.
He grabs my wrists, pinning them behind my back, and pulls me against him. His mouth finds my neck, biting just hard enough to make me gasp. He likes the sound—I feel his cock jump against me, and I grind down until I can’t breathe.
“You sure?” he asks, voice a growl.
I nod, but that’s not enough. “I want you to ruin me.”
He laughs, dark and hungry. “Already did that, baby.”
Flipping me onto my back, knees planted on either side of my hips, he pins my arms above my head. The weight of him is perfect—heavy enough to hold me down, light enough that I know he could do more, be worse, if I asked.
He kisses me, hard, tongue invading my mouth, teeth scraping my lower lip until I taste blood. He licks it away, then movesdown my throat, biting and sucking, leaving bruises where everyone can see.
