A flat smack to her ass makes her muscles quake. She melts into me. “There’s my Briar.”
“Fucking feels good to be home buried inside of you,” I rasp, my beard scraping her skin, my hands claiming every inch.
She maddens me by day, but here, now, we’re unstoppable—our bodies entwined, my mouth leaving her soul exposed and hungry. Fear of losing her claws at me, but desire grips tighter.
“I promised I’d take my time our first time, but hell, Briar,” I murmur, planting kisses across her shoulder blades, “When I walked into that school when you pulled the fire alarm, I neverstood a chance.” My hand slips between her thighs, fingers dancing over her clit. “I was yours.” My teeth graze her neck. “Completely.”
My breaths come in ragged bursts as I shift inside her, voice low and rough. My other hand tangles in her hair, pulling her head back. I thrust my tongue deeper, lips bruising her flesh before I finally draw away, chest heaving.
“Every fucking moment over the last few months, I wanted your taste on my lips. You look at me with those big, round eyes, and I fucking leak.”
I close my eyes against the pleasure of her walls clenching around me. She stirs something in me unlike anything before.
Alive. With Briar, I feel alive.
She melts against me, lips curving into a smile I’ve worshipped since the first time I saw her in the school hallway.
“Welcome home, Briar Cole,” I murmur in her ear before my teeth catch the lobe, my cock pressing heavy against her wet entrance. I feel her muscles flutter around me and something fierce and tender both coils inside my chest. With her, I am home.
My fingers roam her curves, tracing the long line of her side while I lean down, kissing and kneading up her thighs until her breath hitches. She claws at my hair when I draw my mouth back to her core, and I press my hand between her legs, thumbs sweeping figure-eights over her swollen clit. Every tremor she gives me cracks something open inside—makes me want to give her all I have.
She moans, arching into me, and I keep my rhythm slow, listening to the wet mewls that make my pulse pound. Then, just as she’s about to come undone beneath me, my fingers slip away. I cup her face, press my mouth to hers, tasting the salt of her skin, my cock sliding free only to rest at that tight, trembling orb of muscle. I inhale her gasp, then slip a fingertip around herpuckered ring and circle gently, coaxing her to relax. Her body fights at first, then melts, and I push in, floodgates of pleasure roaring between us.
“Fuck, baby—so fucking tight,” I grit out, hips rocking forward in tiny, agonizing increments until I’m seated all the way inside her. She’s perfect like this, every inch of her slick and welcoming. I let her adjust, breathing deep, kneading one cheek while I roll my hips forward on the downstroke and ease back.
Her low moan sets fire to my blood. “You like having me here?” I whisper, tangling my hand in her hair and giving one soft yank that sends her moaning back in my ear.
“Yes,” she breathes. “Harder, faster, anything.”
I obey. I drive deeper, harder, and her walls clamp around me, a velvet vice that makes me lose my breath. One arm hooks under her hip, lifting her slightly so I can find a rhythm that’s mine and hers. I slip my thumb to her clit again, circling, pinching, flicking, while my other hand fists in her hair or skims over her ribcage, dragging nails lightly over skin that’s mine to mark.
She melts, legs trembling, head thrown back, eyes half–lidded. Every thrust sends a pulse of warmth back into me, until my own senses blur. I feel her come apart beneath me, every shuddering wave vibrating through my cock, and I chase it, burying myself deeper, wanting to give her the release she craves as much as I crave it myself.
My pace picks up. Fingers dig into her ass, hips slamming home with a raw, desperate precision. She whimpers, and I lose it—muscles tensing so hard I swear the floor might shudder. Then I spill inside her, hot and thick, chest heaving as I ride out the last of my need. My thrusts slow, then stop, and I collapse across her back, arms folding around her.
I tuck her under my arm, forehead resting against the nape of her neck. “Sleep, sweetheart,” I whisper, fingers threadingthrough her hair, pressing my face into it. Her palm comes to my chest. In her arms, I can finally lay down every wall I ever built.
For the first time, I feel everything. With Briar, I’m unguarded and alive—and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Epilogue
Briar
two months later
Snow makes everything quieter.
Maybe that’s why I wake to the kind of hush that feels unreal, like the whole world has softened overnight. I blink up at the ceiling, warm under layers of blankets, my body tucked against a solid furnace of heat—Saxon. His arm is draped over my waist, heavy and warm, fingers locked loosely against my stomach as if even in sleep he refuses to let go.
Our first Christmas morning as a family.
A smile pulls at my lips before I’m even fully awake.
Saxon shifts behind me, burying his face into the curve of my neck with a low, sleepy groan. “No,” he mutters. “Too early.”
“It might be,” I whisper, “but someone’s going to be up any second now.”
Right on cue—a thump. Then another. Then?—
