"Doesn't matter. This body knows who it belongs to now."
He pounds into me, slow and brutal, each thrust punching a cry from my lungs. He kisses me then, swallowing every sound I make, his tongue as demanding as the rest of him.
I unravel. Completely.
My body stops being mine and becomes something that exists only to move with his, to arch into him, to take everything he's giving.
When the end comes, it's violent. I break apart beneath him, clinging to his shoulders, writing constellations across his skin with my nails.
Gabriel follows me seconds later. He groans, a guttural sound torn from his chest, and buries himself as deep as physically possible. He holds himself there, his body rigid, pouring himself into me.
He doesn't pull out after.
He stays there, heavy and spent, crushing me into the mattress.
"Keep it in," he commands softly, pressing a kiss to my sweaty forehead.
After a few minutes, he slides down to press a soft kiss to my stomach, then stretches out beside me. He pulls me into his side, his arm like a steel band around my waist.
I lay there for a minute, ears ringing and thighs trembling, trying to reassemble my brain.
Gabriel shifts, reaching for something on the nightstand. A moment later, a remote clicks, and the blackout curtains glide open with a soft whir.
Gray light floods the room.
I blink against the brightness, looking around.
The room is massive. Cavernous. It’s filled with dark wood furniture and minimal decor. It’s beautiful, but it’s cold. There are no personal touches that I can see.
It’s a five-star hotel room where someone happens to sleep permanently.
"Bathroom is through there," Gabriel says, sitting up and nodding toward a door on the left. He stands, completely unselfconscious about his nudity.
I tear my eyes away from his back—specifically the muscles shifting under his skin as he stretches—and scramble out of bed.
I grab the first thing I see to cover myself: a white button-down shirt hanging off the back of a chair. It swallows me whole, the hem hitting me mid-thigh.
When I come out of the bathroom ten minutes later, face washed and teeth brushed with a spare toothbrush I found in a drawer, the bed is already made.
Gabriel is gone.
I follow the smell of coffee.
I wander down the massive staircase, my bare feet padding softly on the hardwood. The silence in this house is suffocating. It feels like a mausoleum.
I find him in the kitchen.
It’s a chef’s kitchen, gleaming with stainless steel and marble surfaces that look like they’ve never seen a crumb. Gabriel is standing at the stove. He’s wearing gray sweatpants that hang low on his hips and nothing else.
"Sit," he says without turning around.
I hop onto one of the barstools at the island. "You cook?"
"I eat. Therefore, I cook." He turns, sliding a plate across the marble toward me.
I look down and freeze.
It’s an egg white omelet with spinach, feta, and sun-dried tomatoes. On the side is a small bowl of berries—no melon, because I hate melon.
