"You." The word breaks. "I need you."
He stands abruptly, leaving me teetering on the edge. I whimper at the loss. But then he's turning me around, pressing my palms flat against the tree trunk.
"Don't move." His voice is rough. Commanding. "Keep your hands right there."
I hear his zipper. Feel him behind me, hard and ready. His hand slides up my spine, into my hair, gripping just hard enough to send pleasure-pain shooting through me.
"Last chance to stop this." He positions himself at my entrance. "Once I'm inside you, I won't be gentle."
"I don't want gentle." I push back against him. "I want you to make me feel something other than this emptiness."
He enters me in one brutal thrust that steals my breath. I cry out, the sound swallowed by the evening air.
"Fuck." His hand tightens in my hair. "You feel—"
He doesn't finish. Just pulls back and drives into me again. Setting a punishing rhythm that has me seeing stars.
This isn't making love. This is fury and grief being channeled into something physical. Something we can control.
His free arm wraps around my waist, holding me steady as he takes me. Each thrust drives me harder against the tree. The bark scrapes my palms but I don't care. Can't care about anything except the feeling of him inside me. He’s the only man I’ve ever been with. The only man I will ever want.
And thatkillsme.
"Is this what you wanted?" His voice is ragged. "Is this what you missed?"
"Yes." I'm crying again, but I don't know if it's from pleasure or pain or the sheer relief of having him back. "God, yes."
He releases my hair to grip my hips with both hands. The new angle lets him go deeper, hitting spots that make me moan.
"You're mine." The words come out possessive. Absolute. "No matter who you marry, no matter what happens, you're mine."
"I'm yours." The admission costs me everything. "I've always been yours."
He makes a sound like I've wounded him. His rhythm falters, becomes less controlled. More desperate.
His hand slides down my belly with his strong fingers reaching out to find my clit, circling with perfect pressure. Pressure builds low in my belly.
"Come for me." It's not a request. "Let me feel it."
The orgasm hits like lightning. I cry out his name as my body clenches around him. He follows seconds later, his own release hot inside me as he buries himself deep.
We stay frozen like that—him buried inside me, both of us breathing hard, our bodies trembling from the intensity.
Slowly, he withdraws.
He turns me around gently, his hands steadying me when my legs threaten to give out. His expression is complicated—satisfaction and regret and something that might be tenderness.
"Kira—"
"Don't." I put my fingers over his lips. "Don't ruin this with words. Not yet."
He kisses my fingers instead. Then my palm. Then pulls me against his chest, holding me with tenderness instead of someone he wants to destroy.
My hand drops to his bare chest. His scars are everywhere—raised lines across his chest, his ribs, his back. A roadmap of torture written on skin I used to know by heart. I trace them with shaking fingers, each one a reminder of what he endured. What he thinks I caused.
The guilt threatens to choke me.
"Don't." He catches my hand. "Don't look at them like that."
