“Ariella,” he murmured.
She arched instinctively, a soft moan slipping free wrapped around his name as he filled the space between them, slow and sure, claiming her with a reverence that made the sensation burn deeper. Maxwell groaned at the sound, his control fraying as her body welcomed him without hesitation.
He stilled for a heartbeat, as if grounding himself, then moved with her, finding a rhythm that drew breath from both of them. Ariella clung to him, nails pressing into his shoulders, every sensation heightened, every movement deliberate and consuming.
“This is mine,” he whispered against her temple. “Ye are mine.”
“Yers,” she echoed softly.
The world narrowed to heat and breath and the steady proof of him inside her, binding them together in a way neither of them could deny, no matter how hard they tried.
The rhythm they found together drove thought from his mind. The sounds she made broke something loose in his chest, something he had locked away and labeled dangerous. He moved with her, driven by instinct and need, by the way herbody responded to his, by the quiet, broken way she said his name as though it were the only one that mattered.
He lost himself.
In her warmth. In her voice. In the way she clung to him as if he were the only solid thing left in the world.
The tension that had been choking him all night shattered, replaced by a rush so complete it left him dizzy, breathless, undone.
He pinned her wrists above her head with one hand. His free hand hiked her knee high, opening her wider as he slammed into her harder. Ariella clenched around him, fluttering with building tension, and he ground against on every plunge.
Sweat beaded on her skin and Maxwell released her wrists to grip her hips firmly, thumb pressing in just enough to make her gasp, her eyes locking on his with wild abandon as she came undone beneath him, body bowing off the bed as her orgasm ripped through her, walls pulsing in rhythmic squeezes that dragged him along.
He followed with a roar, vision blurring, and breath constricted.
When it was over, when the world slowly stitched itself back together, he lay beside her, drawing her against his chest, her head tucked beneath his chin. She fit there perfectly, as if carved for the space.
His heart was still racing.
Her breath slowed first.
They lay in silence, wrapped together, the fire casting lazy shadows across the walls. For the first time since the letter arrived, his mind was quiet.
He closed his eyes.
Sleep took him hard and fast.
Morning came too soon.
Maxwell woke with a start, the weight of dread settling back into his chest before he even opened his eyes. The room was dim. The fire reduced to embers.
Ariella’s naked body lay beside him, entangled in sheets and limbs, warm and glowing in sleep, unaware of the storm gathering just beyond the walls, and the one he no longer trusted himself to contain.
Memory stirred, blurred at the edges.
He frowned.
He remembered her coming to him. Her hands on his arms. Her voice pulling him back from the edge.
He remembered the bed. The heat. The way she had held him as if he were the one who needed steadying.
The rest was a haze of sensation and relief.
He swallowed.
Something felt off. Unsteady. Like standing on ground that might shift without warning.
Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the shutters.
