“It’s real, Ty,” she breathes. “I’ve always been yours.”
RENA
Ty still has me pressed against the wall, his face nestled in my hair, uneven breaths tumbling over my skin. And his cock buried so deep inside me that I’m convinced it’s spearing my spleen.
I’ve heard you don’t really need that organ, so we’re good.
That was a freaking moment.
Fervor and vulnerability dancing a volatile rumba.
He was cradling me like fine china while simultaneously shattering me to pieces.
Soul-searing slivers. Jagged and scathing, but so sharp that they sliced clean through, carving into the essence of everything I am.
Every time he touches me, he etches himself deeper, bores into my marrow more than I imagined was possible. But this was a detonation that blasted me to another realm.
Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually.
I will worship at the altar of Ty motherfucking Reynolds. Inpart because he is so damn talented. And that was a whole lot of extra.
But mostly because he’s an idyllic blend of rough and tender. Punishing and compassionate.
And his heart …
His heart is big, but so broken. And although I told him I can’t be his healing, I yearn to escort it.
Ty needs to be loved so relentlessly that all the demons inside him cower and scurry for the hills. Love is healing, triumphant, and the one thing wickedness can’t steal. No boundary or bondage or persecution can prevent a heart from loving another. It’s the paragon of freedom.
And what Ty doesn’t see is that at the root of his shame isn’t an evil act of not protecting his sisters. It’s that little-boy desire to be a good man; he believes he massacred it one choice at a time. When, in fact, he’s the victim of the massacre. He made an honorable move as a kid that a deranged monster annihilated, robbing him of everything he held dear, including his self-worth. But I can’t tell him that. Using the wordvictimwould surely send him reeling.
So, I’ll show him. And I’ll stay. Because I’m in love with this man. Not that I’d divulge that.
Cash has been drilling it into me since my preteen years that I should never tell a man I love him first. He claims it’s too risky because men are preconditioned to chase, so it’s vital that they set the pace in said pursuit and determine when the prey has been caught. I’m not sure that applies here since I fucked up that hunting theory when I told Ty that I’d wanted him for years, and he already hitched us for life, but it’s ingrained in me either way.
I do think Ty might be in love with me—another reason I won’t be leaving—which is mind-boggling after my years of unrequited pining.
I’m still not sure how we got here. To this intense connection, passion, predicament. I prefer not to focus on the latter.
The predicament—my brothers, this bizarre KORTorganization that apparently owns all of us, and the fact that I’m not who I thought I was, in name anyway—is all so much.
I’d like to pretend none of that is happening and just bask in the sweltering beauty of my husband, who is filling my spleen with every drop of his cum.
“Not enough,” he rasps. “More.”
That arrives more like caveman mutterings than logical sentences. For a second, I consider grunting in response. Maybe we’re doing a thing.
The untamed meshing of soul and spirit is only enhanced when his lips collide with mine. It’s a kiss far more feral than he’s lavished upon me before.
Wild and possessive.
Tongue and teeth and panting breaths.
Carnal and crazed.
My nails scrape along his taut back muscles, scoring the skin in my own act of branding. That only enlivens him more. He groans into my mouth, swallowing my moans in return.
“Mine. All mine,” he rasps, pulling back so his golden-brown embers dance over my face with unabashed devotion to the cadence of an ’80s love song that happens to be another one of my favorites—every song so far has been. It seems he has a Rena playlist.
