She nods quickly, desperate, nails digging into my shoulders. “Yes. Please.”
That’s all I need.
I slam into her, hard enough the counter shakes under us. She cries out, her body clenching around me like a vice, pullingme deeper until I’m buried to the hilt. My forehead drops to hers, sweat mixing with the heat pouring off her.
“Fuck, little star,” I growl, holding still for half a beat, savoring the way she feels, the way she owns me without even realizing it. Then I pull back and drive into her again, harder, rougher, setting a brutal pace that has her clawing at me, moaning against my neck.
Her ass bounces against the granite with every thrust, the obscene sound of our bodies colliding filling the kitchen. I grab her wrists, pinning them above her head with one hand while the other squeezes her throat, not cutting off her air but making sure she knows she’s mine.
“Say it,” I snarl against her lips, pounding into her so hard her heels scrape against the counter. “Say you’re mine.”
Her voice breaks on a moan, raw and pleading. “I’m yours, Colter. Yours.”
That admission nearly undoes me. I thrust harder, faster, until she’s writhing, until her back arches and she shatters around me, her pussy spasming in tight, wet pulses that drag me right to the edge.
I can’t hold it back and I don’t want to. With a guttural curse, I spill into her, grinding deep, marking her, owning her the only way I know how.
For a long moment, the only sound is our ragged breathing, the faint creak of the counter beneath us. I loosen my grip on her wrists, my hand smoothing down her arm before cupping her jaw again, softer this time.
She blinks up at me, flushed and trembling, lips swollen from my kiss. And fuck if I don’t feel it in my chest—this sharp, aching need to keep her like this, keep her mine.
“You’ll never doubt me again,” I rasp, brushing my mouth over hers. “Not about Melanie. Not about anyone. There’s only you, Peyton.”
Her chest heaves against mine, skin damp, trembling from the aftershocks still rolling through her. My cock twitches inside her, buried deep, refusing to let her go. I don’t pull out. I don’t move. I hold her there, stretched around me, filled with me, every inch of her claimed.
Her lips part like she wants to speak, but I silence it with another thrust—slow, deliberate, enough to make her whimper. My teeth scrape her jaw as I growl low in her ear, “Don’t ever question who you belong to again.”
The counter beneath her is a mess, her thighs slick, her dress somewhere on the floor. I don’t give a fuck. Let the whole world see her wrecked like this if it meant they knew the truth. She’s mine, ruined for anyone else.
I stay inside her, locked there, my hand still tight around her throat, thumb pressed under her jaw so she can’t look anywhere but at me. Her eyes, glazed and hazy, meet mine.
And I smirk, dark and satisfied, because I know she feels the raw, dangerous finality of this moment.
There’s no going back.
29
The smoke isthick enough to sting my eyes, curling in lazy spirals toward the yellowed ceiling. Mom is perched on the edge of the couch, a cigarette burning down between her fingers, forgotten, the ash long and trembling. Her pupils are blown wide, her leg jittering so fast the whole coffee table shakes.
“They set me up,” she hisses, more to herself than to me. Her voice is jagged, ragged, the kind that makes my stomach twist before I even understand what she’s saying. “They knew exactly what they were doing. All of them. Smiling in my face, pretending they loved me, and the whole time they wanted nothing more than more power.”
Her hand flails out like she’s batting away invisible enemies, and the cigarette ash scatters across the carpet. My throat tightens, but I don’t move. I’ve learned better than that.
“You don’t know, Peyton,” she snaps suddenly, eyes locking on me with a sharpness that makes me flinch. “You don’t know what they’ve done to me. What they took from me. They ruined everything. Every-fucking-thing!”
She throws her head back, a harsh laugh scraping through her chest, and for a second, she looks less like my mother andmore like some wild-eyed stranger. My fingers dig into the threadbare blanket bunched in my lap, nails biting my palms to keep me grounded.
Then her gaze narrows, sharp as broken glass, and I feel the shift like a storm changing direction.
“This is your fault,” she spits. “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be stuck here. I wouldn’t be drowning in this mess. I never should’ve had you.”
The words hit harder than any slap, sinking into me like claws. My chest burns, and my vision blurs, but I don’t cry. I don’t dare. Crying only feeds the fire.
“I should’ve walked away when I had the chance,” she mutters, shaking her head, muttering now more to the shadows than me. “Should’ve left you in the hospital, let someone else deal with you.”
I bite down so hard on my lip that I taste copper, but it’s the only way to keep from begging her to stop.
Because some part of me already believes her.
