And I was open, because no one alive today knew what Cain Bishop had meant to me. He was the first sign of hope I’d ever had. The first time I’d ever let myself really open up to another person.
And now I was doing it again.
There was no turning back. I was lost in the moment, swept up in a reeling picture of who I used to be and a future I could never dream of again. It was at my feet in ashes, burned to the ground by Phoenix’s confession, ready to be born as somethingnew.
“Phoenix.” I moaned his name when he came to the topof the scar and finished his soft trail of claiming with a slow swipe of his tongue. Just like every other mark on my body, that scar belonged to him now. He owned me—all of me.
He didn’t try to stop me when I rolled over so I could look at him—I needed the anchor of his eyes before I completely flew apart.
Words burned unbidden at the back of my tongue. I was so full of thoughts and feelings that I couldn’t understand. No, I understood them, I just didn’t want them. I couldn’t have them with him. I couldn’t have themagain,even though they were already blossoming in my chest whether I wanted them to or not.I couldn’t fight it anymore.
With a low groan, I moved, pressing my hands to his chest.
I think I was trying to push him away.
Instead, he rolled onto his back and pulled me atop him until I straddled his hips… I only realized then that he’d worked his way out of his clothes while he’d had me on my stomach, and I’d been too caught up in his tender kisses and my own pain to realize he was bare beneath me. Open.Soft.
His hands rose, and he laced his fingers behind his head. Phoenix’s eyes told me the words that I think his lips couldn’t say.
Your move. Your control. Go on, Aubrey. Take what you need.
I needed to run.
Phoenix still looked so vulnerable beneath me.
I shifted my hips instead, only moving off him long enough to rifle in his pants and find the bottle of oil. My eyes slipped shut, and my fingers were shaking so hard that I barelymanaged to pull the cap open to slick them. I didn’t know what I was doing—I didn’t knowwhyI was doing this. We were both so raw, and maybe that was all it was. I couldn’t imagine turning away from him after he’d laid himself so bare to me, and I honestly didn’t know if I could live with the broken edges of everything that I was exposed to the air outside this room.
I needed Phoenix to make me feel whole.
My fingers slid between my legs, and I worked myself open in sharp, quick thrusts that left my body clenching and my thighs shaking around his hips. It was easy enough to upend the bottle and slick his cock after I was done, smoothing the oil along his hard length and drawing a soft sound of pleasure from his lips.
Even then, he didn’t try to take control. He just looked up at me with patient eyes, as though he had all the time in the world to let me do what I needed, to let me find the little pieces of me that were broken in the feel of his body.
My oil-slicked fingers stroked the ridges of his abdomen, slipped up his chest. They found those scars on his throat again. Phoenix’s eyes fluttered shut at the softness of my touch. He was so… open.
So trusting.
I let out another small sound as I shifted to reposition myself until I felt the head of his cock pressing against my ass. I teetered there on the edge, my thighs burning and my hips tense. I didn’t know what I wanted, but when Phoenix’s eyes opened and he fixed me with that soft, steady gaze, my body seemed to take over. I sank down on him and felt him split me open one slow inch at a time, watching in fascinationas his pupils dilated and his breath caught in his chest on a moan.
He looked up at me like he was seeing the entire world above him—the universe, the stars… and I felt my heart catch in my throat.
This was different.
This was another side of Phoenix that I hadn’t seen before. He didn’t move until I moved—I rose slowly and dropped down to take him inside me, one burning inch at a time. It drew another shuddery breath from my chest, a soft exhalation that broke me apart.
“Phoenix. Look at you.”
At the sound of his name on my lips, he let out a low moan. His hands behind his head clenched and unclenched, tugging at his hair in time with the way I started to move on top of him. Still, he watched me with soft, aching patience that felt so foreign in the wake of who he’d been before—it was thatwhat-ifcome to life in a way I hadn’t seen, that I couldn’t have known. In a way that had all the power to remake me into my ownwhat-if.
I whimpered and fell forward, my slick fingers trailing up his chest so I could use it for leverage, drinking down the feel of his heart thundering beneath them.
His hands tugged in his hair again, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Touch me. Please… I… fuck, Phoenix. Please?”
Fingers moved instantly, greedy where they found my hips, gripping me hard enough I knew it was going to leave bruises. It was the only proof of how hard this was on him—how hard it was for him to let someone else take the reins.
I…
