“Are you okay?” Bastian asked and I could only nod.
I was more than okay. I was the most okay I had ever been in my entire life.
All because of him.
Because of this glorious, amazing feeling he had unleashed inside of me.
Because of the thousand ways he had changed me. Changed my life.
Even if it terrified me. Even if I had no idea what came next.
I knew that the person I was becoming was so muchmorethan the person I had been.
“I don’t want to hurt you. Are you in pain?” His brow furrowed, his eyes worried.
I pulled his face down to mine. I kissed him, not so gently. “It hurts. But it will hurt more if you stop.”
He reached between us to touch me. I moaned loudly.
“Is that better?” he murmured, sucking on my earlobe.
“Yes,” I breathed. “Keep doing that.”
He grinned against my skin and did as he was told.
When he started to move, I found that my body answered in kind. His fingers did magical things. And while it still pinched and pulled, the discomfort was secondary to this other thing happening inside me.
As if ruled by instinct, I began to move with him. I rode the wave. Cresting high before crashing.
Through it all, Bastian was gentle. Tender. He held me close. He kissed me as if I were the most important thing in his entire world. And I felt how much he loved me. It bled out of him, coating every part of me.
The pain didn’t matter. Nothing did.
Only this man. This moment. This new life.
“I love you.”
He whispered it over and over again.
“I love you.”
I opened my mouth.
The words never came.
He took my silence. Never demanding. Never wanting more. He took what I offered, knowing that for now, that’s all he could have.
It was the most I had ever given to another person.
Was it enough?
He ran his fingers along the rigid scar on my wrist. He lifted my arm, kissing it. Accepting it. Accepting me.
When it was over, we lay wrapped around each other, my ear against his wild, beating heart.
He kissed the top of my head, his hand stroking the sensitive skin of my lower back. Neither of us spoke.
I knew that this feeling of contentedness couldn’t last.
