“Please, Rush,” she groaned as if in pain. Her lips were swollen and puffy from his kisses. He dipped his knees, holding her ass pinned to the wall still, and kissed her hard again.
“Ohh,” she gasped, her eyes squeezing shut as the flutters turned to a tight grip, and her legs locked around him so hard they shook. “I’m—I’m—oh, God!” She shrieked the last word and quivered, forcing him to hold still while she trembled on him, braced between his body and the banister.
It was the hottest goddamn moment of his life watching Lily come harder than a freight train. It sparked something primitive, something darkly possessive, in him.
He braced her tighter, holding her gaze hard. “Mine. You hear me, Lily? You’re mine—” he groaned, his own control shredding. He thrust up hard, once, twice, and came with a guttural sound while she still fluttered around him, milking every last drop from him.
She buried her head in the crook of his shoulder, taking deep breaths while they recovered. He kissed her hair, her cheek, anywhere he could reach, while her body trembled from the aftershock and his words echoed in the house.
You’re mine.
He hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Christ, he hadn’t even meant to think it.
But the words were still hanging in the air like smoke, thick and impossible to take back.
“Let me down,” she whispered eventually. She tightened her fingers around his shoulders.
Every muscle in his body went taut. Shit. Had he hurt her?
He eased out of her slowly, found the key in his pocket, and unlocked the cuffs with shaking hands. The steelclicked open, and her arms dropped down. Faint red marks ringed the delicate skin.
“Christ.” He rubbed the tender spots with his thumbs, guilt choking over him. “You—” His voice cracked. He cleared it roughly. “Okay?”
He leaned back to look at her face carefully. She was breathing shakily, but he didn’t hear the telltale wheeze in her lungs.
“God, no,” she breathed, nuzzling his jaw. She looped her freed arms around his neck. “I don’t think I can stand.”
“Stay the night,” he heard himself say. “Please.” The words seemed to shock her as much as they shocked him. They hadn’t spent the night together since the cabin, and suddenly he knew he didn’t want her to go. He wanted to sit on the couch with her under a blanket and stare at the Christmas lights she’d made him string up, and wake up with her next to him in bed on Christmas morning.
Who the fuck was he?
She blinked up at him. “Sleepover? But… it’s Christmas. Don’t you have plans with your family?”
He brushed a curl behind her ear, grazing the scattering of freckles on her cheek. “The girls are away with friends. I’m going to visit Pop in the afternoon.” His throat felt tight, but he forced it out casually. “You could come with me.”
Lily went very still, searching his face. He didn’t know what she’d find there because he wasn’t sure himself, but he sure as hell knew he didn’t want her to leave him again. He’d had a week of that fucking misery, and it was enough to let him know he wanted her with him.
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
She grinned then, and he remembered to breathe. He kissed her soft pink lips and patted her bottom. “Come on. Let’s go sit down.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Rush jerked awake,his chest heaving, fighting for air that felt like icy black water. For a second, he couldn’t draw himself free—Chloe’s screams in his ear as he carried her back, Caroline’s blue eyes locked on him as he swam away. The weight pulling him under. The choke of failure.
He forced himself to sit on the side of the bed until he stopped shaking, consciously listing his surroundings. The sheets were tangled at his waist. He was in bed. He was naked. He wasn’t in the canal. He repeated it until the tremors eased.
Beside him, Lily slept peacefully, her red hair spilling across his pillows, her freckled shoulders soft in the faint wash of moonlight. She looked like an angel, peaceful and untouched from the nightmares in him.
For a second, he let himself breathe her in. Remembered her soft sighs on the couch in the glow of the Christmas lights when he’d made her come again, the hot shower they’d taken after, the way she’d curled up next to him and fallen asleep almost immediately. He wanted to sink into her calm and let it take away the chaos.
But he wouldn’t put that on anyone. No one else deserved that weight.
Soundlessly, he slipped from the bed, pulled on a pair of gym shorts, and padded down the hall to the spare room where the heavy bag in the corner waited for him. It called to him, the only place he could pound away his rage with his fists. His failure.
He didn’t bother taping his hands. He rarely did when he woke up from the nightmare. The raw burn of his knuckles was the point. Punishment. Pain that made sense. If he was lucky, he’d hit hard enough that he’d feel empty instead of everything all at once.
