When it’s over, she lies back against the tile, chest heaving. I don’t give her time to recover. I pull her up and down into the water, turn her so she’s facing the city, her legs splayed over my legs, her hands braced on my thighs, and I push into her from behind, burying myself to the root.
She cries out, and the sound shreds whatever leash I had left. I fuck her slow at first, hands gripping her waist, fingers bruising the flesh. The water laps at us, cool on our skin, hot where we’re joined.
She grinds down against me, matching my rhythm, head thrown back, hair dark and wet. I grab a fistful, yank it so her head tilts up.
“Look,” I growl, and she does. “See the world down there? Not a single one of them will ever hurt you again. Now come for me.”
I reach around, find her clit, and rub it hard and fast. She’s hypersensitive, twitching, gasping, almost sobbing. I want her to remember this forever, want it to overwrite every bad thing that ever happened.
She comes again, screaming my name, nails digging into my thighs. I fuck her through it, chasing my own release, hips snapping, breath gone ragged. When I come, I bite her shoulder, hard enough to leave a mark.
I don’t pull out. I hold her there, both of us shaking, her body twitching around me. Her head falls back on my shoulder and her chest heaves before slowly regaining it’s pace.
We float, tethered to each other, breathing each other in.
She turns to face me, arms around my neck, legs around my waist. Her eyes are glazed, but she’s smiling. I kiss her, slow this time, lips gentle on her swollen mouth.
She sighs, melts against me, and I crab walk to the stairs. We sit together on the bottom step, water up to our chests, her head on my shoulder.
She whispers, “Will it ever go away?”
I know what she means. The nightmares. The hunger. The ache that nothing else touches.
I squeeze her tight. “No. But we can live with it. Rewrite it. Make new memories to replace the old.”
She laughs, “Well, I’d say this is a good start.”
We stay there until the moon is high, until the water cools, until our skin wrinkles and we can barely move.
I carry her inside, wrap her in a towel, and lay her on the bed. I watch her sleep, every so often tracing the bruises already blooming on her hips, the bite on her shoulder, the nail indents on my thighs.
We belong to each other now, in the most primitive, permanent sense.
There’s only two things left to do:
Change her last name.
And make her the mother of my children.
Chapter 19: Amara
Morningcomestoofast.For a moment I am blank. No dreams, no voice in my ear, just the irritating scratch of light on my eyelids and the impossible quiet that settles in the bones of a place like this.
The sheets are too soft, the pillows too high, and I stretch out in the endless white of the king bed, every muscle sore and humming. I remember last night in splinters—wet skin, the bite of teeth at my neck, the way his hands forced me to the edge of the world and held me there until I screamed.
This morning, my body is alien to me. My chest is tight, but not with fear. There’s space in it now, a new kind of freedom that isnothing like the emptiness I grew up with. It is a need to fill and be filled—by sensation, by voice, byhim.
The city is a wall of glass and chrome, spread out below the windows. The traffic is distant and the skyline is hungover. I want to soak in this moment until it burns the memory of Westpoint from the root of my brain.
Somewhere down the hall, I hear him.
Not his footsteps—the floors are too plush, the doors too heavy—but his voice, deep and raspy and definitely doing things to my lady bits.
"Yes, two bottles of the Dom, not the vintage, the newer label. Pastries—everything you have that comes out of a real oven. No, I don't care what kind. Eggs benedict, extra hollandaise. If you have caviar, I want two tins. No, make it three, and plenty of toast points. Just keep sending up fresh coffee. No sugar. If you bring sugar, I'll throw it out the window."
Silence, then a pause. "And strawberries. Not the underripe, tasteless kind. If they're underripe, I will find out where you live. Thank you."
The call ends with a click. I smile, and it cracks something open in me.
