He kissed me to quiet me, trying to keep me from coming undone too fast. But I could feel the tremble in his hands, the tension in his own body. He was barely holding back.
“I got you,” he breathed against my lips. “I’m right here. Just let me.”
And when he finally moved over me—flesh to flesh, heat to heat—it wasn’t just lust or history or pent-up tension. It was love. It was a reckoning. It was years of silence finally shattering.
Dare brushed the head of his dick over my hole, breath ragged, hand shaking a little as he stroked himself. His eyes never left mine.
“You sure?” he asked, one last time.
I didn’t answer with words. I reached up, curled my fingersaround the back of his neck, and pulled him down into a kiss that said everything.
That I wanted him. That I trusted him. That I’d never wanted anyone else.
Dare pushed in slowly, a groan catching in his throat like it surprised him. As if the feeling of being inside me knocked the breath from his lungs. It did the same to me. My hands dug into his shoulders. I gasped, legs trembling around his waist. He shuddered, burying his face in my neck.
“Jesus, Tru…”
It hurt, but not in a bad way. Not with the way he held me, like I was something breakable, but he was dying to touch anyway. I clung to him, panting, feeling so open it was almost unbearable.
“You’re doing so good,” he whispered. “So fucking good for me.”
The burn started slow and intense, spreading through my blood like wildfire. It was everything we never said, translated into touch.
I clung to him, and he whispered my name like a vow. He started to move, slow at first. A grind and pull that set every nerve alight. My thighs clamped tighter around him. I could feel everything—him, us, the years we lost building into this moment. Dreams becoming real.
He kissed me as if he needed it to survive, then buried himself deeper with each thrust.
“Say my name,” he panted.
“Dare—” I moaned, head tipping back.
His rhythm stuttered. “Again.”
“Dare—fuck—I’m close.”
He shifted, angling just right, and it hit something sharp and white-hot inside me. I cried out, nails dragging down his back. His fingers wrapped around my cock, stroking in time with his thrusts. It was overwhelming. I was unraveling under him.
“I’ve got you,” he said again, voice rough with emotion. “Come with me.”
I opened my eyes and looked at him, and it undid me completely. Tall and lean, muscled arms and chest, dark hair a bit too long and dipping into his eyes, and that tiny mole dotting his upper lip. Darien Carter was my wettest dream, my teenage fantasy, and he was fucking me like a God.
With a strangled moan, I fell apart in his arms, gasping his name, clinging like I’d never let go.
He thrust once, twice more, and then he was coming too, hips jerking, head pressed to my shoulder, breath caught in a broken gasp. I felt the warmth of it, the tremor in his body, the way he clutched me like he couldn't believe it was real.
Then there was only quiet, the kind that meant peace, not distance. He stayed inside me, dick pulsing, chest heaving, lips tracing my temple.
“I love you,” he whispered.
“I know,” I said. “I’ve always known.”
Sometime later, I slipped out of bed for water, the room hazy with the scent of us. The air was thick with warmth and something that felt dangerously close to hope.
Dare lay sprawled across the sheets, hair a mess, lashes brushing flushed cheeks. He looked younger. Safe. Mine.
That’s when I saw it.
The rock.
