"Connor—I can't?—"
"You can," I murmured against her hip, sucking hard enough to leave a mark.
I kept the rhythm steady until she came again—longer this time, her body lifting off the bed.
Only then did I position myself between her legs.
I lifted them, draping them over my forearms, folding her, opening her completely. The angle was deep, letting me reach places we'd only brushed before.
I thrust in slowly, watching her face, feeling her stretch around me.
"Fuck," I groaned. "You are perfect."
She moaned, her hands on my shoulders, nails digging in.
I started moving—deep, grinding thrusts that hit her front wall with every stroke. No fast pounding. Just relentless pressure, my body weight pinning her, my mouth on her neck as I claimed her.
One hand slipped between us, pressing just above where we were joined.
She came again, clenching around me, pulling me deeper.
I flipped us then—her on top, facing away. She braced her hands on my thighs, riding me slow and deep, the angle letting me hit new places.
I sat up, wrapping my arms around her from behind, one hand cupping her breast, the other splayed across her lower belly.
The sensation was overwhelming—feeling myself move inside her while holding her like this.
We moved together until we both came undone.
Spent, she collapsed back against my chest, my arms holding her tight.
I kissed her shoulder, her neck, whispering against her skin.
"Every part of you," I murmured. "Mine."
She turned her head, capturing my mouth.
"And every part of you," she replied. "Mine."
We were ruined.
And it was everything.
24
MILA
We lay tangled together in the quiet aftermath, the room still warm with the echo of us. Not the frantic heat from before, but something deeper—residual, humming, like embers banked carefully so they wouldn’t go out.
Connor’s arm was heavy across my waist, grounding. His chest rose and fell beneath my cheek, steady now, as if his body had finally decided it could rest. I traced the line of his ribs with my fingertips, slow and absent, mapping him by touch.
Neither of us spoke for a while.
It wasn’t awkward. It was full. The kind of silence that exists only when words have stopped being armor and become unnecessary. The kind that feels earned, not imposed.
I lay there with my cheek against his chest, listening to the steady, unguarded rhythm of his heart, and felt an unfamiliar calm settle into my bones.
What startled me most wasn’t how good the night before had been—though it had been devastating in a way my body was still learning to hold—but that the connection hadn’t thinned with daylight. It hadn’t faded into something softer or safer or moredistant, the way intimacy often did once the urgency passed. If anything, it had sharpened. Deepened. Like whatever we’d stepped into together had only finished introducing itself after.
