He shifts his weight, his lips finding my temple. He looks past me, at our two reflections ghosting against the endless city lights—one pale and shattered, the other dark and victorious.
Forty One
Kinsley
The world comes back in pieces.
The feeling of the cold, unyielding glass against my back and the slick heat of our joined bodies. My legs, still wrapped around his waist, tremble with a profound, cellular exhaustion. I am a marionette whose strings have been cut, held up only by the sheer, unyielding strength of the man buried deep inside me.
He doesn’t pull out. He stays, holding me, letting the last of my tremors subside. His forehead is pressed against mine, his eyesclosed. The predatory fire is gone, banked into a low, satisfied glow. The hunter is at rest.
With a final, deep breath he pulls back, a slow, deliberate withdrawal that makes my empty womb ache. The sense of loss is immediate and profound. He unwraps my legs from his waist and, with an effortless grace, lifts me into his arms.
I am limp, my head lolling against his shoulder. He carries me away from the window, away from the glittering, indifferent city. He lays me down on the cool, dark sheets of the enormous bed. I lie there, a tangled mess of limbs, watching him through heavy-lidded eyes. He stands over the bed, a dark, powerful silhouette against the firelight, just looking down at me.
“Perfect,” he whispers, the word a soft, reverent sigh. “Even more perfect like this.”
He moves to the en-suite bathroom, and I hear the sound of running water. I don’t move. My body is a foreign country, conquered and claimed. A strange sense of peace settles over me; a terrifying, absolute calm. The storm inside my head, the one that has raged for my entire life, is finally quiet.
He returns with a warm, damp cloth in his hand and sits on the edge of the bed.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, his voice soft, almost a caress. He gently wipes the sweat from my brow, his touch impossibly tender. “So beautifully undone for me.”
He continues his slow, methodical work, cleaning the tear tracks from my cheeks and the smudged makeup beneath my eyes. His movements are proprietary, like a curator tending to a priceless, newly acquired artifact.
“Is the storm quiet now, Kinsley?” he asks, his voice a low rumble. He doesn’t wait for an answer as he carefully cleans the slickness of our joining from my inner thighs. “I told you I would be your peace.”
When he’s done, he tosses the cloth aside. He pulls the heavy duvet up, cocooning me in warmth and the scent of him. My eyes feel heavy, the pull of sleep a powerful, irresistible tide.
“Where did you go?” I whisper, the words raspy. I felt myself shatter, my mind dissolving into pure sensation.
He leans over me, his face close to mine. “I didn’t go anywhere,” he murmurs, his thumb stroking my cheek. “I was just finally putting all your broken pieces back together. My way.”
He stands and walks to the small table where he had placed the locket. He picks it up, the platinum glinting in the firelight as he comes back to the bed and sits beside me again.
“I took this off so I could have you,” he says softly, his voice a low, intimate confession. He gently lifts my head, and I feel the cool, familiar weight of the chain as he fastens the clasp, and the platinum square settles into the hollow of my throat. “I’m putting it back on so I can keep you.”
He leans down, his lips brushing my ear. “Let it remind you, even in your dreams, who you belong to. Let it remind you how good it feels to be mine.”
The exhaustion is absolute. As my eyes drift shut, the last thing I am aware of is the heavy, cold weight of the locket against my skin; a permanent brand, a beautiful, inescapable anchor.
“Sleep, my beautiful storm,” he says, his voice a low, possessive rumble in the dark. “I’ll be here.”
Forty Two
Kinsley
Iwake up to color.
Not the flat, lifeless grey of a world I no longer belong to but a soft, warm gold. Morning light streams through the colossal windows, catching dust motes that dance like tiny, glittering diamonds in the air. The sheets pooled around me are a deep, rich charcoal, and the skin of the man whose arms are wrapped securely around me is a warm, living bronze.
I am held.
For the first time in my life, I feel utterly and completely safe. His arm is a heavy, possessive weight around my waist, his body a solid wall of heat at my back. His breathing is a slow, steady rhythm against my hair. I slept through the night, a deep, dreamless sleep anchored by his presence. The storm that has raged inside my head for as long as I can remember is… quiet. There is no static, no chaos, just a profound and unnerving calm.
Is this what he meant, when he said, “If you have chaos going on in your mind, then I need to be your peace”?
My fingers drift to my throat, finding the cool, heavy weight of the platinum locket. It doesn't feel like a collar this morning. It feels like a promise. A brand of belonging. I turn slowly, carefully in his arms to face him. His eyes are closed, his dark lashes stark against his skin. In sleep, the hard, predatory lines of his face are softened. He looks younger, almost peaceful.
