“Sunshine,” he murmured into my hair, his voice low enough to vibrate down my spine. “You’re wrung out. You don’t have to pretend you’re okay.”
“I know,” I whispered. And I did. With him, I always did.
His hand spread over my stomach, thumb stroking slow, familiar circles. The same touch that had soothed me through panic before, the same one that had pulled soft sounds from my throat in much quieter nights. My body leaned into it before my mind even caught up. Not fear. Not trauma. Need. Real, warm, selfish need. I turned in his arms. Eric watched me with that fierce, devoted intensity that never failed to light something inside me. The night was quiet but I felt held and wanted.
His knuckles skimmed my cheek. “Talk to me.”
“I don’t want to think anymore,” I breathed. “I don’t want to replay the cabin or the footsteps or…” My voice faltered, then steadied. “I want something good. Something that’s ours.”
His jaw flexed. Not with restraint, with understanding.
I slid my hands up his chest, feeling the familiar heat beneath the cotton of his shirt, the rise and fall of his breathing. His heart thudded hard against my palm.
“I need you. All of you,” I whispered.
Eric inhaled sharply, his eyes darkening in a way I knew intimately.
“Then come here,” he said, voice roughened, tender and hungry in the same breath. I curled into him, my mouth brushing his in a kiss that wasn’t cautious or questioning, it was claiming. Ours. A return to something real and alive after hours of fear. The storm could do its worst. Ravenhill could watch the shadows all he wanted. Tonight, here in this room, I was choosing Eric, not fear.
CHAPTER 52
Harmony
Eric’s mouth brushed mine once, soft, testing, like he wanted to make sure I was still choosing this. Choosing him. I was. I always would. Before he could pull back, I slid my hand into his hair and kissed him harder, heat rising beneath my skin like a tide finally breaking free. His answering growl vibrated against my lips, and then his arms were around me, lifting, drawing me into his body like he’d been starving for this too. Wind rattled the windows. His heartbeat drowned out the rest of the world.
“Sunshine…” he murmured against my mouth, his breath warm, uneven, “tell me you’re sure.”
“I need you,” I whispered. “I need to feel you.”
His eyes darkened in a way that sent a shiver straight down my spine. Like he saw the part of me I hid from everyone else and wanted it despite the cracks, but because of them. He kissed me again, slower this time, deeper, his fingers gliding under the hem of his sweatshirt I still wore. His touch was familiar, confident, mapping every inch of me like he remembered exactly what made my breath catch. It wasn’t new. But it felt different tonight. More intense. More necessary. More ours.
He eased the sweatshirt upward, pausing just long enough for me to nod. When it cleared my head, his gaze swept over me, hungry and reverent at once.
“Beautiful,” he murmured.
My chest tightened. He meant it. He always meant it. I tugged him closer, hands sliding beneath his shirt, fingers tracing the lines of muscle across his stomach. His breath stuttered, and pride bloomed warm and fierce in my chest.
I did that.
Even after everything that happened, I could still do that to him. Eric lowered me back against the pillows, bracing himself over me, his weight sinking into the mattress in a way that made me feel sheltered instead of trapped. His lips found the curve of my jaw, the hollow beneath my ear, the places he knew unraveled me the fastest.
My body arched into him instinctively, a soft sound escaping me before I could bite it back. His mouth curved against my skin. “There she is.”
Heat pooled low in my stomach. His hands slid down my waist, slow, sure, familiar. He knew exactly how much pressure made me gasp, exactly where to touch to replace fear with fire. When his fingers traced the inside of my thigh, my breath hitched and my nails curled into his shoulders.
“Eric…”
“I’ve got you,” he whispered, voice rough with want.
Even when the world chased me, even when old ghosts crawled out of the shadows, even when I had no idea who was hunting me…He held me like I wasn’t breakable. Like I was his choice, not his burden. His mouth returned to mine, hungry now, his body pressing fully into mine until the last pieces of fear melted under the heat between us. Clothes fell away. Skin met skin. The warmth of him seeped into every part of me that had gone cold on that ridge.
When he finally moved inside me, a soft cry escaped, pleasure, release, relief, all tangled into one overwhelming rush.
He stilled, forehead against mine. “Okay?”
I cupped his face, pulling him deeper. “More than okay.”
His breath left him in a groan, and then he kissed me slow at first, then building into something fierce and consuming. His movements matched mine, our bodies finding the rhythm they always found, the one that felt like breathing. Like coming home.
