“Shh,” he cooed. The boy who begged had been replaced by the man who took.
His palm found the small of my back and held me there. Not cruelly, just enough. His hand skimmed down, gripped my hips, and angled me just right.
“I let you have your fun,” he said softly, almost kindly. “Now it’s my turn.”
Heat crawled across my skin.
“Thought you were cute, huh?” he crooned behind me. “Mocking me, soaking the fuck out of me...”
Crack.
The sound of his palm hitting my ass was sharp in the quiet room. The sting was immediate and electric, a bloom of heat that made me moan before I could bite it back.
“You won’t be laughing in a second.”
I tried to turn my head to watch him as he slid his dick behind my slick folds. I could feel his cum dripping down my thighs, and he was still hard. I bet he was biting his swollen bottom lip, but he pressed harder, keeping me still.
“You like to smirk while I fall apart,” he whispered, his mouth brushing my ear. “Then I want to see what you look like when I fuck you without mercy.”
He slammed his dick into me. The force drove the breath from my lungs, my body arching instinctively to meet him. If I wasn’t so wet, he probably would have ripped something. But just like that, the world narrowed to his hands, his voice, and his heat.
He didn't give me a second to find my rhythm; he just began to move—hard, deep, and relentless—reminding me who was in control and exactly where I belonged.
Underneath him. With him. Forever.
Chapter 30
Julian
Twenty minutes later…
The sweat was still cooling on our skin, the room heavy with the scent of sex and her perfume. Her head was on my chest, her hair spilling across my ribs, her breathing just beginning to slow. This was the peace I’d bleed for her to have.
I traced the line of her spine. “The divorce will be final in thirty days,” I said into the quiet. “Maybe less.”
She hummed, a contented sound that vibrated against me. “I know. I’m happy.”
That should have been enough. But a question remained...what happened next?
My hand stilled on her back. “So. When do you want to get married?”
The rhythm of her breathing hitched. She lifted her head, propping her chin on my sternum to look at me. In the dim light, her eyes were wide. “What?”
“Married,” I repeated, as if it were the most obvious equation in the world. She was leaving him. Solution: she belonged to me. Publicly. Legally. Completely. “The second the judge signs, we file. We can do it quietly or make a spectacle—my mother will want the latter. You don’t have to stop working. You can stand at my mother’s side and run Esmé. I’ll be a goddamn househusband if that’s what you need. Just say the word. Give me the date.”
I was babbling. I knew it. She sighed, and the sound made my heart feel funny.
“Julian… it’s… it’s too soon. I haven’t even… I need to breathe.”
“Breathe?” The word felt like a slap. I sat up, facing her. “You’ve been holding your breath for nineteen years. I’m offering you oxygen. Pure, clean air. With me.”
“I know what you’re offering,” she said, her voice gentle. Too gentle. It was the voice you used to calm a wild animal. “And it’s everything. That’s why it shouldn’t be a reaction. It should be its own choice. On its own time.”
“Its own time.” I let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “Elara. Look at us. In this bed.” I grabbed her hand, pressing it flat over the frantic beat of my heart. “I have waited for three years to love you in the open.”
My brain was screaming for me to shut up. I was doing exactly what had been done to her so many times—using guilt—but my emotions were a tsunami, breaking past the levee of my control. I kept remembering the night she told me it was over. She had been so resolute, so cold.What happened if she left again?
My vision blurred. I turned my face away, clenching my jaw against the heat in my eyes.
