I saw the real thing.
His touch felt like a prayer.
That was the only way I could describe it. The way his hands moved over me—slow, deliberate, worshipful. Not like he was claiming me. Like he was discovering something he didn’t know he needed until now.
He took his time, brushing the backs of his fingers down the line of my throat, along the curve of my shoulder, across the dip of my waist. He mapped every inch like it mattered—like I mattered. Every brush of skin against skin made it harder to breathe, but I didn’t want air. I just wanted him.
Kieren leaned in, his mouth grazing my collarbone, and I felt it all the way down to my toes. His breath warmed the path he kissed, and I arched beneath him, helpless to the shiver that rolled through me.
“You’re trembling,” he murmured.
“So are you.”
And he was—barely, but I felt it. In the way his hands paused, the way his chest rose and fell a little too fast. He wasn’t pretending. He wasn’t just trying to impress me or win me. He was here, fully and completely, and somehow, that made everything feel ten times hotter.
His hands slid down, fingers tracing my ribs like he was listening for a heartbeat in every one. When he found the place just above my hip, he stilled.
“You don’t know what you’re doing to me,” he said, voice thick and low.
“I think I do,” I whispered, guiding his hand a little lower.
His eyes darkened. Not with lust, but with something far more dangerous—need.
He kissed me again—deeper this time, slower, but no less intense. And as our mouths moved together, his hands explored me like he was trying to remember this. Like he didn’t want to forget a single inch.
I was drowning in him—in the heat of his skin, in the soft scrape of stubble against my cheek, in the sound he made when I tangled my fingers in his hair and pulled just enough to drive him a little wild.
He murmured my name like it meant something more now. Like I meant something more.
And the way he looked at me—God, I’d never been looked at like that. Not like a trophy. Not like a fantasy.
Like I was real.
My breath hitched when he kissed the inside of my wrist. When he pressed his palm flat against my stomach and looked at me like he was asking permission every step of the way—even when I was already arching into him, already whispering yes in a voice I barely recognized as my own.
He took his time. Not just because he could, but because he wanted to. Because touching me like this wasn’t just physical—it was something sacred to him.
And maybe it was sacred to me too.
Because in that moment, I didn’t feel broken or forgotten or like someone trying too hard to prove her worth.
I just felt wanted. Cherished. Like I was the only thing that mattered.
And God help me—he was the only thing I wanted.
I didn’t know it could feel like this.
His weight above me, his breath fanning across my cheek, the way his forehead rested against mine like he couldn’t bear to be apart—not even for a second.
It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t reckless. It was reverent. And when he finally moved with me, inside me, it felt like something shifted in the air. Like we crossed some invisible line we could never come back from.
But I didn’t want to go back.
His eyes locked on mine as he slid into me, and I swear, the world fell quiet. Everything outside this room—outside this moment—ceased to matter. It was just us. The rise and fall of our breath. The tension coiled tight between us. The way his mouth brushed mine like a question before deepening into something desperate, something full of need.
Kieren touched me like he was terrified I might disappear. Like if he wasn’t careful, I’d vanish beneath him and this would all be a dream. But I was here. Flesh and bone. Heart and hunger.
And I wanted this as much as he did.
