“You do not need to be fixed,” he says, voice low and steady. Too steady for a man wired to destroy.
Something in me cracks and I turn to him. He’s all hard edges and silent rage, the kind of danger that doesn’t warn before it strikes. But his eyes—hell—his eyes soften, just for me. A look no one else will ever get, because he doesn’thavesoftness… not unless it’s for me.
His knuckles brush my cheek. “Do you still want me, Tamsin? All of me. Even the fucked-up, violent parts?” He leans in, resting on my forehead.
“Because I can’t survive without this. Withoutyou. I’d carve the world open to keep your scent in my lungs. You belong to me, hellcat. That’s never changing.”
I wrap my arms around his waist, cheek to his chest, water threading between us. “I never wanted anyone else. You weren’t the darkness, Eiden. You were the hand that found mine and dragged me out into the light.”
His mouth crushes into mine—punishment, prayer, and warning all in one. I open for him, greedy, as he walks me back into the cold tile. One hand brackets my jaw, holding me still as if he could crawl inside and stake a claim on every breath. The other skims my belly and slides lower.
His fingers find my heat, and he groans, rough and close. “Fuck. You’re soaked. Is that for the killing or because you knew I was coming to take what’s mine?”
“You,” I breathe, and his quiet laugh vibrates through my chest.
“Damn right it’s for me.” His fingers curl inside me, slow and deep, pressing that place that makes my knees soften.
“I’ll never get tired of this,” he murmurs into my throat, each word searing into my skin. “Feeling you stretch. Take me. Owning you from the inside out.”
When he pulls his fingers away, I can’t bite back the sound. He catches my thigh and hooks it against his hip; his thick cock notches where I’m already aching, and the world narrows to just him.
“Break me,” I breathe. “Make it hurt. Make it mean something.”
His fingers tighten on my neck. “Careful what you beg for, sweetheart. I don’t break things. I fucking ruin them.”
He drives into me in one brutal, perfect thrust, and my cry ricochets off the tile—half pain, half relief—the burn giving way to a fullness that feels like fate.
He withdraws only to slam back in, harder, deeper, his palm at the back of my neck keeping me exactly where he wants me while water thunders over us. Every thrust says mine.
I take him because I want him, nails dragging down his back as he pistons into me, relentless, until he bottoms out and grinds so deep it feels like worship.
“You feel that?” he growls into my mouth. “That’s me. Filling you. Marking you. Fucking claiming you.”
I nod, choking.
He kisses me as if he’s starving; the pressure building, tight and bright, coiling into something that demands we fall together.
“I’m going to come inside you,” he snarls, lips bruising mine. “So deep it’ll take days to forget me.”
“Good,” I shiver, tightening around him. “I never want to forget you, Eiden.”
That breaks him. His rhythm stutters and his teeth sink into my shoulder. His body locks while he throbs deep inside me, and I come with him, muscles clenching, dragging him deeper, holding him there.
We stay like that, forehead to forehead, chests heaving, while the water keeps running and the steamkeeps rising. Somewhere outside, the city remembers its heartbeat.
Something ended in that cabin, and something unholy was born right here—in the heat, the blood, the silence—us.
Eiden
The kitchen smells of burned toast and coffee, warm in the morning air. Tamsin’s leaned back against the counter, one bare foot propped on the cupboard, laughing at something Beau mutters while pretending he isn’t watching the door. She looks like she belongs here, and for the first time, I admit it out loud in my own head: I used to think we were enough.
Now, I can’t imagine this life without her.
“Lucien’s dropping by,” I say, crossing to her and fitting my palms around her thighs, thumbs stroking the bare skin above the shirt hem. “I love you in my shirts, hellcat… but you’d better be wearing panties.”
She tips her head back, mouth curving in challenge. “Want to check?”
Oh fucking hell.
