But with her, there was no armor. There was only this raw, exposed nerve. To take from her now, to use this open, trusting, real woman for his own gratification, felt like the ultimate sacrilege. It would be a violation, not of her body, but of the sacred space she had just allowed him to enter. It would cheapen everything. It would prove he was the user he feared he was.
He lay there, his body a taut wire of conflicting desires, the heat of his skin warring with the ice in his veins. He could feel her gaze on him, and he waited for the question, the gentle probe, the soft reassurance that would only make him feel more like a fraud.
Instead, she shifted beside him, her movements slow and deliberate. She didn't pull away, but she didn't press closer either. She propped herself up on her elbow, her hair a dark curtain around her face, and simply looked at him. Her expression wasn't one of concern or pity, but of profound, searching empathy.
"I can feel you fighting," she said, her voice a low, steady murmur that didn't ask for an explanation. "You're scared you're going to take from me. That you'll use me."
His breath hitched. She saw it. She saw the ugly truth of the beast inside him, and she wasn't running.
She reached out, not to touch his face or his sex, but to lay her hand flat and firm over his heart, feeling its frantic, trapped beat against her palm. "But you're not asking the right question, Kelly. You're so focused on whether you can take, you're not asking if I want to give. You think you're the only one in this bed with a monster inside? You're not. Mine is the fear that I'll give everything I have to a man, and he'll take it without ever seeing the cost."
Her thumb stroked gently over his sternum. "So let's make a new rule. We don't take. We don't give. We share. This isn't you taking my body, and it's not me healing your soul. It's us, standing in the fire together. If you're going to burn, Kelly, you're not burning alone. You're taking me with you."
He lay there rigidly, but the fight wasn't just in him anymore. It was for them. “I can’t seem to stop fighting,” he admitted, his voice rough. “It’s all I know how to do. To keep everything locked down.”
“Why?” she whispered, her hand still resting over his heart, feeling its frantic rhythm.
He squeezed his eyes closed, her touch the only thing anchoring him. “Because it feels dangerous to care, to allow someone in. Just when I thought I was stable, had everything under control, I get blindsided by her omissions and lies.” He took a ragged breath, forcing the words out. “Finding out Derrick was my father tore me down. It crushed me to think that any part of my DNA came from him. He was a bastard, abusive, a drunk, with no idea of what it meant to be a fucking man.”
Her silence was full. It was a space she was holding just for him, letting him fill it with his truth. He focused on the steady weight of her hand on his arm. “My father…Edward Gatlin…was the best man I’ve ever known. My team…every one of them rival him. I might only have had him for ten years, but he made an impact on me that I will never forget.”
Her hand caressed his skin from his shoulder to his wrist, sliding over and squeezing his rounded biceps. It felt so good. He focused on it. “That night…I went someplace really dark, Blair.” He closed his eyes, and before he knew what was happening, she was slipping her arms around him and pulling him down against her, her body a warm, solid promise that she wasn't going anywhere.
“How dark?” she murmured into his hair.
His breath hitched, and he trembled in her arms. “I told you about the bar, but there was a man…there’s always one who thinks I’m a target because when you look like I do, there’s jealousy and envy. I’ve dealt with it my whole life. I wasn't myself. I was this guy who lost something foundational in the span of twenty minutes. One minute I thought I knew who I was, but in the next, it got ripped away. I was reeling, lost, and felt so alone, I just wanted to fuck someone over. I didn’t go to that bar for sex. I went for a fight. I didn’t know at the time, but I wanted conflict and aggression. He reminded me of Derrick, and I wanted to…” He choked on the word. “Eradicate him from me. Purge him. If Boomer hadn’t found me when he did. I might be charged for murder.”
He expected her to pull away, to flinch from the violence in his words. Instead, her arms tightened around him. Her words slammed into him, spoken softly, with a conviction that felt like a physical blow. “No, you would have stopped. You’re not Derrick, Kelly. You could never be him. Not this man who has been trying with everything he has to keep me safe, thinking he’s a threat to me.”
Her words were a key turning in a lock he hadn't known was there. The resistance shattered. The fear of taking, of being the beast, dissolved in the face of her absolute, unwavering faith. She was offering him comfort but also handing him his own redemption. In that moment, he knew he would do anything to deserve it.
He was achingly hard, a desperate, throbbing need that went far beyond the physical. He wanted everything she offered him, herself, first and foremost. The tenderness, the care, the kind of listening that didn't just hear his words but acknowledged the man behind them, making him feel seen and cherished in a way that was terrifying and exhilarating all at once.
He lowered his head and kissed her, a tender, deep kiss that was nothing like the one before. He gave himself over to her. The growing addiction of her taste, her scent, the soft sounds she made in the back of her throat, were overtaking him, drowning out the last of the noise in his head. His hand slid down her body, his fingers finding the slick heat between her legs. He circled her clit, feeling her hips lift into his touch. His mouth followed the path his hand had taken, lavishing attention on her breasts again, licking and sucking until her nipples were tight points and she was writhing beneath him.
He focused on her, on giving her this, on the way her breath hitched and her fingers dug into his shoulders. He worked her with his fingers and his mouth, a relentless, tender assault until she was panting his name, her body tensing for a second time. Her climax rippled through her, a beautiful, powerful wave, and as she came down, she was pulling at him, her hands tugging him.
"Please," she begged softly, her voice husky with need. "I want you deep inside me. I want you." He lifted his head, his gaze locked on hers, and the unspoken question passed between them. She answered it by reaching for him, her hand curling around the back of his neck. Her voice was low, sure. "Come inside, Kelly. Let's feel this together."
He knelt on the bed, the raw power of her simple invitation washing over him. This wasn't taking, just accepting what she was so freely offering. She rose up to meet him, her body a warm welcome, her eyes holding his as she cupped his jaw. "I've got you," she promised, her voice a balm and a challenge all at once. "Now let me have you completely."
He positioned himself at her entrance, the slick heat of her a promise against his sensitive tip. He pushed forward, and the first tight, yielding clench of her body around his cock stole the air from his lungs. It wasn't just heat. It was a grip, a possessive welcome that sent a jolt of pure electricity up his spine. A guttural groan was ripped from his chest as he sank deeper, inch by incredible inch, her body stretching to accommodate him, the friction so exquisite it bordered on pain. This was real. The frantic, detached encounters of his past dissolved into meaningless static. This was Blair, the scent of her skin in his lungs, her nails digging into his shoulders, her soft gasp in his ear as he finally, finally buried himself to the hilt.
He began to move, and something inside him broke open. It wasn't a violent fracture, but a clean, deep crack that let all the light in. He was giving himself to her in a way that felt like he was handing over his still-beating heart.
As he withdrew for the first time, a soft, desperate sound escaped her lips, and her legs tightened around him, pulling him back in as if she couldn't bear the loss of him for even a second. "Kelly," she gasped, her hands flying to his face, her thumbs stroking his jaw. "Oh, God, don’t stop."
Her words were the final blow. With each stroke, he was letting go of a piece of the man he thought he had to be, the fighter, the fortress, the lone wolf. His emotions crowded and spilled over him, a tidal wave of love and fear and a soul-deep relief. Her legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper, her heels pressing into his lower back. Her breathing was a ragged counterpoint to his own, her hands roamed his skin, her nails scraping lightly, sending shivers down his spine. She met him thrust for thrust, her hips rising to take all of him, her gaze locked on his, telling him without words that she was right there with him, shattering right alongside him.
His life wouldn't be the same. He knew it with a certainty that settled into his bones. He surrendered to his body and soul for the sake of this woman, and in her arms, he finally understood. This wasn't weakness. This was the only strength that had ever mattered.
Her bare breasts were crushed against his chest, her knees bracketing his hips, and the urge to possess her in the most elemental way possible overwhelmed him. But this wasn't about possession; it was about communion. He shifted his angle just slightly, and the change was instantaneous. Her breath hitched, her nails digging into his shoulders as he hit that spot deep inside her that made her whole body tremble.
Her body tightened, a tremor starting deep within her. "Oh god, Kelly," she gasped, her head falling back, her nails digging into his shoulders. "That's so good." He watched her face, captivated by the raw pleasure unfolding there, and drove into her again, a deliberate, powerful thrust that sent her over. She cried out, her inner muscles clenching around him in a rhythmic, pulsing grip that was his undoing.
The feeling of her coming apart around him shattered the last of his control. The careful, focused lover was gone, replaced by the primal, possessive man he'd been so terrified of. But this wasn't taking. This was a shared surrender to the storm. Tangling his fingers in her hair, he held her head and slanted his mouth across hers in a hot, deep, tongue-tangling kiss, swallowing her cries as he began to move in earnest, surging into her, again and again, tearing a moan from the back of her throat.
His strokes became faster, longer, ruthlessly demanding and a whole lot more primal. With each thrust he felt himself grow harder, thicker, until desire and need collided into white-hot heat and an all-consuming pleasure that threatened to engulf him.
