She cries out—loud, unguarded—my name a broken mantra on her lips as she clenches around me, pulsing, milking.
The sensation of her coming apart on me—around me—pulls the ground out from under my feet.
I let go.
Pleasure slams through me like lightning.
I thrust once more, deep as I can, and spill inside her with a hoarse, helpless groan, shuddering, every muscle going taut then slack.
For a long moment, we just… shake together.
Her arms collapse; she falls forward, forehead bumping mine, breath hot against my mouth.
My heart hammers against her chest where we press together.
“Okay?” I manage, voice shredded.
She laughs—a wet, shaky sound that makes my eyes sting.
“Okay,” she breathes. “More than okay. That was… that was… I need new words.”
“Good,” I murmur. “I will hear them later. When my brain works again.”
She snorts softly against my jaw.
We stay like this for a while—joined, breathing, the tremors easing.
Eventually, I roll us gently onto our sides without leaving her body, keeping us as close as humanly possible. She makes a sleepy, satisfied noise and hooks her leg over my hip, anchoring me in place.
My hand finds the back of her head, fingers threading into her hair. I press my forehead to hers again, soft this time, a slow, lingering touch.
“Te amo,” I murmur.
Her eyes blink open, heavy with afterglow.
“What?” she asks.
“In your words,” I say, voice thick, “I love you.”
For a heartbeat, she can’t move. Then, the smile that blooms across her face is slow and bright and a little disbelieving, like sunrise over ruins.
“I love you too,” she says, for the fourth time today, and somehow it still feels like the first.
I kiss her.
Not with heat. Not this time.
With gratitude. With awe. And with the calm inevitability of a man who has finally, finally found a place to set down his sword.
Outside, the sanctuary settles into night.
Inside, in this small cabin, there is no arena. No crowd. No committee.
Only us.
We’re stepping fully out of the stories that owned us—Rome, academic systems, the Jester, the good girl—and choosing something else.
Choosing each other.
