The words rip through me.
I thrust harder, deeper, hips snapping with purpose now. “You’re going to take it all. Every fucking drop. Gonna keep you stuffed until it takes. Until you’re carrying my baby. Our baby. Right here.” I slide one hand between us, palm flat low on her belly. “Gonna mark you from the inside out.”
She cries out, back arching, nails raking down my back. Her walls clamp down hard, pulsing, milking me as she shatters around my cock. The sight of her—head thrown back, lips parted, trembling—nearly undoes me.
I grit my teeth. Hold on. Keep thrusting through her orgasm, deep and steady, drawing it out until she is whimpering, oversensitive, still clenching like she can’t help it.
Only then do I let go.
One final, brutal thrust. A groan tears from my chest as I bury myself to the hilt and come—hard, hot, spilling deep inside her in thick pulses while my arms shake and my vision blurs. I grind against her, forcing every last drop as far as it will go, claiming her in the most primal way I know how.
I collapse half on top of her—careful not to crush her—forehead pressed to her shoulder, breathing like I have run the whole damn mountain.
We stay locked together. Hearts slamming against each other. Skin slick. Breathing ragged. I don’t pull out. I can’t yet. I need to feel her around me a little longer. Need the proof she’s still here, still mine, still full of me.
After a minute I lift my head. I kiss her temple. Her cheek. The corner of her mouth—soft, lazy, tasting salt and relief. “I love you,” I whisper. The words come out raw, almost painful. Like saying them too loud might break the spell.
She turns her face into my neck. Inhales. Holds me tighter. “I love you too,” she breathes. “So much it scares me.”
That confession cracks something open in my chest. I kiss her properly then—slow, deep, pouring everything I don’t know how to say into the slide of my tongue against hers.
When we part, I roll us so she is tucked against my side. I pull the quilt higher. I lace our fingers together under the covers.
We lie quiet for a long stretch. Just listening to the drip of meltwater outside. The occasional creak of the cabin settling. The soft rasp of her breathing against my collarbone.
I break the silence first. “I meant what I said this morning. About marrying you soon.”
She smiles against my skin—I feel the curve of it. “I know.”
“No courthouse,” I continue. “No strangers. No paperwork that feels like a transaction. Here. On the porch. Fire going. Maybe Silas if he’ll officiate with a straight face. Whiskey after. Vows we write ourselves. Just us.”
Her heart gives a quick, hard thud against my ribs. “I want that,” she whispers. “I want to stand on our porch and promise you everything. The good mornings. The bad ones. The days I cry over things I can’t fix. The nights I steal all the blankets. All of it.”
I press my lips to her forehead. Hold them there. “Then that’s what we’ll do. Soon as the roads are clear enough to get a ring up here.”
She laughs—soft, surprised, the sound vibrating through me. “You’re serious.”
“Dead serious.”
She lifts her head, and looks at me with those hazel eyes that hooked me from the first second they met mine in a blizzard.
“I’ve never wanted anything more,” I tell her. Quiet. Honest. “Not the solitude I used to think was enough. Not the quiet. Not even this mountain. Just you. Wearing my ring. Taking my name if you want it. Building whatever comes next. Right here.”
Tears shimmer in her eyes—not grief. Something brighter. Hotter. “I want your name,” she says. “Sabrina Ironwood. It sounds like someone who belongs here.”
My throat closes.
I roll us again so she straddles me. My hands settle on her hips—warm, possessive. “Show me,” I say. Voice rough. “Show me how much you’re mine.”
She leans down, and kisses me slowly. Deep. Then rises up on her knees, guides me back inside her with a soft moan that shoots straight to my spine.
This time she sets the pace.
Slow rolls of her hips. Grinding down until I groan. Rising until I am almost out, then sinking again—teasing, deliberate, making me feel every slick inch.
My hands roam—breasts, waist, ass—gripping, kneading, urging her faster.
She braces her hands on my chest. Rides me harder. Faster.
