"Don't you dare." Leviathan's voice is rough. His eyes travel over me, and what I see in them isn't disgust. It's hunger. "You're beautiful."
"I'm not?—"
"You are." He pulls me closer, his hands spanning my waist, his thumbs brushing the underside of my breasts. "Every fucking inch of you."
He lays me back on the bed, hovering over me, and for one heart-stopping moment, I flash back to Cain.
To the times he used my body without asking.
To the way I learned to go somewhere else in my head until it was over.
But this isn't Cain. This is Leviathan, and he's watching my face with an intensity that makes me feel seen in a way I never have before.
"Tell me if you want to stop," he says. "At any point. For any reason. Tell me, and I will."
"I don't want to stop."
"Ripley—"
"I don't want to stop," I repeat, pulling him down to me. "I want this. I want you."
He kisses me again, softer this time, while his hands explore my body.
Every touch is deliberate. Intentional.
Like he's memorizing me, cataloging every curve and dip and scar.
When his fingers find the bruise on my ribs—the boot-shaped mark I hid from everyone—he presses his lips to it.
Like he can kiss away the pain.
I'm shaking, but not from fear.
From want. From need. From three years of touch being only pain and finally, finally feeling something else.
He takes his time.
Drives me crazy with his hands, his mouth, his patient attention to every part of me.
And when he finally settles between my thighs, when he pushes inside me with a groan that I feel in my bones, I realize I'm crying.
Not from sadness. Not from pain.
From relief.
Because this is what it's supposed to feel like.
This connection, this intimacy, this give and take between two people who want each other.
Cain took this from me, twisted it into something ugly and terrifying, and I thought I'd never get it back.
Leviathan moves inside me, slow and deep, his forehead pressed against mine. "Okay?" he breathes.
"Yes." I wrap my arms around him, pull him closer. "God, yes."
He sets a rhythm that builds and builds, and I lose myself in it.
In him.
