My throat closed on me as I tried to breathe through the shock of his words. Of what he was teasing me with.
“I love you, Sofia,” he growled again, as if he had to imprint the concept on me.
I shook my head, nervous to believe it. Scared to get my hopes up. “You can’t…”
“Ido,” he argued hotly.
“But I’ve betrayed you and…”
He smirked, stroking his thumb over my cheek. “Betrayal or not. I love you. And you are mine.Nothingwill change that. Not anything my family says. Not your uncle and his inevitable reaction to declare war on us. I. Love. You.”
All my fears melted. They seeped out of me under his touch, with his soulful, beseeching stare, and his honest confession of love.
The terror and anger that took over me when it seemed like he’d only come to save my baby, notme, evaporated.
“But—”
His scowl returned as he leaned in. Silencing my doubts with a brutal kiss, he stood there in the water and showed me. He proved that he wouldn’t backtrack or regret his claim.
“Butnothing,” he insisted once he ripped his hot, demanding mouth from mine. Panting and breathing faster under the water, we clung to each other. “You are mine,” he promised before drugging me with another possessive kiss.
“I will beyours,” he vowed as he peeled away my soaked clothes.
I sobbed with joy as I tried to push at his gear and clothes.
“Do you understand me now?” he asked as we stripped and kissed, unable to stay apart. “No one and nothing will come between us. Not evenmeand my worst judgments.”
Naked and needy, as if his touch could cement this bond he spoke of, I whimpered with impatience.
It would take me a while to shed this instant fear and assumption of not being valued or worthy. Of assuming everyone would want to use me for something.
Yet, as he caressed his fingers over my slick entrance, I parted my legs wider. He backed me up against the wall, his muscled arm around my back to cushion me and keep me close.
“I love you,” he growled again before kissing me savagely.
Closing my eyes to the urgency of this all-consuming desire that linked us back together, I caved. I relented. I surrendered to this connection that wasn’t an illusion after all.
Helovedme. And as he fed his thick dick into me, stretching me and filling me as far as he could go, I dug my nails into the bunched muscles tensing in his back. Half of his shirt remained on, a sodden mess of fabric. Pelting drops of water hit the vest he’d dropped to the floor. His pants weren’t off, the bulges of the soaked garment between our legs as he thrust up into me and stilled.
I moaned, a muffled sound that he swallowed down without removing his lips from mine. Sandwiched between the wall and his rock-hard body, I braced myself to take it all. Aches teased at the periphery of my mind, those reminders that I’d been beaten. But it all fell away. With every steady push and pull as he fucked me against the wall, I could only focus on this.
On him.
On us.
On the temptation to fully believe him and know that I could trust his love.
In and out, he dragged his rigid shaft. Pressure mounted and built, ratcheting me closer and faster to coming on him, squeezing him and milking him dry.
I couldn’t begin to know if this felt like so much because I’d just been rescued, or if the beating I’d taken skewed my senses. Maybe it was him telling me that he loved me after I’d let it get to my head that he only wanted me for the baby. And there was a chance that it all felt more intense from my body changing as our child grew.
It was different. More powerful, but intimidating to accept.
He picked up my thighs, bracing me higher and urging me to hook my legs around his waist. Slick against him, clinging to him as he pushed me to the edge of the precipice, I sucked on his tongue and relished the burning force of this tension.
One more long, steady thrust into me, and I came loudly as I cried out, heavily as I sagged against him and embraced the delicious rub of friction of his hard chest against my sensitive breasts.
Ripping his mouth from mine and breathing harshly, he rested his brow against mine and pumped into me three more times until he came.
