She bucks up against me, desperate, and her eyes fly open.
"Tell me what you want," I growl, and it comes out harsher than I mean it, but she only bites her lip and stares me down.
"I want you inside me," she whispers.
My hand moves between her legs. I find her already wet, so fucking wet for me.
"Is that for me?" I ask softly, my mouth brushing her skin, lingering at the place where her pulse betrays her. It's racing. For me.
"Always," she whispers, swallowing hard. "It's always been you. Only you."
I still.
The words echo in my head, too big, too dangerous to touch without breaking something. I lift my head slowly and meet her gaze. Her eyes are glossy, pupils blown wide, the green around them reduced to a thin halo like the last ring of a dying star.
"What do you mean?" I ask, even as something inside me already knows. It's been ten years. Ten long, empty years. Of course, she would have… lived. Loved. Found someone else. Anyone else.
Her throat bobs again. "Carter couldn't," she says quietly. "After the accident. The paralysis."
The air leaves my lungs in a rush. A dark, visceral satisfaction flares before I can stop it, sharp, vindictive, ugly. The bastard deserved that and worse. I'd hated him for existing in her life, for taking a place that was never his. But the feeling dies as fast as it came. Because this isn't about him.
"What about others?" I need to hear it said. Need it to be real.
She shakes her head. Slowly. Absolutely. "No. Never."
Something inside me finally gives way. I rest my forehead against hers, breathing her in like oxygen, like the only thing tethering me to the ground. Ten years collapse into a single moment, everything I lost, everything I thought was taken from me, everything I told myself to survive.
Nobody.
Not ever.
Her first. Then. And now. Always.
The realization breaks through me with a force I wasn't prepared for. Not pride. Not possession. Reverence. She didn't wait because she had to. She waited because she chose me.
"I thought I'd lost you," I whisper, the confession tearing out of me before I can stop it.
She lifts her hand to my face, thumb brushing my cheek. "You never did."
That's when I understand it fully, not as power, not as ownership, but as something far more terrifying and sacred. I am not one choice among many. I amthechoice. It undoes me completely.
I ease into her slowly, watching her the whole time. Her eyes never leave my face, and when I fill her, she moans, a helpless, hungry sound that shreds my composure. It almost breaks me, how much I want her. How much I want this. I move slowly, dragging it out, letting pleasure build in long, steady increments. Every thrust is a promise: I'm not leaving, not running, not disappearing. I'm here for every second of this.
She meets me, stroke for stroke, her legs wrapping around me until we're impossible to separate, her hands fisted in the sheets, in my hair, on my back. I fuck her like I mean it. Like I need her more than air. And I do. I do.
"You're so fucking beautiful," I whisper into her mouth. "I want you to come for me, Jenna. I want to feel you come all around me. Can you do that?" My hand moves to cover the scar on her belly. "I'm going to fuck a baby into here."
She nods, frantic. Her body is wound tight, her thighs quivering, her eyes wild and begging me not to stop.
I slow myself, just for a second, pinning her with my hips and my words. "Look at me," I order. "Don't look away, not when you come."
She doesn't blink. I shift just enough to hit that perfect angle, and her body shatters. She screams—quiet, desperate—and I catch her sound with my mouth, swallowing it whole. Her pussy clenches so hard I almost lose it, and I fight to hold back, to give her every last second. When she starts to come down, I press her wrists harder into the mattress, holding her there, helpless, open, mine.
I fuck her until I can't think, until there's nothing but heat and friction and the animal satisfaction of being wanted this much. Everything else disappears. No past. No war. No ghosts. Just her. Just this. The way she feels around me drags something primal out of my chest, something I buried the night I thought I lost her.
Mine.
The word pulses through me, raw and unrelenting. I move harder, deeper, chasing it, needing it, needing her to feel exactly what this is. What we are. She's not slipping away from me again. Not this time. Never again. The thought sharpens, turns from want into something darker. Something rooted.
