"I need to know so I can take it back. Every place he put his hands, I'm going to put mine instead. Every place he made you feel used or broken…I'm going to make it mine. Until your skin forgets he ever existed."
I'm worried about how I'm going to react—how my words willaffect him. But I told him I trust him, so I take a deep breath and let go.
"My throat." The words scrape out. "When he's angry, he squeezes until I can't breathe. Until I stop fighting."
His nostrils flare, but his hands stay soft.
He leans in and presses his lips to my throat. Just rests there, breathing me in.
Then his mouth moves slowly up the column of my neck, his teeth finding the spot just below my jaw, hidden by my hair.
He bites down.
The sting blooms into something warmer, spreading through my chest.
"Mine now," he murmurs against the mark he's made, his tongue soothing the tender skin.
"Where else?"
"My wrists." I don't look at the faint scars—at the evidence of being pinned, of fighting back, of eventually going limp because it was easier than struggling.
He takes my bound hands and presses his lips to the inside of my wrist, right where my pulse hammers.
"Mine." He moves to the other. "These are yours to give. Because you choose to surrender."
I'm crying openly now, silent tears streaming as he reclaims me piece by piece.
"Where else, baby?"
"My hips." When Ewan would force himself on me, he'd grip so hard his fingerprints would bruise my skin by morning. I used to count them in the mirror after—like if I knew exactly how many, I could control something.
Tristan sinks to his knees.
The sight of him there, replacing the horror with devotion, undoes me completely.
A kiss pressed into bone. Then another mark, deliberate and claimed.
"Mine."
He moves to the other side. Kiss. Mark. Soothe.
"Every time you feel these tomorrow—walking through his house, sitting at his table, pretending to be his wife—you'll know the truth. You'll feel me there. Even when I'm not beside you."
He looks up at me, eyes blazing.
"Where else?"
I open my thighs for him.
He follows the same pattern—careful, intentional.
"I'm written into your skin," he murmurs against my inner thigh. "Hiding where only you can feel me."
He starts to rise, trailing his mouth up my stomach, between my breasts, along my collarbone, leaving a constellation of marks as he goes—small bites in hidden places, secret signatures mapping his journey across my body.
By the time he reaches my face, I'm covered in him.
"One more."
