His gaze snaps to mine and stays. Dark brown, nearly black, cracked wide open.
I push my underwear aside and line him up to my entrance. I'm not fully ready, but I need this. Need to feel something that isn’t grief and guilt and the ghost of Elena’s closed door.
The sound that comes out of me when I sink down on him isn't pretty. It's sharp and full and somewhere between a gasp and a sob, my eyes stinging instantly. What the fuck? I'm not crying. I refuse to be crying right now. Except my body doesn'tgive a shit about my refusal because tears are sliding down my cheeks before I've even started to move, and it's not pain, it's just the sheer overwhelming volume offeelingafter so long of feeling nothing but terror.
I start to move, setting the pace. Slow. Rolling. Grinding down on him like I can fuck the grief out of my body. Every drag of his cock inside me sends sparks up my spine. My hands brace on his chest, nails digging in. His wrists are still pinned above his head, trembling with the effort of staying there.
His head tips back against the pillow, the long line of his throat exposed, tendons standing out. His hands are white-knuckled above his head, fingers twisted into the pillowcase so hard I can hear the fabric strain. Every muscle in him cords as he fights the instinct to take over, to flip me, and set his own rhythm.
"Violet." His hands are still above his head, twisted into the pillowcase as he warns me. A man running out of discipline.
“Don’t move. Just feel me.”
He groans, deep, guttural, the sound vibrating through his chest into mine. I ride him harder. The wet sound of us fills the room. My thighs shake. Tears slide down my cheeks and drip onto his skin. I don’t wipe them. I let them fall.
Elena is dead.
"Violet." He says my name like a thing he's trying to hold on to it. Like it's the last word he's allowed to say before whatever's barely leashed behind his ribs breaks free and makes decisions for him.
I’m here. Alive. Riding the man who tore the world apart to find me while she chose the door.
The guilt is sharp and vicious and I fuck him through it. Harder. Faster. Chasing the pressure building low in my belly because if I stop moving I’ll have to feel everything at once.
He’s trembling beneath me. Arms locked, jaw clenched, every muscle straining as he fights the instinct to flip me and take. His cock throbs inside me, thick and hot, hitting just the right spot with every roll of my hips.
I lean down and bite his shoulder, making him hiss as his hips jerk up once before he catches himself and forces them back down.
“Come on,” I whisper against his skin, voice cracking. “Feel how alive I am. Feel how much I need you right now.”
His control snaps.
Not all the way. Just enough.
His hands break free from the pillow and grip my hips, bruising, desperate, but he doesn’t flip me. He lets me set the pace while he thrusts up to meet me, deep and relentless. The slap of skin on skin is loud. Messy. My tears keep falling. His breath is ragged against my neck.
The orgasm builds like a wave I can’t outrun. It starts where we’re joined and rips outward, sharp and overwhelming, almost painful in its intensity. I come with a sob that tears out of my ruined throat, clenching around him so hard my vision blurs. He follows right after, buried deep, groaning my name as he spills inside me.
I collapse onto his chest.
He wraps both arms around me immediately, holding me so tight my ribs ache. I don’t care. I bury my face in his neck and cry. Ugly, gasping, real. Not polite tears.
I'm safe and alive and Elena is dead.
"Why did she do it?" I choke out against his skin.
His arms tighten. One hand strokes my hair, slow and steady.
“I don’t know,” he says quietly. No bullshit. No pretty lies. Just the truth.
"She was so much stronger than me," I whisper. "The things they did to her… Daily. She was strong and fierce and..."
His hand stills on my back for a second, then resumes its slow path.
"And it wasn't enough. The compound didn't kill her, but it still got her in the end."
"Violet."
"I know."
