I pause, just listening to the sound of our mingled breaths.
When I move again, deeper this time, she clings to me as if she doesn’t know where she ends and I begin.
I push the hair off her cheeks, feathering kisses over her face. “You’re doing so good, taking me so well, baby girl.”
Baby girl. Those three syllables shift something in her face, eyes melting, breath coming faster. I press into her again, pull back. Easing her through every inch of it.
“Yes, fuck, fuck, fuck,” I whisper, looking away when I’m fully seated. She pulses around me, swollen and hungry. Ready to unravel me, one thread at a time.
I don’t move, enjoying the top of the precipice. The moment before we freefall together. Then, my fingers catch in her hair,eyes locking as I move slow and insistent. Her legs tighten at my waist, ankles locked above my ass.
There’s nothing in the cabin. No sound, no distraction, just the sound of our bodies crashing into each other… until she breaks around me, screaming and clawing my back.
I thrust once more, eyes closing, body surrendering. I fill her in hot waves.
“Sloane.” It’s a prayer. That’s the only way I can describe it, voice breaking at the end.
Because losing her now would carve me open in ways I couldn’t survive twice.
Tears streak down her pink cheeks, chin trembling, breath still coming too fast. “Rhys,” she whispers, pressing kisses along my neck. Over the scar like she thinks touch alone can undo years of damage.
I move her to the cot, and we lie down, tangled up in each other. Nothing will ever be the same.
My fingers comb through her burnished gold hair, falling all over again. Because this I don’t dig my way out of. This I don’t come back from.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
SLOANE
His hand rests against my face, warm and careful, as if he expects me to disappear if he lets go.
The hearth crackles, cabin cozy, as heat gathers everywhere he touches.
Neither of us speaks because we don’t need to. Too much has already been said, too much survived saying.
Rhys’s thumb brushes lightly over my cheekbone, his work-hardened skin rough against mine. His eyes search my face with an intensity that feels nearly unbearable because I understand where it comes from now.
Not obsession or possession. Fear. Like wanting something this badly already feels dangerous to him.
The cot creaks softly beneath us. Somewhere farther down the mountain, water rushes through swollen streams left behind by the storm.
Everything feels quieter now. Sharper too. The world has narrowed to this one impossible moment between us.
“You should hate me,” he says again. The words come lower this time. Roughened by exhaustion and grief.
I hold his gaze steadily. “I don’t know what I feel.”
Honesty. Nothing else left now but honesty.
“But it’s not that.”
His eyes darken slightly at the words. Uncertainty is the only truthful thing either of us has left.
Heat moves low through me as his fingers slide slowly into my hair near the base of my neck—so careful, restrained. Every movement asks permission he doesn’t know how to voice.
Rhys exhales slowly through his nose, face inching toward mine before stopping. Close enough to feel his breath… to remember every moment that brought us here.
