Every thrust is a jolt. He hits deep, his cock spearing me again and again. My moans spill free, no filter left, each one louder than the last. I can’t hold them back even if I wanted to. Dripping down my thighs, clenching around his cock so tight he grunts with every drive, he encourages me with a constant stream of dirt, growling how wet I am, how tight, how I was made to ride him like this. His hands bear down harder with each pump. Arching into it, my palms clutch the sheets, forehead pressed to the bed.
Fucking me right to the edge, pace brutal and relentless, his breathing shreds. Listening to him murmur my name like a sweet curse, my legs shake, muscles burning. Reaching back blindly to grab his wrist, my fingernails bite his skin, needing something to cling to. He fills me deeper, harder, my body clamping down, white heat flashing behind my eyelids. I’m drowning in the stretch, in the fullness, in the slick slide of him pounding into me.
“Octavia-” he gasps, voice wrecked.
“Silas, don’t stop,” I choke out. “Please. Please.” My own words sound broken, pleading. He groans so low it vibrates through my spine.
He slams in once, twice, three times with the kind of force that makes the bed slam against the wall. Then I feel it, the sharp, hot flood of him throbbing inside me as he cums, deep and hard. Cursing, his voice is raw, hands clamping my hips to hold me still while he empties every fierce pulse of his release into me. The sensation knocks the breath out of me. Warmth pools inside, my body clutching him, milking each twitch.Moaning into my shoulder, he rides it out until the last wave breaks and subsides, leaving both of us panting and shaking.
Staying buried, cock still thick and pulsing, hands gentler now as he rubs my hips with slow circles, our breaths synchronize in the hush that follows. The room smells like sweat and sex, heat hanging heavy in the air. I’m shaking apart in his grasp and he isn’t letting go.
Pulling out slowly, his cock slides free with a sticky sound that leaves me empty and trembling. Warmth spills down my thighs immediately, his cum leaking out in thick, lazy drips. Catching my breath, I climb atop him before the aftershocks fade. He’s sprawled back against the headboard, chest heaving, arms outstretched like he’s still trying to hold me even without touching.
I crawl up his body reverently, sweeping my mouth across every scar etched into him. Each faded line. Each bruised shadow. Each pink ridge beneath his ribs. Tracing them with my tongue, leaving soft kisses in their wake, he exhales sharply when I press my lips against the jagged scar over his heart. His hand comes up to cup the back of my head, fingers threading through my hair as if he needs the contact to stay grounded.
My lips move higher, kissing the hollow of his throat, before moving to the edge of his jaw. I hover over his mouth for a moment, drinking in the sight of him wrecked and beautiful, then seal our lips together in a gentle, lingering kiss that tastes like pure ecstasy. Groaning into it, his hands slide up my spine.
When I break the kiss, my mouth stays near his ear. “I love you,” I whisper, voice rough.
His eyes widen. “I love you,” he answers, no hesitation, no fear, just truth. Pressing his lips to my forehead, he holds them there, breathing me in while my whole body shakes.
Tangled in blood-streaked sheets, he drags them up with steady, careful hands, tucking them around me even thoughthey’re torn and ruined. Legs trembling uncontrollably, heart pounding so hard I feel it against his chest, I nuzzle closer, resting my head where I can hear his. The war outside the room fades. All that remains is the relentless beat of his heart under my ear and the warm press of his arms caging me in.
Threading his fingers through mine, lifting our joined hands to his mouth, one by one he kisses each fingertip, each touch feeling like a vow. Using his other hand to trace idle patterns along my spine, he soothes my frayed nerves. Every trail of his fingers settles me deeper into him, my eyes sliding shut with ease. Tucking my face beneath his chin, my mouth curves into a quiet, exhausted smile. Wrapped in his arms, soaked in everything we’ve survived, I feel his heart beating steady under my cheek, letting myself believe in that rhythm, in him, in us.
His breathing slows beneath my ear as dawn begins to blue the curtains, my mind consumed with nothing but him. In the quiet hush between heartbeats, one fact remains.
No matter what ghosts come knocking, we’ll meet them with our fingers laced and our scars shining.
CHAPTER 27
Octavia
“When did you get this?”
Silas’s voice is low when he asks it, roughened by everything we just did and everything neither of us has fully come down from yet. He finishes another bottle of water as he speaks, the plastic crackling softly in his hand before he drops it on the counter beside the first. Somewhere behind us, the dryer rumbles on, my sheets tumbling inside with slow, heavy thuds, cleaning evidence that feels far too intimate to reduce to laundry.
Sitting on the kitchen counter in his shirt and fuzzy pajama pants, my bare feet brush the cabinet doors every now and then when my legs tremble too hard to keep still. My whole body still feels unsteady in the aftermath of him. My skin is oversensitive. My mouth still remembers his. My heartbeat still hasn’t decided whether it’s calming down or simply learning to live at this pace now that I know what it feels like to be loved and wrecked by the same pair of hands.
His thumb moves absently against my thigh while he studies my phone.
That gentle little motion undoes me almost more than everything upstairs did.
Because only an hour ago, those same hands had me shaking apart beneath him. Those same fingers had traced me like I was not something damaged and survived, but something precious and wanted. Afterward, I laid on his chest for what felt like forever, listening to his heart knock steadily beneath my ear while his hand moved through my hair with a tenderness so patient it made me ache in places that had nothing to do with my body.
There was no lying to him after that.
No shrinking the truth down into something manageable.
When he finally asked what was on my phone, what had me so pale before everything between us broke open, I couldn’t make myself feed him some smaller version of it. Not after the way we had just given everything else to each other.
So now we’re here.
Him half-dressed in a hoodie he threw on to cover the scratches and bite marks I left all over his torso. Me in his clothes, smelling like him, wearing concealer over the bruises on my neck like that somehow makes them less real. The kitchen light is too bright for how raw I still feel, but I don’t move away from him. I lean into his shoulder instead, because that seems to be what my body does now whenever it’s given the chance.
He has my phone in one hand, his eyes narrowed at the screen.
I can’t stop looking at the marks I left on him.
