Pressed foreheads, swallowed moans, soft promises.
He eases me through the pain, coaxing it into pleasure.
I unravel in his arms, a shuddering pool of electric nerves.
My husband is gentle and kind and sweet.
All the things he swore he wouldn’t be.
The first time.
I’ve barely caught my breath, skin still tingling with pleasure, when he flips me onto my stomach and then, Tides, does heruinme.
Rough hands twisting in my hair, yanking my head back.
A rumblingyou’re mine, only mine, all fucking mine.
Sharp bites on my earlobe, purpling bruises sucked into my skin.
Demanding fingers on my hips, pulling me back harder against him.Say my name. Say my fucking name, growled into my flesh over and over again until I forget my own. The imprint of his large hand might be permanently tattooed around my throat.
Take it.Take everything I give you.
He reduces me to a mewling, whimpering,achingmess.
And still, I’m not ruined enough.
I beg for mercy, but it never comes. Just like he promised.
Icome, though. Again and again and again.
He wrings another earth-shaking scream from me, until I’m writhing on the bed, scrambling away, but he drags me back,spreading me open before him like a feast until I lose all sense of myself.
With tears on my cheeks and his name on my lips, he makes me shatter for what must be the sixth time. I’m limp on the damp mattress, still quivering from aftershocks as he kisses his way up my body, then gathers me into his strong arms.
A contented hum escapes my swollen lips, and I nestle deeper into him. “I love you,” I mumble against his chest, only half coherent. “You’ve thoroughly ruined me.”
A deep masculine chuckle vibrates beneath my cheek, his fingers tracing long, firm lines against my side.
My body stills.
A horrifying, breath-stopping, blood-freezing thought crosses my mind. What if this washisgoodbye?
“Zev,” I whisper, all vestiges of sleep chased away by panicked terror. “You’ll—you’ll stay, right?”
His silence nearly undoes me.
“Say something.”
He doesn’t.
Instead, he rises from the bed and rifles in his satchel.
“Zev?” My voice cracks like a thin sheet of ice.
Thank the Tides he returns to bed and draws me back into his arms.
A relieved breath sags through me as I melt into him.
