He stared at her in the mirror.Mouth open.Brow furrowed.Helpless in a way that both shamed and thrilled him.Kyla’s lashes fanned over her cheek.Her bottom lip looked bitten.
His name worked loose from her mouth, but she did not stop.She rode him steady, never faster than she willed.
He could not stop a groan raw and sharp that scraped from his lungs.The mirror wobbled, caught in her one-handed grip.The reflection blurred with every thrust.The air grew thick.Every sense narrowed to the slap of her body on his, the drag of hay on his shoulder blades, and her voice pitched low and certain.
Finally, she leaned down.The tip of one breast traced his sternum.Her mouth came inches from his.The mirror clattered onto the blanket.She braced herself with both hands flat on his chest.
“Say it,” she ordered.
Her voice came shredded.
He broke.
His hips arched up but did not dare move without leave.His mouth stayed unsteady.
“Please, Kyla.Please let me move.”
The wordpleasetasted brand new in his throat.He had never used it on anyone but her.Her gaze softened for just a second.She shook her head, barely, and kept him waiting while she owned the moment.
Titus hovered at the edge of himself, dizzy with what he had given over.Her hips lifted again then pressed hard, but he stayed under her, obedient, with nothing left of the man who had once thought control was safety.
The mirror tumbled away.
Kyla planted both palms flat against his chest and drove down hard while she rode him like she meant to mark him deep.Titus gritted his teeth and let her.He held fast, gripped by something deeper than want.
Her head tilted back.Her throat stretched.Every muscle in her body locked tight above him.The air in the loft stuttered with their movement.
He let his hands roam, first clutching her thighs then slipping up her waist, not to take control but to ground himself in the truth of her.Each slam of her hips forced him closer to the edge, but he bit it back with his body shaking from the effort.
Kyla did not bother hiding how close she was.Her cries grew sharper.Breath cut in hard gasps.Fingers dug into the cords of his chest.He let himself dissolve in her need and surrendered entirely.
The last of his pride fell away.Sweat slicked their bodies and made her grip slide.It brought a rawness to each collision of skin.
She came suddenly with a twist that left her shuddering on top of him.Inner muscles gripped him tight enough that his vision speckled black.Her voice broke loose.His name tore out and echoed up to the hayloft’s highest beams.
She looked down at him as she climaxed with hair fallen in wild twists and her eyes never so unguarded.That look stayed with him as a promise he would carry long after the air cooled.
He held her through it with hands sliding up to cradle her hips.He moved only when her body lost its strength and her sweat mixed with his across his chest.She sucked in two sharp breaths, steadied herself, then leaned down with her forehead pressed to his.She licked the sweat from his lips, messy and intimate, with nothing delicate left between them.
“Now,” she rasped.
That was all it took.
He bucked up.Control burned away in an instant.His release crashed through, rough and shaking.His hips thrust as deep as her body would take him.
The world shrank to the slide of her skin, the rasp of her breath in his ear, and the solid pressure of her body collapsed over his.He gave her everything with no defense, lost in the permission and in what she had opened between them.
They stayed locked together.His arms shook as they finally wound around her.Kyla pressed her forehead to his.Both of them breathed like they had outrun something dangerous and sweet.
Their legs tangled, hers bracketing his so casual it might have been accidental.His lips pressed to the knot of her shoulder.Kyla’s fingers hunted his and wove through them, locking tight.That small squeeze grounded him as much as breath.
They did not speak.Words were not needed.The air stayed thick with hay, sweat, and the quiet that followed.Out past the eaves, a steer bellowed at the far fenceline.A distant dog barked, barely registering.The rest belonged to them.
Titus settled and breathed in the scent rising from her neck while he memorized how she curled inward now that every barrier had slipped.No urge to move.No need to lead.His chest loosened with space enough to believe in the safety he had found in her.
Their hearts steadied together.He pressed his mouth to the top of her spine and grazed skin gone cool in the night.Kyla shifted only to drag his hand higher over the arc of her ribs and tuck herself deeper into his frame.Time ran strange here, measured by the steady drop in moonlight and the barn darkening as the world moved on outside.
Eventually, sleep claimed them, tangled in the hay and the memory of her body taking his while he gave her everything.The lantern’s wick died.He had never wanted to keep anything the way he had guarded power all his life.Tonight, he never wanted it back.
