Page 37 of The Ache That Stayed

Clothes fell where they fell.

I lifted her without breaking contact. She wrapped around me instinctively, arms locking around my neck, legs around my waist as though her body remembered the shape of mine before either of us had a chance to think. My fingers dug into the cheeks of her ass and squeezed.

I backed her into the wall in the hallway, kissing her before another word could be said.

The knot inside my chest loosened for the first time since I’d arrived. Her hands slid into my hair, holding me there.

“I missed you too,” she whispered.

The words should have eased something. Instead they made me kiss her harder. Deeper. Like I could make up for every empty night in a single breath.

With her between the wall and me, I buried my face against her throat, breathing her in like I’d been starved of oxygen.

One of her feet found the floor, the wall taking the rest of her weight as I crowded closer. She tilted her head back, fingers tightening in my hair.

Mine.

Not because I owned her. Because she kept choosing me. Every time.

I hooked at the back of her thigh, and thrust into her hard. She gasped—low, sharp, tightening around my cock immediately. She never hesitated with me.

Her nails dragged down my shoulders. Her mouth moved along my throat. Her body arched into mine as though proximity itself settled the restless inside her.

I buried myself deeper, holding her against me as her breath caught, her body tightening around me like it remembered every inch. Like it was always meant to be there.

My home.

“Fuck Roxy,” I murmured against her mouth. “Every day without you was torture, but your body still remembers mine.”

An involuntary growl left my throat. I held her tighter, fingers digging into her thigh.

“You feel that?” Thrust. “Feel how tight you get around me when I come home to you.” Thrust.

I twisted her nipple with one hand, and she responded with a moan, biting her lip. Her nails dug deeper, her leg locking tighter, like she was just as desperate to erase the distance between us.

“Fuck… you’re squeezing me like you’ll never let me leave?” Thrust.

She met me with the same hunger and fierce kiss that she always did. The world narrowed to heat, breath, and the sound of us finding our way back to each other.

“Oh… Marci…”

“Let go, amore.”

My hand slid to her throat, anchoring her. I tightened just enough to feel her pulse beneath my thumb. She came with such intensity, screaming my name like I had torn open heaven and dragged her through it. Her body locked around me, pulling me with her, and I followed hard enough to leave us both breathless.

I kept thrusting into her, forehead against hers, chasing the aftershocks, dragging us down from the high like I couldn’t let go.

Sex with her had never been indulgence. It was anchoring. Regulating. The only thing capable of stilling the storm inside.

She dragged me into the shower, steam fogging the glass, her fingers tracing the scars on my side and shoulder as if memorising them again.

She dropped to her knees and started stroking my cock. I was hard in an instant again.

“Amore—,” the words stuck in my throat as her thumb circled the slit, spreading precum across the swollen head of my cock.

I watched her lips wrap around me, her body kneeling in devotion, while I stood over her, shielding her from the spray, the water sliding down my back like a silver curtain, blurring the world until there was only her mouth, her hunger, and my surrender.

Her eyes locked on mine through the steam, lashes dripping, lips stretched around me. That look ruined me more than her mouth ever could. She licked from the base to the tip, flicking her tongue across the slit before taking me all in.