Page 133 of No Good Fight

His mouth trembles, not quite a smile and nowhere near a laugh. He lifts one hand to my cheek, thumb careful beneath the bruise of exhaustion under my eye. “I’ve loved you for so long, Alex.”

I close my eyes because I know.

I know, and I am about to use every bit of that love against him. Not because I don’t love him…but because I do.

When I pull him down to me, he comes slowly. Even his kiss is careful at first, lips brushing mine like he is afraid of hurting my throat, my head, my lungs, the pieces of me the fire left behind. I hate the care for half a second, then I break under it because this is Ryder. He does not take when I am weak. He waits until I ask. He keeps his hands open until I close mine around him and show him where I want them.

The kiss deepens when I make a soft, frustrated sound against his mouth. His hand slides into my hair, cradling the back of my head without pressure, and the restraint in him shakes so hard I feel it in his fingers. He tries to pull back when my breath catches. I follow, one hand locked in his shirt, the other at his jaw.

“I need you,” I tell him, and the words come out rough enough that his eyes flare.

“Your head.”

“My head hurts.” I push my thumb over his bottom lip and feel him go still again. “So does everything else. I still need you.”

Ryder closes his eyes for a second, whispering under his breath and I almost laugh when he leans his head back. When he opens them, it’s the darkness in him that’s staring back. Before, he might have tried to pull back, but now? Now there’s a softness in that darkness meant just for me.

He lifts me onto the bed instead of letting me climb, settling me against the pillows before following. He undresses me slowly, every movement asking even when his mouth demands my submission. He lifts the hoodie over my head with pauses for my arms. Sweats pulled down my legs with his eyes on my face the entire time. Socks tugged from my feet, one at a time, like he’s unwrapping something breakable and beloved. By the time his shirt is gone and my hands are on his bare shoulders, I am shaking for a reason that has nothing to do with smoke and everything to do with the gentle attention he’s paying my body.

Ryder notices, smirks at me and then kisses my wrist, right where the hospital strap left a faint red mark, then my palm, then the inside of my elbow where the IV tape pulled too hard. He kisses the places everything else touched me and makes them his for one breath at a time.

I tell myself this is not goodbye.

My body, heart, and mind all know I’m lying.

This is my last chance to love him, and there’s nothing I’m going to let stop me from claiming Ryder one more time.

When he settles between my thighs, he keeps most of his weight off me, one forearm braced near my head, his other hand moving carefully between us until my breath turns uneven and my nails press into his back because I want more. The ache in my head fades behind the fuller, deeper ache building under his touch. I whisper his name once, and he kisses the sound from my mouth, swallowing it like he can keep it safe there.

“Tell me if I hurt you,” he says against my lips as he lines his cock up at my entrance.

I pull him closer by the back of his neck. “You won’t.”

The first push of him inside me is mercy and torture at the same time. My eyes sting before he is fully seated, and Ryder stops immediately, every muscle in his body locked above me.

“Pain?”

I shake my head, but he waits until I can answer.

“No.” I touch his face because he needs that more than the word. “Not pain. It’s perfect, Ryder. You’re perfect.”

His forehead lowers to mine. For a long moment, neither of us moves. He’s inside me, breathing with me, holding still while my body adjusts and my chest opens around the awful, beautiful truth of us.

For one brief flicker today, I thought I had lost this. I thought smoke had stolen my forever. I thought Preston had killed me before I could say the words, and now Ryder is here, warm and shaking and mine in every way that matters.

And he knows how I feel.

When he finally moves, he does it like he’s listening to my very soul. Slow. Deep. Careful enough to make me want to cry and hard enough to make me forget I was supposed to be careful too. I cling to him because there’s nothing else I can do. My hands memorize the shift of muscle beneath his skin with every single thrust. My fingers find the damp heat at the back of his neck, and I can feel the way his control thins when I whisper that I love him again.

His rhythm breaks.

“Say it again,” he says, voice rough as he braces his forehead against mine.

I smile and even though speaking hurts, I give him everything. “I love you.”

The sound that leaves him is my undoing. He kisses me harder then, less careful for a few seconds before he remembers himself and gentles his hand at my hip while he adjusts the next thrust. I hate him for that too. I love him for it. I love him so much that the guilt waiting in my phone feels like a blade I have already pressed under his ribs.

The pleasure is pulled from me in waves instead of sparks, until my body tightens around him and my breath stumbles into a broken sound. Ryder covers my mouth with his, not to silence me, but to stay with me through the cliff I’m diving over into oblivion. He follows a minute later, his face buried against my neck, my name wrecked and soft against my skin.