Page 115 of Trigger Happy Ending

My palm slides over him through the soft cotton. I use enough pressure to feel the shape of him. A low breath escapes him, unsteady, and it feeds something starved inside me. His hand closes around my wrist, not to stop me but like he’s checking I actually want this.

“Raine, you don't ne—”

I keep stroking him, my voice barely a whisper. “I just want to feel something other than misery, Soren.”

He exhales shakily.

I step closer, lips brushing his jaw, my fingers tightening on him. “Make me feel something other than pain.”

I lean back and loosen my grip on the towel. It slips from my fingers and falls to the tile in a heavy heap. The air hits my skin. Soren’s eyes devour every single inch of me, like he’s memorizing every curve of my body.

I press my palm to his chest, right over his heartbeat, over part of his giant crucifix tattoo. His heartbeat thunders a solid, steady rhythm. I apply the slightest pressure, guiding him backward out of the bathroom. He walks backwards without question, without looking away from me.

We cross into my room, shadows stretching across the carpet, the quiet hum of the city outside muffled and distant. When the backs of his legs touch the edge of my bed, he stops. He slides off his sweatpants in one fluid motion and sits down, legs parted, body open to me.

I sink to my knees in front of him.

I take him in my hand first, slow, deliberate, then lean forward and glide my tongue up the length of him, tracing a hot, wet path. His muscles jump under my touch.

“Raine,” he murmurs, voice roughened at the edges.

I look up at him through my lashes. His pupils are blown wide, like he’s high. I know he’s not, but this is what we are. We’re like a fucking drug to each other.

“Stop,” he breathes. “Come here.”

I rise, a little unsteady on my feet, and he reaches for me. His hands cradle my hips, warm and steady, pulling me toward him until my knees slide onto the mattress, and I’m straddling him.

He holds me gently.

I graze my fingers down his shoulders, then link them behind his neck as I sink down onto him.

Oh.

So.

Slowly.

My breath trembles because what is this? His forehead presses to my sternum for a second, as if he needs that contact, to feel that piece of me. When I settle fully in his lap, filled and stretched and trembling, my gaze finds his.

And what I see there steals every word from my mouth.

His eyes, normally all storm and darkness, are still. Like the surface of a lake with no wind, no ripples. Just stillness. Just him.

No rage.

No violence.

This is different. This feels different.

Slowly, I start to move. Up and down, time and time again, a steady drag of friction, all the while our eyes stay fixated on each other. I don’t look away. His eyes hold me there, wide open, unguarded, letting me see everything he would normally bury beneath lust and rage and violence. Tonight I still see the usual pain buried there … But I also see restraint, ease, and something else.

Peace.

I see peace.

His hand slides up my torso, tracing the curve of my waist before cupping my breast. His thumb drags over my nipple, slow and firm, and the sound that leaves me is embarrassingly close to a whimper. We fall into an easy, perfect rhythm, bodies aligned, breaths mingling, moving together like we’ve done this a thousand times in a thousand lifetimes.

Something happens inside of me.