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“Shh. That’s it. Just the tip. You’re doing perfect. Breathe.” I rock the smallest amount deeper, then deeper still, talking the whole way. “So tight. Fuck, you feel like heaven. My virgin. All mine now. Keep breathing—yes—just like that.”
When I’m fully seated, I hold still, kissing her open mouth, giving her time. Her nails dig into my shoulders. She’s so tight around me, I can feel every flutter of her body trying to adjust—hot, slick, perfect. I look down between us, and the sight nearly does me in—the stretch of her around the base of my cock, the way her soft thighs frame my hips, the faint tremble still running through her from the orgasm I already gave her.
“Talk to me.”
“Full,” she whispers. “So full. Don’t stop.”
“Not stopping.”
I start to move—slow, deep strokes that drag every nerve ending. Each time I pull back, I feel her clutch at me, reluctant to let go. Each time I push in, she makes a small, broken sound that goes straight to my spine.
“Feel how wet you got for me,” I say. “Feel how perfectly you take my cock. This is what you were armored against, isn’t it? This real thing. And you went for it anyway. My brave girl.”
She moans louder with every thrust, the sound rising and falling with the rhythm I set. I hook one of her knees higher against my hip and drive a little harder, still careful, still watching her face. Her eyes are half-lidded, mouth open, cheeks flushed under the soot I left on her. I slide one hand between us and find her clit with two fingers, circling it in tight, steady strokes timed to every deep push of my cock.
“That’s it—take it. Listen to how wet you are. Listen to the sound of me fucking you.” The wet slap of our bodies fills the quiet corner of the shop. “You’re going to come on my cock next. I can feel it starting already—feel how you tighten every time I rub right here.” I press a little firmer on her clit, and she cries out, hips jerking up to meet me. “That’s my girl. You’re going to come while I’m buried inside you, and I’m going to feel every second of it.”
“Please—please—oh Tanner—”
“I’ve got you. Look at me.” I keep the circles on her clit relentless as I fill her over and over again. “Come for me again. Right now. Squeeze me while you do it. Let me feel my girl fall apart.”
She breaks with a long, broken cry, back arching hard off the cushions, clenching so tight around me, I see stars. The sounds push me to the edge—the wet slap of our bodies, my own rough praise pouring out. I last only a few more deep thrusts before I follow her over, burying myself to the hilt and spilling inside her with a groan that feels torn from the center of my chest.
I stay there, braced over her, both of us shaking, breathing hard. I kiss her temple, her cheek, the corner of her mouth still marked with my soot.
“My girl,” I murmur against her skin. “You did so fucking well. I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere.”
After, she’s tucked into my side, one leg thrown over mine, her ear over my heartbeat and her fingers moving slowly through the soot still on my forearm like she’s not ready to wash the night off either. I have one hand in her hair. I haven’t stopped touching her since. I don’t plan to start.
The shop’s gone quiet around us—that deep quiet that only comes at the far end of a night. Up front, past the shelves, the window’s still holding its square of dark.
We don’t rush to fill it. She talks into my chest—how she took the horror section over at nineteen, how she’s never once brought a man back through these shelves. I give her some of mine back. The hours thin out around us. We drift, quiet, her breath going slow and even against my side, and I lie there wide awake and let the whole night pool around us, in no hurry for any of it to end.
I could stay in this exact spot the rest of my life. That’s the thought that arrives, plain and total, in a man who’s spent four years certain he wasn’t made for staying. It doesn’t scare me at all. That’s how I know it’s true.
Then I feel her go still against me.
Not sleep-still. The other kind. Her fingers quit moving on my arm. Her breath, so easy a minute ago, pulls in and holds a beat too long before it lets go. I’ve spent a career reading the second a calm thing changes, and I feel this one shift under my hand.
I look toward the front of the shop. The window’s not black anymore. The bottom edge of it has gone the faintest gray—the first thin sign of morning coming up over a town that spent the night scared and came through fine.
Dawn. And somewhere in her, quiet as a fuse, the fear she can’t shelve has found a new place to catch.
“Hey,” I say, low, into her hair. “Where’d you go?”
She doesn’t answer.
5
AUDRIANA
Isurface slowly, warm and heavy against him, my ear over his heartbeat, and for one blurred second I forget to be afraid.
His arm lies heavy across me. His breath moves somewhere above my head. The soot he left on my skin has dried tight, and I can feel every place he touched—a low ache I’ve never had before and already know I’ll miss. My whole body’s gone loose and warm and unguarded.
It’s the best I’ve ever felt. That’s the alarm, right there. The feeling itself.
Then I see the window.
