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He swallows hard, voice low and raw. “Say that again.”

A whisper, but it cuts straight through me.

Not because he didn’t hear me the first time—but because he needs to. Needs it like air. Like absolution. Like the fucking truth finally showed up and called him home.

He pulls me tighter, his hands firm but gentle on my hips, and suddenly all the weight between us—the pain, the scars, the fights we’ve fought—melts into the heat of his touch. His lips brush mine, soft but demanding, and I give in, surrendering not just to the moment, but to him.

Then, like it always does, all this tension fucking combusts. We’re a tangle of lips and teeth, hands and mouths, caught in the messy blur where one ends and the other begins—where nothing else matters but the fire raging between us.

I reach between us, wrap my hand around the thick length of him, and line him up with my soaked center. My other hand knots in his too-fucking-long, sexy hair, anchoring me to him like I’d fall apart without it.

“Breathe, Henny,” I whisper, teasing, even though I’m the one holding my breath.

Then with a slow, deliberate roll of my hips, I sink down—inch after glorious inch—until he’s fully buried inside me.

His head drops back, a groan torn from his throat, raw and guttural, and his hands tighten on my hips like he’s barely holding it together. I feel the stretch, the burn, the overwhelming fullness, but more than that—I feel him. Every inch, every inch of him claiming me like I’m something he thought he’d never get close enough to keep again.

I stay there, straddling him, holding still as he fills me to the edge of pain, the edge of something I don’t have words for. His breath is uneven against my skin, like even now—inside me—he’s still trying to hold back. Still trying to survive me.

But this moment isn’t survival. It’s ruin.

He lifts his eyes to mine, and I swear something inside him fractures. Not in fear. Not in regret. But in surrender.

“Fuck, Lou,” he whispers, voice torn and shaking. “You feel like everything I never thought I’d get back.”

I know what he means. Because he feels like war and worship inside me, and I’m too far gone to tell the difference.

I start to move—slow, grinding, aching—and every inch of him is like a confession. A reckoning. I take him deeper, and deeper still, like I’m trying to bury every word we never said. Every pain we refused to name.

When he meets me, hips rising to thrust up hard and deep, it’s not desperation anymore—it’s rage. Not at me. Not even at himself. But at how inevitable this was. At how we were always going to end up here: naked, breathless, tearing each other apart just to finally feel whole.

His grip on my hips tightens—bruising, grounding—and he’s gasping like I’ve knocked the wind out of him. Because maybe I have. Maybe we’ve done that to each other from the very start.

“Does this feel like hate to you?” he rasps.

“Not sure,” I breathe. “It’s not deep enough for me to tell yet.”

He gets it. Fuck, he gets it. Because he stops trying to love me gently, and starts loving me honestly—with every raw need, every unspoken wound. He fucks me like I’m his last prayer and final punishment.

I meet him thrust for thrust, letting it tear me open—because that’s what this has always been.

Not tenderness.

Not mercy.

A violent reckoning.

And I wouldn’t survive it for anyone else.

Once we got home, Henry didn’t say a word—just kissed my temple and disappeared down the hall to run me a hot bath. He knew I was at my edge, and in his quiet way, he was giving me a soft place to land.

Maggie met me in the living room. One look—just one—and her arms were around me, wrapping me up in the kind of hug that had the power to undo you. The kind that doesn’t ask questions, just holds you like you are already forgiven for things you haven’t said out loud.

Nothing compares to Maggie’s hugs. The boys always say she hugs you with her whole heart, and that’s why you feel so much from one. Damn, are they right. It feels like everything I’ve been holding in—the fight, the fear, the fury—starts to crack under her arms.

She pulls back slightly, her hands warm and soft as she cups my face. I meet her eyes, and that familiar ache stirs in my chest—like I’m a kid again, scraped knees and trembling lips, just needing someone to tell me I am good enough.

“Look at me,” Maggie says, pulling back just enough to cradle my face in her hands—those warm, weathered hands that still carry the faint scent of lavender and old wood, the same hands that once patched torn skin, braided messy hair, and held me through the worst storms of my life. Her palms are dry, calloused at the edges, but her touch is gentle, reverent—like she’s holding something holy.