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I can’t breathe. I wrap my legs tight around his hips and he drives deeper, the pressure almost too much, almost not enough, like he’s trying to fuck the loneliness clean out of me.

The pace is hectic at first, all urgent need, every motion scraping me raw and right, and then he slows, holding himself inside me like an anchor. His hands frame my face. He tilts my chin up, makes me meet his gaze.

“Still sure?” he asks, in a wrecked whisper, every syllable vibrating through my bones.

I don’t bother answering.

I kiss him, devour him, pull his bottom lip between my teeth as I flex my hips and force him to move. It’s not graceful. There's no choreography.

He fucks me like I’m the last thing tethering him to gravity, a beautiful, reckless spiral. I break open under him, every nerve electric, every moan too loud for the sleeping child upstairs. I bite my lip to keep quiet, but it doesn’t work.

Ashby’s hand slides under my head, cradling me as he drives deeper, harder, hitting my sweet spot over and over.

My nails dig into his shoulders as the pressure builds, a storm gathering at my core. The glorious pressure is almost too much to handle all at once…

When it finally breaks, it’s not silent.

An involuntary sob rips out of me, and Ashby doesn’t flinch. He welcomes it, wraps his arms around me and pulls me up so I’m half in his lap, half folded into him.

He fucks me through the aftershocks, holding my body tight and flush to his chest, like he’s trying to protect me from my own need. I can’t see straight. Tears are still leaking down my face, and I don’t know anymore if they’re from sadness or from the impossible relief of being wanted.

He comes with a shudder that rocks us both, the sound he makes pure and desperate, and I grip onto him while he rides it out. My legs don’t want to let go. It would be a betrayal to let go, at least before I’m ready.

We collapse on the couch, a mess of limbs and sweat and ragged breathing. My mind is a shattered mess. The kind of glorious mess that can’t be organized, alphabetized, or made bulletproof by a spreadsheet.

I can still feel his heartbeat, a mad staccato where my face is smooshed into his shoulder, and for a minute this… the satisfying heat and heaviness of him draped over me… is enough to put every other thought on mute.

Which is for the best. Because right now, I don’t want to think of anything else.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Torin

Rain drifts against the diner windows in thin silver threads, turning the neon OPEN sign into a red blur across the glass.

Fern’s is warm in the way old places earn honestly, through years of coffee steam trapped in wallpaper and bacon grease living permanently inside the vents. The stools squeak whenever someone shifts their weight, and the pie case hums louder than necessary while an old radio mutters classic rock through static somewhere behind the counter.

Fern herself moves through the room, a woman born with a spatula in her hand and no patience for hesitation when it comes to food.

“Baby, if you keep glaring at that sketchbook, it’s gonna start charging you rent,” she says as she tops off my coffee without asking.

“I’m thinking.”

“Is that dangerous this early?”

“Depends who you ask.”

“Mm. That means yes.”

She wanders off before I can respond, calling some trucker sweetheart while threatening to smack his hand with a spoon if he steals bacon off another plate again.

Saint snorts from across the booth. “She talks to everybody like she raised them herself.”

“She practically did,” I mutter.

Outside, his tow truck sits angled under the streetlight, all black metal and rainwater sheen.

Saint is the kind of man who belongs behind the wheel of a heavy vehicle. Broad shouldered and heavily tattooed, impossible to miss. I sketch another line through the page. Blackwork roses this time, tangled into antlers and smoke. Half-formed ideas. Things waiting for bodies to belong to.