My hands are steady on his belt. Unbutton. Unzip. Free him, and when I wrap my fingers around him the groan that tears outof his throat is animal. His hips jerk, his eyes squeeze shut, and he nearly comes from just my hand.
"Not yet." I tighten my grip. "You don't come until I say so."
Up on my knees, underwear shoved aside, and before he can prepare, before he can do anything but gasp, I sink down onto him in one brutal stroke.
The stretch burns. I'm so wet it doesn't matter, and the fullness of him bottoming out punches the air from my lungs. My thighs clench around his hips and I can't breathe, can't think, can only feel him thick and deep inside me while my body clenches tight around him like it's afraid he'll disappear.
He whimpers.
I did that.
"Kuso—Angelina—"
His hands fly off the mattress, grab my hips, and I let him. I need the pressure of those bandaged fingers digging into my skin. The gauze is rough against my hip and I want it. Want the texture, the reminder that I wrapped those knuckles with care and now they're gripping me hard enough to leave marks.
I start to move. Slow. Torturously slow. Rising until I feel every inch of him dragging out of me, then sinking back down until he's so deep my breath shudders. The friction is devastating. Every slow roll of my hips sends heat flooding through my belly, and I want to go faster, want to chase it, but I don't. I set the pace. I decide.
A sound grinds out of him, low and desperate. "Angelina—"
This is mine.The thought hits like a fist.He is mine. This is mine. I take what I want.
For three years, I lay still. Made myself small. Made myself quiet. Counted ceiling tiles and waited for it to be over, because fighting made it worse and crying made it longer and the only way to survive was to not be in my body at all.
Every nerve ending is lit now. Every inch of skin where his hands grip, where his hips press, where he fills me. Not enduring. Not surviving.Taking.I'm taking them back. All three years, all eight years after. Every night I lay in the dark and felt nothing. Every time I convinced myselfIwas broken.
I ride him harder and he lets me, his hands flexing on my hips, trying to match my rhythm. I keep changing it. Shallow and fast until my breath comes in gasps, then deep and grinding until we both groan.
"Kuso—" The word hisses through his teeth when I grind hard.
His bandaged fingers dig into my skin and I look down at the white gauze on my hips, the split knuckles underneath, and heat floods low in my belly. His grip tightens, fingers pressing bruises into my skin like he'll fly apart if he lets go, and the tremor running through his arms tells me he's close. I'm not done with him yet.
"You walked out that door tonight." I'm panting, but my eyes don't leave his. "Killed for me. Came back covered in his blood." I grind down hard and his mouth falls open. "Now I take what's mine."
"Yours." The word is barely a breath. "Yours."
I find my clit. Circle while I ride him, chasing what I need because I'm done waiting for anyone else to give it to me.
My rhythm stutters and my thighs start to tremble. The pressure builds fast, coiling tight low in my belly, and I'm clenching around him with every stroke. His eyes are locked on my face, I should look away, I always looked away, but I don't.
I watch him watch me fall apart. My fingers move faster, my hips lose their rhythm, and everything is narrowing to where he's inside me and where my hand is working and the orgasm building like a fist at the base of my spine.
"Let me see you." Barely a whisper. "Please. Let me see."
"Cole—"
I come with his name in my mouth. My whole body clenches around him and I'm loud, louder than I've ever let myself be, and I don't care who hears through the walls of this facility, I don't care about anything except the wave crashing through me and the fact that Ichosethis.
He holds still. Trembling, every tendon in his neck standing out with the effort, but holding still. Because I haven't said yet.
I haven't said yet, and helistened.
He listened.I said not yet and helistened.The simplest thing in the world and no man has ever...
I'm crying. I don't know when it started. The aftershocks and the sobs are tangled together, my chest heaving with both, and his face blurs below me. Every instinct says to turn away, hide it, bury my face in my hands before he sees. I don't. I let him see.
Before the aftershocks fade, I pull off him. The loss makes us both gasp.
"Angelina—" His hand reaches for my face. Concern breaking through the haze. "Are you—"