"I'm not done with you."
His brow is still tight, but his pupils are blown black. He searches my face for a long moment, reading whatever he finds there.
"Tell me what you need."
I took what I needed and he held still. Now I need to know what happens when I let go.
I turn. Hands and knees on the mattress, and I look at him over my shoulder.
"I need you to stop being careful."
His nostrils flare. His chin drops. Whatever he's been holding back all night surfaces, and it doesn't look like concern anymore.
He smirks. It's the most dangerous thing he's done all night. "Thank fuck."
He's behind me in a breath. He grabs my hips, gauze rough and fingers bruising, and he pushes into me in one long stroke. The angle is completely different—deeper, hitting somewhere that makes my arms buckle. I can't see his face like this. Can only feel him. The stretch of him filling me, the gauze scraping my hip bones, his breath ragged against the back of my neck.
"Utsukushii." The word ghosts across my shoulder blade. Then, quieter: "So beautiful."
I push back against him, taking all of it, and the sound that comes out of me is something primal I don't recognize.
"Fuck me." The words come out demanding and nothing like a judge. "Hard."
He gives me what I want.
His hips snap forward and the force of it shoves me up the mattress. I brace my arms and push back into every thrust, but he's relentless, and my elbows buckle. My face hits the pillow, ass up, and the angle shifts to something that pulls a sound out of me I've never made before.
His grip on my hip tightens.
"Fuck—you—" The words come out broken between thrusts.
I let myself be loud.
His bandaged hand tangles in my hair and pulls. His chest is warm against my back, his weight settling over me—
He freezes. The sudden stillness, the hesitation.
Even now. Even half-gone and barely coherent, he's checking.
Adrian never checked. Adrian pulled and twisted and used my hair like a handle and if I cried out he pulled harder. He never once stopped. He never once asked.
"Yes—" The word punches out of me. "Harder. Pull harder."
His whole body shudders with relief. He pulls harder. My back arches, spine curving, and what comes out of my mouth is half-scream, half-sob.
"Fuck, yes, harder—"
Guttural and ruined and nothing I'd ever recognize as my own voice. His other hand grips my hip, gauze and split knuckles pressing into my skin, and I press back into it, wanting to feel every thread of those bandages I wrapped with such careful hands.
"Right there—" I'm gasping, fingers twisted in the sheets. "Don't stop, don't youdarestop—"
"I can’t..." His whole body trembles. "Angelina,please—"
"Not yet."
I reach between my legs. Find my clit. Two strokes and the orgasm slams through me — different from the first, sharper, tighter, ripped out of me instead of built — and I'm clenching around him, his name tearing out of my throat, and he holds. Heholdsbecause I said so.
"Now." I'm still shuddering. "Now, Cole."