I started to move. Slow, deliberate strokes that made her gasp and moan beneath me. I watched her face, watched the way her eyes fluttered closed, the way her lips parted, the way her cheeks flushed with pleasure. Every expression, every sound she made, I committed to memory.
“Look at me,” I commanded, my voice rough.
Her eyes opened, locking onto mine, and the connection between us intensified. I could see everything in her gaze. Trust, desire, and love.
Love.God help me, she loved me, and I loved her.
The realization hit me like a freight train, stealing my breath and making my chest ache. I loved her. Not the way I loved Julie. That had been young and innocent and built over years of shared history. This was different. Desperate and fierce and born from darkness and grief and the desperate need to feel something other than pain.
But it was real, and it was going to destroy us both.
I increased my pace, driving into her harder, deeper, as she met me thrust for thrust, her nails digging into my back. The pain from my ribs was nothing compared to the pleasure of being inside her, of feeling her body respond to mine.
“Chapman,” she gasped, her voice breaking. “Oh God, Chapman.”
“That’s it, baby. Say my name.”
Say my name, I begged silently.Remind me that I’m real. Remind me that I’m here. Remind me that I’m not just a ghost haunting the wreckage of my own life.
“Chapman,” she moaned again, louder this time, and I felt her body start to tighten around me as I reached between us, my thumb finding her clit and circling it in time with my thrusts. She cried out, her body arching, her inner walls clenching around me like a vise.
“Come for me, Hope,” I growled. “Let me feel you.”
Let me know you’re real, I thought desperately.Let me know this isn’t just another dream I’ll wake up from alone.
She shattered, her orgasm crashing over her with a force that made her scream my name. I felt her pulsing around me, felt the way her body trembled and shook, felt the hot rush of her release coating my cock, and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever witnessed.
She’s mine, I thought fiercely.In this moment, she is completely mine.But I wasn’t done with her yet.
I pulled out, ignoring her whimper of protest, and flipped her over onto her hands and knees. She looked back at me over her shoulder, her eyes wide and dazed, her lips swollen from my kisses, her hair a tangled mess around her face.
“Trust me,” I said, my hands gripping her hips.
“I do.”
She does, I realized with a mixture of awe and terror.She trusts me completely.And I was going to betray that trust. Not today. Not intentionally. But eventually, the darkness in me would consume everything good between us. It always did.
I positioned myself behind her and pushed back inside in one smooth thrust. She cried out, her arms giving out, her chest pressing against the mattress as I filled her completely. This angle was deeper, more intense, and I groaned at the feel of her. I could see where we were joined, could see my cockdisappearing inside her, and the sight made me impossibly harder.
I set a punishing pace, my hips slamming against her ass, the sound of skin against skin filling the room. Each thrust drove her forward, and she braced herself against the headboard, pushing back to meet me. The sight of her like this—completely surrendered, completely mine—made something primal roar to life inside me.
“Chapman,” she gasped, her hands fisting in the sheets. “Oh God, yes.”
I reached around and found her clit again, rubbing it in tight circles as I drove into her. She was already close, her body still sensitive from her first orgasm, and it didn’t take long before she was coming again, her body convulsing around me.
The sensation of her clenching around me, the sound of her screaming my name, the sight of her completely undone—it was too much. I followed her over the edge, my own orgasm ripping through me with a force that left me breathless. I buried myself deep inside her, my hands gripping her hips hard enough to leave marks, as I emptied myself into her with a guttural groan.
Mine, I thought desperately as pleasure crashed over me in waves.She is mine and I’m hers, and nothing else matters.But even as the thought formed, I knew it was a lie.
Everything else mattered.
Shadow. The club. The consequences. The inevitable moment when this all came crashing down around us.
We collapsed onto the bed together, our bodies tangled, our breathing ragged. I pulled her against my chest, ignoring the protest from my ribs, and buried my face in her hair. She smelled like jasmine and sex and something uniquely her, and I breathed it in, trying to commit it to memory.
“Mine,” I murmured against her skin. “You’re mine, Hope.”
Please let me keep her, I prayed to a God I wasn’t sure was listening.Please don’t take her from me too.