“Harder,” I demand, pushing back against him, my voice hoarse, barely recognizable. “Make me feel you, Kent. Make me yours.” His hand comes down on my ass with a sharp crack, harder than before, the sting radiating through me, making me clench around him, drawing a guttural groan from his lips. Another slap follows, then another, each one timed with his thrusts, the rhythm brutal and perfect, pushing me closer to the edge.
“Fuck, you’re so tight,” he groans, his hand sliding around to my front, punishing my swollen, sensitive clit. “You’re gonna come again, aren’t you? Screaming my name.” His voice is a low growl, his breath hot against my ear as he leans over me, his chest pressed to my back, the weight grounding me even as I spiral.
“Yes,” I whimper, my body trembling, every nerve on fire. “Make me. Please, Kent, make me come.”
My words are a plea and a challenge, and he responds with a ferocity that takes my breath away, his thrusts growing erratic, harder, deeper, his fingers relentless on my clit.
The carpet burns my skin, my knees raw, my palms stinging, but it only amplifies the pleasure, the rawness of it all.
I come, a scream ripping from my throat as my body convulses, clenching around him so tightly he curses, his rhythm faltering. The orgasm crashes through me like a tidal wave, my vision whiting out, limbs shaking as I collapse forward, only his grip on my hips keeping me upright.
This time, he follows seconds later, a primal groan of my name echoing as he spills inside me, his thrusts slowing but deep, each one drawing out the aftershocks of my climax. His body shudders, collapsing over mine, his weight heavy and warm, his breath hot against my neck as we both pant, spent and trembling.
We crawl to the bed eventually, limbs tangled, the sheets cool against our overheated skin. His arm drapes over me possessively, fingers tracing lazy, soothing circles on my slick, marked skin, the bruises and bites we’ve left on each other stinging faintly, a map of our surrender.
We don’t need to say anything at all.
We know what we know now.
Chapter 16 - Kent
MAY 2017
I wake to the sound of morning traffic filtering through hotel windows and the weight of Delilah's head on my chest, her golden hair spilled across my shoulder like silk. For a moment—one perfect, dangerous moment—everything feels right. Her body fits against mine with the kind of precision I once brought to more lethal work, her breathing deep and even, one hand curled against my ribs where she can feel my heartbeat.
Then reality crashes down like cold water.
What the fuck have I done?
The question sits in my mind like a tumor, growing larger and more malignant with each passing second. I stare at the ceiling tiles, counting the small imperfections in the acoustic panels while my brain catalogs every choice that led to this moment. Every line I crossed, every boundary I obliterated, every principle I abandoned because a seventeen-year-old girl looked at me with understanding eyes and said she wanted me.
She shifts in her sleep, a small sound escaping her lips that's part satisfaction, part discomfort. There's a bruise on her shoulder where my teeth marked her, purple and distinct against her pale skin. Evidence of what I did to her. What Itookfrom her.
My hands—the same hands that once carved justice from monsters—moved over her body last night with desperate hunger. I touched her, claimed her, made her mine in ways that can't be undone.
And she asked for it, begged for it, challenged me to give her everything I had.
But that doesn't make it right. I am the adult. This is on me. She’s—
I watch her face in the morning light streaming through the gaps in the curtains, and she looks impossibly young. The confident woman who seduced me last night has dissolved back into someone who's barely legal, who should be worried about prom photos and college applications instead of the weight of carrying secrets that could destroy lives.
What kind of monster does what I do and then corrupts someone like her?
The answer sits heavy in my chest: exactly the kind of monster I am.
She stirs again, her eyelashes fluttering against her cheeks, and I know she's starting to wake up. Part of me wants to slip out before she opens her eyes, leave her sleeping in the rumpled sheets while I disappear back into the carefully constructed anonymity that's kept me alive for two years. But I can't move. Can't bring myself to disturb the perfect way she fits against me, the trust implicit in how completely she's surrendered to sleep in my arms.
Seven months of letters. Seven months of the most honest communication I've ever had with another person, building to this moment where everything philosophical became physical. Where intellectual understanding transformed into something that tasted like copper and felt like coming home.
I've spent two years telling myself that what I do serves a purpose. That removing predators from the world justifies the violence, the careful planning, the cold calculation that goes into taking a life. But what purpose does this serve? What justice amI delivering by fucking a teenager who thinks she understands darkness because she helped me position her father's corpse?
She's not like the men I hunt. She's not a corrupt cop or an abusive husband or a predator who's escaped legal consequences. She's someone who survived a monster and mistook her survival for strength, her trauma for wisdom.
And I took advantage of that confusion.
Her eyes open slowly, blinking in the morning light, and when they focus on my face, her smile is radiant. Pure happiness, uncomplicated joy at waking up in my arms. It hits me like a physical blow because I can see her entire future written in that expression—the woman she could become if she wasn't carrying the weight of what happened between us.
"Good morning," she murmurs, her voice husky with sleep and satisfaction. She stretches slightly, wincing as movement reminds her of last night's intensity. The small sound of discomfort makes something twist in my gut, guilt and protective instinct warring with the memory of how she'd demanded more, harder, deeper.
