His growl vibrates through my chest as his cock hardens and pulses along my inner walls. At the feel of his pending release, I free his throat. His orgasm tears through him, mine crashing over me, violent and consuming as I rock into him.
His heavy breaths fan across my face, his features twisted in the most beautiful display of agony and pleasure. His hands grip my hips, holding me to him, moving me with him, draining every last shudder of release from my body.
I let my head fall against his shoulder, breathless. As his coarse fingertips trace over my spine, I say, “I searchedmo anam cara. It means?—”
“Soulmate,” he says, an edge of amusement in his tone. “Of course you searched it,mo rúnsearc.”
When I lift my head to meet his eyes, I tilt my chin and cock an eyebrow, my teeth catching on my bottom lip.
His knowing smile steals what’s left of my breath. He drags his thumb down the center of my lips, then swipes a finger across, clearing the last trace of blood. “My secret love,” he whispers before pressing a tender kiss to my mouth.
I kiss him back, as the weight of that endearment carves a hollow in my chest.
Grayson sits braced against the steel beam and the cold, unforgiving floor like the elements don’t touch him, like he’s used to them. Prison may have hardened him, but his tolerance runs deeper.
My fingers find his, tracing from the tips of his nails, across his knuckles, up his rough, callused palms. I touch the scars, smooth and abraded. The tattoos along his arm. The tension still coiled beneath his skin as his breath begins to slow.
My hands slip along his shoulders and onto his chest, mapping the leanly defined muscles, the scars carved deep. I work my way over his body, and he lets me, a reverence in his gaze that spears me.
“Has anyone ever touched you this intimately,” I whisper, a quiver in my voice.
His neck muscles tighten with a hard swallow, and I feel the intensity of it under my palm as I roam up his throat. “Never,” he says, his voice thick.
“I want to know every part of your body,” I say, my fingers coming to rest below his mouth. I sweep my finger across his bottom lip in mimic of his action, feeling the rough stain of blood, loving the soft contrast of his lips, the hunger that surges within me to kiss him.
I move in slowly, capturing his mouth and tasting him lovingly, as if we’re sharing a secret—sharing an insight into each other no one else can access.
As I pull back, I feel the press of his strong hand over my chest, my heart. “It’s beating faster than mine,” he acknowledges. “Does that mean you’re in love with me,” he asks, too genuine to be anything other.
“Do you need to hear me say it?”
“Yes,” he says honestly.
“I’m in love with you, Grayson. I’m not incapable of love,I’ve just never been inspired before. And I don’t want to be separated from you again. I don’t want to be a secret.”
He ponders my answer for a moment, never removing his hand, before he says, “Do you still question whether I’m capable of loving you?”
I glance at the massacre we created together, and he grasps my jaw and forces my gaze back to his. I take his hand in mine, turn it over. Our hands are still covered with traces of blood, it stains our bodies.
“No,” I say, barely above a whisper.
His gaze narrows in question. “But there’s doubt.”
“Only because I understand the mind, how it interprets love.” I meet his gaze. “But yes, I believe you love me—in your own way, and that you’ll try to protect me.”
“Do you believe I could hurt you.”
I can’t hesitate here. “Yes.”
With a deep inhale, he accepts this. We’re not like other couples, arguing to make a point. Some things have to be accepted, especially if we’re unable to change our origins.
He catches me studying his eyes and, delicately, he removes the lenses, revealing the vibrant blue of his irises. My chest tightens.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he admits.
I lay my hand over his chest, feeling the furious pulse of his beating heart. “I know that, too.”
Love and obsession are so closely linked, the emotions evoked by obsession easily mistaken for love. And when obsession rules our world, we become a slave to its demands.
