We collapse sideways, still locked, the knot pulsing between us, my cock jerking with aftershocks, her pussy fluttering in residual spasms. The sweat on her skin tastes of salt and victory.Her heartbeat hammers against my chest, syncing with mine until I can't tell whose rhythm is whose.
Time dilates. The light moves across the floor, shadows lengthening. I trace patterns on her back, circles and loops, learning the geography of her spine. She lies quiet, her face pressed into my throat, breathing me in.
The knot slowly subsides, the biology releasing us from the lock, but I don't pull out. I stay inside her, half-hard already, knowing I could go again in minutes if she so much as shifts her hips.
"This changes nothing," she murmurs, the words muffled against my skin.
"Liar."
She pulls back enough to glare, but the effect is ruined by the swelling of her lips, the marks on her neck—my marks, purple and possessive. "I still hate you for what you did."
"Good." I tuck a coil of hair behind her ear, my hand certain in a way my mind isn't, for a man whose world just inverted. "Hate me while I fuck you. Hate me when you come. Hate me when I knot you again tonight, and tomorrow, and every day until you don't remember how to hate anyone else."
Her eyes flash, but she doesn't argue. Instead, she shifts, a deliberate roll of her hips that makes me hiss, still sensitive. "Again?" she challenges.
I flip her, pinning her wrists above her head, settling deep into the cradle of her thighs. "Again."
We move slower this time, the edge blunted but the need still sharp. I learn her—what makes her gasp, what makes her moan, the spot inside her that makes her eyes roll back. She learns me, tentative touches becoming greedy in return. The second knot takes longer to build, a tide rather than a break — building, not crashing. When it locks us together again, she's crying, and I'm whispering apologies into her hair, not for the sex but for the years, for the cruelty, for the blindness that made me destroy the only thing I've ever truly wanted.
After, after the light goes flat and gray against the floor, she sleeps. My thumb traces the curve of her cheek, the flutter of her pulse, the way her hand curls against my chest even in dreams like she's afraid I'll vanish. The reckoning is immediate.
I think of Dad. Of finding him curled around Mom's pillow three years after she died, thirty pounds lighter, the light gone from his eyes. I think of the Pact, the sacred promise broken now, cracked through at the root, the way a contract cracks under review — clause by clause, then the whole thing void. I did this. I chose this. And if she leaves—when she remembers why she should hate me—I will unravel exactly like he did. No pact, no pride, no walls left to hide behind.
Sharma stirs, frowning in her sleep. I pull her closer, burying my face in her hair, inhaling the scent of us mixed together—my cedar and citrus drowned in her honeyed heat.
Outside, the ocean crashes on, indifferent. Through the open window, I hear voices—Hunter's lawyer-bark, Jaleesa's laugh, the distant sound of staff setting up for the evening's meal, chairs scraping across stone. The world continues, oblivious to the cataclysm in this room. The bubble is already thinning. Soon she'll wake, and the memory of every wound I inflicted will surface again, sharper now for the intimacy we just shared. She'll remember that love destroyed my family. She'll remember that I'm the man who made her feel small.
She'll leave. And I'll be left here, knotted to a ghost, holding the empty space where she was, finally understanding exactly what Dad felt in those long, last days.
Nope. fuck that.
Chapter four
Sharma
The shutter slat digs a vertical line into my forehead. I lean harder against it, letting the wood grain bite, using the sting to eclipse the throb between my thighs and the smell of him still slick on my skin. Salt. Smoke. The wrongness of my surrender. Outside, the ocean turns beaten copper. Wave after wave catches the dying light and swallows it, greedy, mindless.
My arms cross tighter. Fingers dig into my own biceps until the muscle whines. The pressure is the only embrace I'm receiving tonight. One breath. Two. The third snags on the memory of his lips at my throat. Thank God he didn't bite. That he left me that choice, despite the knot locking us tight, and the rawness of his voice in my ear—feral, broken, claiming—
No.
My nails cut crescents into my skin. I should have brought a backup vial from the safe in my apartment. Should have carried it in my purse. Why didn't I? I'm smarter than this. Moreorganized, always prepared. Could it be that I wished for it? Had the suppressants already failed every time I caught even a whisper of his scent when I visited Viv? Shit, was that why I held on so long to a foolish nickname that was never said without a teasing laugh? All because I was confused about being what I am. What I've always been destined to be—his.
The shell path crunches. Roan. His gait is unmistakable even from behind—confidence measured in decibels, each step the rhythm of a man who has spent a lifetime collecting yeses like frequent-flyer miles. No hesitation. No variance. My spine straightens. My gut reacts like Pavlov's dog. Rolling over, whimpering…Begging.
The linen shift-dress I threw on sticks to the sweat coating my back. I should have showered. Should have scrubbed every trace of his sweat from my skin. Should have run while my legs still obeyed me.
"Don't," I say to the glass when he enters. I don't dare turn around and see the same ridiculous smile he left with.
"Don't what?" His voice fills the room, low and controlled, but underneath it runs a current I now know too well—feral, the thing he leashes behind his teeth because civilized men keep their monsters on choke chains.
"Don't say whatever you came here to say." Behind me, his image grows larger. Broad shoulders block the last of the daylight. He doesn't touch me. Yet. The space between us compresses with the residue of what we did.
"It was a mistake," I say. My voice, sanded raw by screams I didn't know I owned until two hours ago. "What happened. It shouldn't have. And it changes nothing."
The reflection freezes. Then sharpens into focus, coiled.
Roan pivots me with one hand at my elbow. Not rough. Certain. His jaw works, a tight slide of bone beneath tanned skin. Those eyes—the ones that usually spark with amusement and worse ideas—now storm, dark, unmade. The blue-green has shifted, the pupils blown wide and swallowing the color until only a thin ring remains, locked on my mouth like he's measuring the distance he could close in one move. His hair is damp from his shower.
