For a few seconds, I let myself have this. Her body under mine. The quiet after.
I shift carefully, pulling back just enough to look at her.
Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes stay closed, lashes dark against her skin, as if she is still somewhere in the wreckage of her orgasm, not ready to crawl out yet. Her mouth is swollen from mine. Her hair is a mess across my pillow. She looks thoroughly fucked and furious about it.
Beautiful. Dangerous. Mine in all the ways I am not allowed to claim.
My throat tightens. “Are you still mad at me?”
Her eyes open slowly. “Yes.”
My mouth twitches before I can stop it. “Good.”
I brush my thumb along the side of her jaw.
She lifts her hand, and for a second, I think she is going to push me away. But instead, she pushes my hair back off my face.
The touch is soft. Too soft. It glides over my forehead, along my temple, then pauses near the scar on my jaw. Her eyes follow every inch of me, taking in the details the years left behind.
I hold still beneath her gaze. That is fucking harder than it should be. I can take fists, pain, and threats. Men twice my size who think prison taught them something I didn’t already know.
But Skylar staring at me as if she is trying to read every place life touched me while she was gone cuts different.
Some selfish, stupid, starved part is already trying to wrap this night in both hands and claim it. Claim her. Drag her back into my life and lock the door. Tell the whole world to fuck off because she came back to me. But I don’t get to do that because she came back for one night. I do not get to mistake sex for forgiveness.
I lean in and kiss her softly. A careful press of my mouth to hers. It’s different from the desperate heat that brought us herethat it almost hurts worse. I pull back before I ask for more than I deserve. Then I ease out of her.
My jaw tightens at the loss.
She looks away first, then pushes herself up slowly, drawing in a breath as if she has to remind her body that it belongs to her again.
I get off the bed and run a hand through my hair, trying to pull myself together.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I say.
Her eyes flick to mine.
I glance toward the bathroom, then back at her. “You coming?”
After a moment, she slides off the bed.
The movement draws my eyes before I can stop them. She stands, naked and flushed in the soft light, hair spilling around her shoulders, her body marked by the night we just made.
I watch her walk toward me. My cock reacts instantly. I’m only human after all.
Her gaze drops to my cock, then lifts back to my face, that sharp little spark I have missed so much making me ache.
“Hard already, Rivera?”
My mouth curves. “Don’t sound so surprised, sweetheart. You’ve been a problem for my self-control and my cock since the first time you opened that smart mouth.”
Her eyes narrow, but the corner of her mouth betrays her.
Skylar doesn’t say much after the shower.
Neither do I. Probably safer that way. Words have always been dangerous for me. My hands know how to fix things but my mouth knows how to fuck them up.
The shower should have been enough, but it wasn’t. Nothing with her is ever enough.
