Possessiveness settles in. The need to claim and keep and never part ways.
She is, and will always and forever be one thing above all else, my Eliora.
Another nod from her sends warmth through my chest. Another piece of the rightness slides into place.
She is mine.
Here.
Now.
For whatever time we’re granted.
As it should be.
“Eridessa,” I murmur, voice rough. “Eri, love. My sweet girl. That’s enough. Come up here. I need to be inside you again.”
Though reluctant, she obeys, but takes her time, laying kisses along my stomach, my chest—slow, reverent—until her mouth reaches my neck.
I lay my hands on her ass, fingers digging deep as I urge her to move over my cock. The fire between us flares anew, the fever roaring back stronger than before.
She lifts her hips, searching for me, and then her slick opening accepts me once more. Threading our fingers together, she lifts my hands above my head.
“I want to try one more thing,” she says softly. “Will you let me?”
Breathlessly, I say, “At this point, dear one, I’d give you anything you desire.”
She reaches beneath the pillow and draws out a cord.
No, a rope.
Doubt creeps in too late.
Later, I will remember every detail. Before anything else fractures, there is her.
The room exists only in impressions—the low spill of sunlight through the window, pale light catching on rumpled sheets, the quiet creak of wood beneath the mattress. The air is warm, heavy with the scent of skin and rain and something that hums beneath my awareness.
But she eclipses it all.
The weight of her body, familiar now in a way that feels dangerous. Her thighs bracket my hips, warm and strong, her skin smooth beneath my hands where I grip her, grounding myself in the feel of her—the muscle tone of her slim body, unyielding yet also soft.
Her hair spills forward in loose, alabaster waves, brushing my chest. The way her mouth curves. The line of her throat when she tilts her head to the side, the steady beat of her pulse there, validating that she’s alive and real.
This—this—is what my mind fixes on.
Not the bed.
Not the walls.
Not the world beyond this room.
Just the feel of her skin against mine, anchoring me to the moment as if it might be the last unbroken one I am allowed.
Even when she slides the rope free of the pillow, my focus lingers on the small details that make up this lovely creature. The crease between her brows when she concentrates. The slight tremor in her hands. The way her mouth parts, the faint hitch in her breath she tries—and fails—to hide.
I don’t see a trap.
I see only her.
