Page 153 of Pocket Wife

“Say it again,” he says.

“Fuck me.”

He pushes inside me.

I gasp, the feeling of him overwhelming, and he pauses to let me adjust. The bond flares wide open, pleasure echoing pleasure until I cannot tell where my body ends and his begins. He is deep inside me, filling me completely, and I wrap my legs tighter around his hips, urging him deeper.

“Don’t stop,” I say. “Rethan, don’t stop.”

He begins to move.

The rhythm is not careful. It cannot be. Everything about this moment has been built from the fragments of two lives refusing to stay separate, and the joining feels inevitable, like water finding its level or fire spreading to dry grass. I rise to meet him, my hips tilting, my hands gripping his shoulders.

He kisses my throat, my collarbone, the curve of my breast. I arch into his mouth, and he takes my nipple between his lips, teasing, tasting. I gasp, the sensation sending sparks through the bond.

“More,” I say. “Harder.”

He gives me what I ask for. His thrusts deepen, faster now, and I meet each one, the old barn creaking around us, the hay rustling beneath us. The bond burns hot between us, pleasure feeding pleasure until I can feel his need as clearly as my own.

“Look at me,” I say.

He does.

“Mine,” I say. “Say it.”

“Yours.”

“Again.”

“Yours. Only yours. Always yours.”

I kiss him, and he moves deeper, and the bond tightens like a wire pulled taut. My pleasure becomes his. His need becomes mine. We move together, the old barn holding us, the world outside forgotten.

“Now,” I gasp. “Rethan, now⁠—”

He feels my climax approach through the bond, the building pressure, the heat, the desperate need. He thrusts deeper, faster, and I shatter beneath him, my release a wave that pulls him with me. He follows, spilling inside me with a groan that comes from somewhere deeper than his chest. His hands find mine, lacing our fingers together as the pleasure crests and begins to recede.

For a while, neither of us moves.

The barn holds us in quiet darkness. Outside, the valley continues without us. The tribunal waits. Helix waits.

But here, in the hay and the shadows, there is only Rethan.

I rest my head against his chest and close my eyes.

“We are going to win this,” I say.

“Yes.”

“And then we stay.”

He kisses my forehead.

“Yes.”

I laugh, exhausted and fierce, and for one perfect moment, the world is small enough to hold.

Then the bond flickers.