Page 129 of The Final Cut

“If you tell me to breathe one more time, I will bite you.”

“Bite me after.”

The smallest tremor goes through her, and I lower my mouth to hers. She resists for half a breath, and then she breaks into me.

The kiss is not gentle. She takes my mouth like she is angry at needing it, and I let her for a moment because she needs somewhere to put her teeth. Then I take control. One hand in her hair, the other at her throat, thumb along her jaw, steady pressure without pain. She makes a sound into my mouth and grabs my shirt.

“Hands on the wall,” I say.

Her breath catches. “Nash.”

“Hands. Wall.”

The first tear slips down her cheek. She turns and presses both palms to the wall.

That obedience, given while fury still shakes through her, does something savage and tender inside me. I step in behind her, fitting my body to hers, one hand sliding around her waist while the other traces down her arm to cover her wrist.

“You are allowed to be scared,” I say against her ear. “Allowed to be angry. Allowed to want this. You are not allowed to hand Isabel your body because grief told you to run.”

She bows her head. I kiss the back of her neck, then bite lightly where her pulse hammers. Her knees soften.

“Say yes,” I tell her.

“Yes.”

I pull her leggings down slowly. Not because I am patient, though I can be, but because she needs to feel each second belong to us and not to panic. She helps with shaking hands, then puts them back where I told her. I slide my palm between her thighs and find her already wet, already trembling, body reaching for the quiet her mind refuses.

She exhales my name like surrender offends her.

“Good girl.”

She shudders.

I work her with two fingers until her hips chase my hand, then stop before she comes. She makes a broken sound and looks back over her shoulder.

“Nash, I need⁠—”

“I know what you need.”

I turn her, lift her, and carry her to the bed.

She claws at my shirt while I strip, and I let her have the buttons because destruction with a clear target is a kind of mercy. Fabric pulls. One button pings across the floor. I get her shirt over her head and pause because the sight of her always costs me a second: hair loose, eyes wet, skin flushed, mouth swollen from mine, rage and need and grief all trapped in the small fierce body of a woman Isabel thinks she can still move like a piece on a board.

Mine, some old part of me thinks.

Not to be owned, but held. Protected. Chosen.

I cover her body with mine. She opens for me before I ask, legs wrapping my hips, hands going to my shoulders, nails biting in as I push inside.

Her eyes close.

“No,” I say.

They open again.

“Stay with me.”

“I am.”