Page 283 of Wicked Brutal

“I missed this.” Her forehead knocks mine. “Not the sex. This. You looking at me like I’m not already gone.”

“You’re not gone.” I drive in harder, and she gasps. “You’re in my bed. You’re wrapped around me. That’s what’s real.”

“Then fuck me like you believe it.”

I do. The rhythm changes. Harder. Still unhurried in the way that matters — no slamming, no forgetting her bruises — but I stop treating her like she might break if I want her too much. I hook one of her knees higher and sink in until there’s nothing left between us.

“God.” Her head tips back. “Yes. That.”

“You take me so well.” I kiss her throat, then her mouth. “Every time I think I know how you feel and then it’s better. Warmer. Tighter. Like you were waiting for me.”

“I was.” She pulls my hair. “I walked across a yard in the dark for this. For you. Don’t make it small.”

“I’m not.” My voice frays. “I think about you all day. Every version. The girl on the dock. The one who yelled at me in the guest house. This one. I want all of them.”

She laughs once, wrecked. “Good. Because you’re stuck with all of them.”

“Lucky me.”

I snap my hips in a little sharper and she moans, loud enough that I swallow it with a kiss. Sweat at her temple. My name again, softer now. Her other hand finds the small of my back and holds me in when I try to ease off.

“Don’t you dare,” she says. “I can take it. I want to feel you tomorrow.”

“Ally.”

“I mean it.” Her eyes are wet and fierce. “If I have to count days, I want this in my body while I do it.”

I groan and give her what she’s asking for — deeper, claiming, still kissing her like she’s the only country I know how to find. One of my hands frames her jaw so she has to look at me.

“You’re mine,” I tell her. Not a threat. A fact. “Not because anybody signed a paper. Because you chose me. Because I chose you. That’s the only contract I care about.”

“Then keep choosing me.” She lifts to meet the next thrust. “Right now. Like this.”

“I am.” I kiss her until we’re both shaking. “I will. Even when it gets ugly. Especially then.”

She nods against my mouth, legs tighter, and I stay in that harder rhythm — sweet and wrecked and all the way inside her — without tipping either of us over yet.

Then I lose the polite version of myself. Not the careful one — I still keep my weight off her arms, still don’t crush her — but the part that’s been trying to sound reasonable. There is nothing reasonable about five days. There is nothing reasonable about her in my bed wearing the shape of another man’s hands. I drive into her harder and hold her there.

“Mine.” It comes out against her mouth. “Say you hear me.”

“Ryan—“ It’s barely a word. A moan with my name stuck in it.

“Mine.” Another thrust, deep enough that her breath punches out. “This. You. The way you open for me. The way you came across that yard. Mine.”

She nods, frantic, eyes wet. “Y-yes—ah—“

“That’s not enough.” I kiss her through it, messy now. “I need you to understand. I don’t share you. Not with him. Not with a plane. Not with a school in another country. You don’t get taken from me.”

“Please—“ Her nails scrape my back. “Don’t stop—“

“I won’t.” I hook her knee higher and bury myself to the hilt. “Feel that? That’s me. That’s the only man who gets this. The only one who knows how you sound when you break. The only one who gets to put his mouth on you and then slide home like he belongs here.”

A broken moan. “Belong—fuck—Ryan—“

“I do.” My forehead slams to hers. “I belong in you. You belong with me. I can’t lose you. I won’t. Do you understand what that means?”

She shakes her head — not no, overwhelmed. Another high, cracked sound when I snap my hips.