Page 319 of These Tears

I nod.

‘I want this. Don’t stop,’ she whispers.

I seize up first, let the warmth of her chocolate eyes devour me. Then I push inside her in one hard, desperate movement.

Shame floods instantly. Vicious. But before the panic has time to bloom, Leah cries out, ‘Yes!’ with such certainty that the word tears through the haze, and the cadence of her voice imprisons me beautifully.

I open my eyes to see hers closing, her head tipping back, throat exposed in utter trust beneath the loose sweep of her hair.

The shame is still there, hard to survive, ever-present. But her body presses back into mine, asking rather than forcing, waiting rather than enduring, and the darkness inside me changes shape.

It is no longer the memory.

No longer the violation.

And when she looks at me, I move fast, wrenching a gasp out of her. Her hands curl into fists and she settles her lips against mine, tasting the pleasure straight from my tongue.

I drive into her again, harder, and every broken part of me answers with more… more… More of this woman.

Her mouth follows mine, her fingers digging into the scarf we’re both gripping. She holds me inside the moment while her body meets every thrust with a confidence that turns the strength I fear into a rhythm we’re making together.

Heat coils around my spine until fear and pleasure are no longer separate.

I chase the sound of my name as she keeps biting at it over and over again. I hunt the feeling of being wanted by this woman who refuses to fight my demons, instead looks them in the face and makes me prove that I am the one holding their leash. Every movement is mine to choose. Every answer from her reminds me what I am choosing it for. Until the forest, the wrongness and every hand that came before her dissolve beneath the raw, shuddering need to give her everything she is asking me to take.

The pressure tears through me. It binds us to this soil, to the cold air and the mountains looming upon us.

My face finds solace against her throat as every muscle locks around the intensity of it.

‘Harder,’ she rasps.

That’s my good girl.

I breathe against her like a man dying. The next word is the final echo of my name that holds me there while the last of the darkness fractures inside her and pulls me under.

I spill into her. Her knees clamp around my waist as I pull once more at the scarf. The dead branch gives with a crack, letting the knot fall loose between her hands.

They come around my neck as she bites through her climax and relishes my brand of hot, wet decadence.

When the demons stop drowning in our cries, the chill of the autumn soothes the fever until air returns to our lungs.

I remain against her neck and inside her body, listening to our breathing settle beneath the whisper of leaves and the distant movement of the stream.

‘I thought the Hunt was supposed to end with you carrying me back to the ceremony,’ she croaks beneath me.

‘It will,’ I murmur. ‘Eventually.’

Her lips press together. ‘Fuck the schedule.’

I chuckle into her neck. She follows.

When I begin to withdraw, her thighs tighten and pull me right back inside her.

‘Stay… a little longer,’ she whispers.

And I keep holding her while nature settles around us.

One woman…

One stubborn woman walked into my prison and kept asking me to choose. She never tore the chains off me, yet she taught me I could reach the lock myself.

I move slowly inside her, letting the friction pull us into a new high as I hold onto her. Hold tight. Tighter.

Because the world beyond her still feels uncertain, cruel and temporary. But as long as her pulse beats beneath my mouth, as long as her hands remain tangled in my hair, these unshed tears of mine will never again calcify into another prison.

She won’t let them.

And anything or anyone that tries to build a prison around hers will have to survive me first.