Page 117 of What We Become

I come, wrecked and open, a scream that’s only a scream because I can’t make sense of anything else. Eli’s mouth is everywhere—my cheek and my neck and my jaw, devouring, the words a blur as I shudder around him and come again, raw and spent and shaking.

After, he rocks me in place, legs braced to keep me from sliding off the counter. Slowly, his fist eases out, the stretch making me cry out again, a whimper that’s half agony and half relief.

My thighs spasm, jerking against his body, and when my vision comes back, he’s untangling the T-shirt, slipping my arms free with great care. He wipes the tears from my cheeks, holding my face, his own expression gone gorgeous and wild but utterly gentle underneath.

“You’re here, Sage,” Eli whispers, smoothing damp hair away from my face. “You’re in your body, right now. That’s all I want.”

I nod. Breathless. The shaking is still in my hands, but my chest is calm. Wrung out. Empty. Nothing left in there to destroy.

He helps me off the counter, holding my waist while my knees decide if they’ll work this time. The moment they hold, I look up at him and smile, and it feels like baring my teeth at a wolf.

“I’m gonna fuck you now, little savage.”

He spins me around, bending me over the counter with one firm hand between my shoulder blades. The cool granite shocks my overheated skin, nipples pebbling against it as he shoves his sweatpants down. I hear the rustle, feel the heat of him pressing against my pussy, and then he’s thrusting in deep, filling me in one brutal stroke that steals my breath.

“Yes,” I moan, pushing back to meet him, the slap of skin on skin echoing in the quiet kitchen. He sets a punishing pace, one hand gripping my hip, the other tangling in my hair to pull my head back, arching me for him. “Harder, Eli—Fuck! Yes!”

He does, growling low as he angles deeper, hitting that spot that whites out my thoughts. Sweat slicks between us, his breaths ragged in my ear, and when another orgasm builds, it’s different—slower, fuller, pulling from somewhere deeper than anger. I clench around him, crying out as it breaks, and he follows with a muffled curse, spilling hot inside me, his body shuddering over mine.

We stay like that for a moment, his weight a comforting press, both of us panting. Slowly, he pulls out, turning me gently to face him, his hands framing my face as he studies me.

“Better?” he murmurs, thumb brushing my swollen lips.

I nod. “I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

He grabs a fresh dish towel and runs it under warm water. I stay where I am, leaning against the counter, legs still unreliable, while he kneels in front of me and cleans me up with the same steady hands that just took me apart.

He wipes my thighs, my stomach, the mess of us. Wrings the towel. Comes back for a second pass. His thumb traces the fading scar on my thigh, and his jaw tightens, but he doesn’t say anything. Just presses his lips to it once, quick, and stands.

He pulls the T-shirt back over my head. Tugs it down. Smooths my hair behind my ears.

“Bed,” he says.

“Bossy.”

“Always.”

He picks me up because my legs have filed a formal resignation, and I don’t argue because I’m past the point of pretending I don’t love being carried by men who could also kill someone with the same hands. It’s a niche kink. I’ve accepted it.

The fuck pit is exactly as we left it—a tangle of limbs and warmth and the steady sound of people breathing. Holden hasn’t moved from the outer edge. Knox has rolled onto his back, one arm stretched across the empty space where I was. Micah has one arm flung over his eyes. Milo is now hugging a pillow and whispering something about encryption keys.

Eli lowers me into the gap beside Knox, who immediately reclaims me—arm around my waist, face in my hair, asleep before his brain even registers I was gone.

“Tomorrow night,” Eli whispers before climbing back into bed next to Micah.

“Tomorrow night,” I whisper back.

And this time, when I close my eyes, the bricks don’t come.

TWENTY-SEVEN

ELI

“Happy hunting, little savage.”

I say it against her mouth in the car, one hand on her throat, the other on the door handle. She’s dressed in black, hair braided tight, pulse hammering under the skin of her neck where my thumb rests. She smells like the coffee Micah made her before we left and the adrenaline underneath it.

She bites my lip in response, then lets out a low, wicked sound that only I get to hear. In this moment she’s not a survivor, or a target, or even a member of the Hangmen. She is just a savage little wolf in black cotton, barely contained by the seatbelt.