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Sterling’s teeth were clenched as he leaned down and pressed his lips to it in a soft, devastating kiss. “Is this one from him?” he murmured, his voice edged with barely leashed fury.

I nodded, feeling like I could be sick just from thinking about that night. “He…he got angry, shattered a bottle, and then sliced me open because I was late with dinner.”

His kiss turned fiercer, and he traced the scar with his tongue like he could heal it with his mouth alone. “Never again,” he growled against my skin, moving lower to another mark, a puckered circle on my shoulder. “What about this one?”

“It’s from a belt buckle,” I whispered, and my voice cracked around the words. “When I talked back.”

His breath hitched, a dangerous sound rumbling in his chest as he lavished that scar with slow, open-mouthed kisses, his teeth grazing just enough to make me shiver. “I’d tear him apart for this,” he murmured. “Piece by fucking piece.”

He shifted lower, and his mouth trailed fire across my collarbone until he found the thin, faded line just above my breast. It was a bitter reminder from when the two stones in David’s wedding ring had caught my skin during one of his rages, the band he’d sworn eternal love with twisted into a weapon that night, ripping me open while he screamed.

Sterling’s eyes were on me as he pressed his lips there, soft at first, then sucking gently like he was drawing the pain out. “What’s this one?” he asked hoarsely.

“His ring,” I breathed, and then I was crying again because I was thinking of that girl, that version of me, who had looked at him so hopefully on the day of our wedding…and then had been so betrayed.

“His wedding ring?” he asked, sounding disgusted, like the words tasted like poison.

I nodded, and his answering moan was tortured, vibrating against my skin as he pressed his mouth harder to the mark, kissing it harder than he had with the others. “That ring never deserved to sit on your finger,” he growled, sucking until fresh heat bloomed under my skin and his mark was overwriting the old one. “Fuck, Sienna.”

His voice echoed, colliding with all the memories I tried to keep buried. Words that had sounded so sure. A forever that had turned into cages and raised voices and blood on tile. My body stiffened before I could stop it, and I pressed my forehead to his shoulder, swallowing hard.

Sterling stripped the rest of my clothes off of me, and his mouth lavished the scars I’d always been so ashamed of, turning pain into something beautiful with his touch, his breath, his unwavering obsession. He made sure to do it with every scar, like he was starving for every piece of my past so he could claim it, remake it…turn it into his.

“Sterling,” I finally begged, pulling him up to kiss me as my legs wrapped around his waist and I ground shamelessly against him, slick and desperate. “Now. Please. Make me yours.”

He groaned and shed his clothes in frantic movements, his hard body covering mine as he settled between my thighs. His cock nudged my entrance, thick and hot and throbbing, teasing my soaked folds as he stared down at me like I was his whole world.

“Mine,” he whispered fiercely as he thrust inside me, filling me inch by torturous inch until I was stretched full around him, gasping at the exquisite burn.

I clawed at his shoulders, my nails raking down his back as he moved, slow at first, reverent rolls of his hips that dragged over every sensitive spot inside me, building that aching fire until I was trembling beneath him, tears streaming from the overwhelming emotion of it all. His mouth found my scars again, kissing each one as he fucked me harder, like he was pouring his soul into me with every thrust, rewriting every hurt with his love.

“You’re safe with me,” he repeated, over and over again as his hand slid between us to circle my clit with a perfect, teasing pressure, his eyes locked on mine. “You are loved. Wanted. Every scar, every breath, all of you. Let go for me, baby; let me feel you shatter.”

I did. I exploded around him with a cry that seemed to have been torn from my soul, waves of blinding pleasure crashing over me endlessly as I clenched hard around his cock, milking him with every pulse.

He pulled out suddenly with a growl and then fisted his thick length as he spilled ropes of cum across my stomach and my breasts, painting my skin in filthy, beautiful streaks. His hand rubbed it in slow, possessive circles, smearing it over my scars, my nipples, my throat…

“Fuck, look at you,” he groaned roughly as his fingers glided through his release, rubbing it deep into my skin until I was glistening with him. I was covered in his scent, his essence…his obsession. “You’re all mine. Marked inside and out. No one else can ever have you.”

His words made me throb all over again even as aftershocks rippled through me. I arched into his touch, gasping as his thumb brushed my bottom lip, pushing a drop inside so I could taste us.

Sobbing his name, I yanked him down to kiss me again as his cum began to cool sticky on my skin.

I didn’t want to wash it off.

Ever.

If anything…I wanted more of it.

Sterling collapsed against me, his breath ragged against my neck as he buried his face there. He brushed my pulse in soft, endless kisses. “I’m never letting you go,” he murmured.

And wrapped in him, slick in his cum, and utterly claimed…I tried to believe it.

I tried to ignore the tragic reality that clouded what could have been a fairy tale. Someone in this town knew something that could unravel it all.

Every kind of love had its limits.

CHAPTER 38