Chapter 11 Emma
EMMA
The last time I really let myself believe in Hollywood endings, I was nine years old and Dad had just surprised Mom with the house on Iron Way—the one he still lives in now.
I remember her face in the gaudy light of the kitchen, how she twirled from the oven to the fridge like every step was choreography.
She lined up our TV dinners on the counter and said, “This is just the start, Em.” She said it with a smile that didn’t quite match the shadows under her eyes, but back then I didn’t know how to tell real hope from the imitation.
I just believed her. I stuck my fork in the cardboard Salisbury steak and pictured a family that would live in that house always, happy and together.
It wasn’t the last time I believed in things that didn’t end up lasting, just the first one that really stuck.
The one I mentally circle back to every time reality lines up with the predictable script: parent leaves, friend betrays, love interest ghosts, body fails.
Everything that’s good, ends. So when Bones lays me on his bed and holds himself over me, I want to believe that this time it’s real and lasting and not just a fever dream that will end as soon as the clock ticks over or someone calls to say there’s been a mistake. I want it with every fiber of my being.
Bones kisses me with a careful hunger. Like he’s afraid I’ll shatter, but also like he’s starving for me.
His palms cup my face, thumbs stroking my cheekbones, then his hands settle on either side of my shoulders and the world compresses down to the radius of his body crowding mine on the mattress.
He smells like sweat and whiskey, and his skin is so warm it almost buzzes against mine.
I feel every cell in my body wake up and align toward him.
He kisses me like we might not have any tomorrow, but the longer it goes on, the less it feels like desperation and more like him realizing he can finally, finally take his time with me.
“Tell me, swan. Promise. Promise you’re mine this time.”
Promise.
I’ve never been good at promises. Never been good at staying put. Ballet taught me that—you’re only as good as your last performance, only as permanent as your current contract. Everything is conditional. Everything expires.
But his hands on my face feel like an anchor. His body covering mine feels like safety. And the way he’s looking at me—like I’m not a risk he’s taking but a certainty he’s claiming—makes me want to believe that we don’t have an expiration date.
And maybe I can have that. Keep it, even.
I pull back just enough to meet his eyes. “I promise.”
His breath catches. “Fuck, Em. Tell me again.”
“I’m here,” I whisper against his mouth. “I’m not leaving. I’m yours.”
Something in his expression cracks open—relief and possession and triumph all at once. His forehead presses to mine and we’re both shaking.
“Again,” he demands, voice rough.
“I’m yours, Bones. I promise.”
He kisses me then, like he’s sealing a vow. Like he’s branding me. Like he’ll never let me take it back.
And I don’t want to.
I want to stay.
I want to stay.
I want to stay.
His mouth moves to my neck, teeth grazing the sensitive skin. My hips jerk up against his, and the motion pulls at the healing cut on my back, a sharp sting that cuts through the haze of want. I gasp, fingers tightening in his hair.
“Still hurts?” His lips brush the shell of my ear.
“Only when I remember you’re an asshole.”
The rumble of his laughter vibrates against my collarbone.
“Fair.” He kisses me again then shifts his weight, going back onto his knees to pull his shirt over his head.
My mouth goes dry at the sight of all those muscles and tattoos, my eyes linger on the word swan and I realize there’s something more there.
He catches me staring. “What?”
“Just wondering how many times you’ve done this exact routine.” The words burst from my lips. Defense mechanism activated.
Bones stills. “You think there’s a routine?”
“I think Stoneheart has groupies.”
“Fuck groupies.” He hooks his fingers in the waist of my jeans and drags me closer, eyes never leaving mine. “You think I’ve brought anyone else to this bed? To this apartment? That I’d ever want anyone after—”
“After what?”
His jaw works. “After I had a taste of you,” he growls, fingers popping the button of my jeans. The denim rasps against my thighs as he peels them down, dragging my panties along with them. “You think I could want anything else?”
The certainty in his voice does something to me. Makes my chest tight and my throat burn because I’ve spent so long being disposable—replaceable prima ballerinas are a dime a dozen in New York—and here’s this man looking at me like I’m the only woman who’s ever existed.
Ballet taught me to be perfect. Controlled. To tame every impulse and wild instinct until I was nothing but disciplined grace.
But the way Bones looks at me? Like he wants me wild. Like he wants me untamed. Like every reckless, messy, uncontrolled part of me is exactly what he’s been waiting for.
It’s terrifying.
It’s also the most alive I’ve felt in years.
The cold air hits my bare skin first. Then his mouth.
He doesn’t tease. Doesn’t pause for permission. Just pushes my knees wide and licks a hot stripe from my ass to my clit that makes my spine arch off the mattress, a broken sound escaping my throat as his hands clamp down on my thighs.
“Still taste the same,” he mutters against me, the vibration making my toes curl. “Still fucking perfect.”
I fist the sheets, torn between wanting to shove him away and pull him closer. His tongue flicks at my clit and turns my spine to liquid, and suddenly I don’t care about anything except the coil tightening low in my belly.
“Bones—”
“Right here, swan.” His fingers tease my entrance. “Not going anywhere.”
He pushes two fingers inside and I cry out, my hips bucking off the bed. His mouth closes around my clit and sucks hard, and the combination of sensations has me gasping and writhing.
“That’s it,” he growls against me. “Want everyone on this block to know who’s making you scream.”
His fingers curl, hitting that spot inside me that makes stars burst behind my eyelids. My thighs try to clamp shut around his head but he forces them wider, holding me open for him.
“So many nights,” he says between licks. “So many nights jerking off thinking about this pussy. Dreaming about the sounds you make when you come on my tongue.”
“Bones, please—”
“Please what?” He adds a third finger and I keen at the stretch. “Use your words, swan.”
“I need—fuck—I need more.”
“More?” His thumb finds my clit while his fingers work inside me. “You need to come? Need me to fuck you?”
“Yes! God, yes, both—”
He pulls his fingers out and I whimper at the loss. But then he’s flipping me over onto my stomach, his hands gripping my hips and hauling my ass up.
“On your knees,” he commands. “Show me that perfect ass.”
I scramble to obey, face pressed into the pillow, ass in the air. The position takes pressure off my injured shoulder, and I hear the metallic rasp of his zipper, the rustle of fabric as he shoves his jeans down.
His hand comes down on my ass with a sharp crack that makes me gasp.
“That’s for trying to cut my tracker out.” Another slap, harder this time. “That’s for putting yourself in danger for six months.” A third, and I’m moaning into the pillow. “And that’s for suggesting I’d want anyone but you in my bed.”
My skin is burning where he spanked me, arousal flooding through me so intense I can barely breathe. I feel him line himself up, the blunt head of his cock pressing against my entrance.
“You want this?” he asks, voice rough.
“Please.”
“Beg me.”
“Bones—”
“Fucking beg me, Emma.”
“Please!” I’m not above begging. Not when I need him this badly. “Please fuck me. I need you inside me. Please—”
He slams into me in one brutal thrust and I scream into the pillow. He’s so deep like this, hitting places that make my vision white out. He doesn’t give me time to adjust, just pulls back and drives in again, setting a punishing pace that has the headboard slamming against the wall.
“Fuck, you’re so tight.” His fingers dig into my hips hard enough to bruise. “This pussy was made for me, wasn’t it?”
“Yes!” I can barely form words. “Yours. All yours.”
“Damn right it is.” One hand slides up my spine, carefully avoiding my injured shoulder, and tangles in my hair. He uses the grip to pull my head back, arching my spine. “Who does this pussy belong to?”
“You!”
“Who’s the only one who gets to fuck you like this?”
“You, Bones. Only you.”
He releases my hair and braces his hand against my lower back, and then suddenly I feel his thumb, slick from his spit or my own wetness, pressing against my ass.
There’s zero warning, just the stretch as he works inside, claiming every inch of me.
I go weightless for a second, the shock of it blooming into something dirtier and hotter than any memory from before.
The intensity ratchets up so fast I can’t even think. He fucks me deep and slow, thumb pulsing inside my ass, and suddenly I’m grinding back into him, desperate for more, for everything. All those years of punishing my body for perfection—right now, all I want is to be ruined.
His voice is low and feral. “You like that? I will claim every inch of you, swan. There won’t be a single part of you that isn’t entirely mine.”
I can only whimper, clutching at the sheets like I might fall out of my own skin. The pressure is perfect, sublime, and so is the burn where he spanked me. The sound of skin slapping against skin fills the room, mixed with my gasps and his grunts.
“Touch yourself,” he orders. “Make yourself come on my cock while I finger your ass.”
My hand slides between my legs, fingers finding my swollen clit. The added stimulation has me spiraling fast, the coil in my belly winding tighter and tighter.