Chapter Sixteen
Bix thought she was drowning. He was finally kissing her. She had never really dreamed about her first kiss. It had seemed
silly. Abstract. She was still stuck on dreaming of school dances and other things that she had never experienced. That first
flush of attraction, and crushes.
Daughtry blew through all that. It wasn’t just that his mouth was sexy; it’s that it felt necessary. His lips were firm and
insistent, and she loved being held by him. He was so strong and hot, and...
He had been holding her for the last two months. In all these ways that mattered. But now he was holding her for real, and
it made her feel like she might be, herself, entirely made of stars. Glimmering, burning, shining out in glory.
She clung to his shoulders. They were so broad and strong. And the way that he held her, pressed against his body, made her
feel...
She had never in her life been appreciative of being small. It felt like a weakness. It felt like losing.
But not now.
Because she felt powerful, the way he was kissing her, the way he was holding her tight like he didn’t want to let her go.
And it felt nice to be small. To be able to be cocooned entirely in his arms.
Her heart was pounding so hard she was nearly dizzy. Need gathered between her legs, her breasts feeling heavy. And when he
moved his hands down a little bit lower and tightened his grip, she could feel an answering hardness pressed to her.
“Do you want me, Sheriff?” she asked, wrenching her mouth away, needing to ask the question.
“God forgive me,” he said, his voice rough. “I do.”
“Not an act of charity,” she said.
He huffed a laugh. “I’m not egotistical to think that my dick is an act of charity, Bix.”
She couldn’t help it; she grinned wickedly. Because her gorgeous sheriff had occasion to talk about his penis with her, and
that felt perhaps like the biggest win of all.
“I don’t know about that. It might be.”
“I need to know,” he said. “Do you want me? Or do you feel like you have to make payment. Because I get what you’re saying.
About shitty guys. You told me right in the beginning that you expect that I wanted a blowjob in return for what I was given,
and I need you to know that I don’t.”
“You don’t want a blowjob?”
He narrowed his gaze. “Not as payment.”
“I don’t think I have to pay you.”
He held her face steady and looked into her eyes. “Did men ever do that to you?”
He was looking at her, so earnest and handsome in the dim light, and she didn’t want to talk about other men.
Even though there were no other men, so it was all theoretical. It was just that... she didn’t exactly want to tell him that she was a virgin. Because she didn’t really... she didn’t care about it. All she had ever wanted was to feel like she was free to give it to somebody when she was good and ready. Somebody she wouldn’t regret.
She didn’t believe in forever. She’d never seen it.
But she knew that there were versions of this that she could still walk away from with her head held high.
Daughtry King would be the first.
And she would always be glad of it.
So she supposed she needed to suck it up and be honest.
“No. I never let anybody close enough for them to do that.”
“I know you go to prom or...”
“I’ve never dated anybody. I’ve never... I’ve never done this before. I just want to be normal.”
“Hold on,” he said. “You’ve never done this... You’ve never done this ?”
“No. Not any of it. Not kissing, the touching. I know all about it. I’m not innocent. You know me, I’ve made moonshine and
smoked cigarettes. I think not giving men access to my body felt strong. Not falling into a pattern of letting some guy have
me just because he was around and he wanted me. I just didn’t want to be more stuck than I already was. I had too many ties
to all of that without introducing someone that I was sleeping with into the mix.”
“Shit,” he said. “I should... I should take you home, and send you to your own room.”
“Why?”
“Because you want normal, and I don’t think the Kings are normal. I don’t think I am.”
“But wanting somebody, wanting them so bad that it’s all you can think of, that’s normal, right?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never had it quite this bad before.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.” His voice was rough. “I wanted you even though I felt like it was wrong. Or like it should feel wrong. It
should, right?”
She looked into his eyes and saw a desperation there that made her chest hurt. He didn’t know? She would have said the man
could write a self-help book on how to be a better human being when you were raised in a trash heap.
But he looked so earnest just then, and she wanted to be the one to tell him everything was okay. He’d been making everything
okay for her for months now.
She wanted him. Damn everything else.
“No,” she said. “I have been sleeping down the hall from you for two months. If you wanted to take advantage of me, you would’ve
done it. You never did. You gave me my first dance. My first kiss. I want it to be you. Because it doesn’t matter where I
go, where I take my brick, it’s always going to matter. This place and you.”
He was going to be her brick when it came to relationships. He was going to be the one who gave her a standard to measure everybody else by. He was going to be the one she remembered fondly as her first. And whether they actually slept together or not, she realized that would always be true.
Every man would be measured against Daughtry King. They would probably be found wanting. That, she supposed, was a part of
life too.
But she could handle it. As long as she got to have them now, she could handle it.
She didn’t want to ruin her chances by laying herself bare like this, but she also knew that she had no choice. Not really.
He had given her honesty. The talk. Even when she didn’t want it. She owed him honesty too. He was so good. She couldn’t give
him her virginity without him knowing that’s what was happening.
But instead of something concerned or overly caring lighting up his eyes, there was something wicked there.
Something that made her stomach turn over, anticipation and need tightening through her.
“I should tell you now, you realize that, right. Because I’m no virgin, and if you are, then you need somebody who can offer
you more. More than a little bit of stardust, Bix. You deserve the whole damned sky. I can’t give you that. But I want you.
And I am... I am thrilled as hell to find out that no other man has ever touched you.” He took a step toward her, dragging
his thumb along her lower lip. Desire arrowed down between her legs.
She had wanted this. Last night, when they’d been up on the roof, she had climbed the tree to keep herself from kissing him. Because she would have. Because she had wanted him. Had needed him. And she had been embarrassed to put herself out there. But this was the culmination of everything. Of her growth over the time she had been here. This wasn’t simply about confidence in the way she looked—though she did know that she looked better now that she was healthier. This was about whole acceptance of herself.
The woman she’d been up to this point, the woman that she wanted to be. The one she was now.
Pride in herself. An understanding of who she was and why.
And that woman deserved to have what she wanted. To have Daughtry. To kiss him, to be held by him.
She deserved to be in his bed. Even if she wasn’t chained to it.
She deserved everything.
She had so much compassion for herself then. And so much excitement for her future.
But best of all, she was happy right now. Looking at him. Knowing that he wanted her. That she had driven him to this.
“You do want me, don’t you?” she asked.
“Bix, you have no idea how long it’s been since I let myself really want anything. And I know that I’m crossing a line here.”
“Why? Because I’m a virgin?”
“No. Because I keep myself more controlled than this. And I’m not right now. I’m not making good decisions. But I want you.
And I need you to know that. That this is in the same kind of thing for me. I’m not a virgin. But this is new. Something different. I can’t tell you no. I don’t want to. Maybe I could refuse you, but I won’t. It amounts to the same thing. But somehow it feels...” He sifted his hand through her hair. “You’re extraordinary. No one has ever made me want to burn everything to the ground quite the way that you do.”
“It’s because we are fire, Sheriff,” she said.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, and paused for a moment. All she could do was luxuriate in the moment. In the feel of
him. The way it felt to push her fingers through his hair. To feel the hot skin on the back of his neck. She smoothed her
hands over his broad shoulders.
He really was just so beautiful. She kissed the corner of his mouth, his chin. Then she took his lips, moaning as he parted
hers, as he slid his tongue against her own.
It was so good. He was so good. His large hands moved down her back, over her body.
To feel desired like this was something entirely new.
And maybe that more than anything was why she’d never done this before. Because the kind of sexual desire she’d been exposed
to had felt mean. Selfish. Being touched by Daughtry felt expansive. Every brush of his hand over her body spoke of a mutual
need. The way that he held her was possessive, it was true, but there was something else. A desire to give to her. She felt
it. She relished it.
“You’re not going to go on a date with Michael again, are you?”
She shook her head. “No. I already told you. He’s just a friend.”
“I’m jealous of him,” said Daughtry.
He sounded furious about it.
She couldn’t help herself. She barked out a laugh. Even then. Even right then under the stars, with her body still buzzing from his touch.
“What’s so funny about that?”
“It’s funny,” she said, “because it’s ridiculous. You are the most gorgeous man that I have ever beheld. You have no reason
to be jealous of anybody.”
“I’m jealous of any man you might want, Bix. Because I want to be the only one.”
“You are. You will be. For the whole rest of the time that I’m here. It’s another brick. Teach me. Everything that I’m missing.
Show me what I want. I have all these feelings. I have all these desires, but I don’t know what to do with them. And I feel
like you can show me. Really. Truly.”
He held her close, there in the darkness, with only the moon and the stars as witnesses. “Tell me what you want.”
She shivered. His words were filled with sensual promise, and the hot press of his body against hers threatened to be her
undoing.
She had been the one pushing this, and now he was showing her that he would take the lead. Down the path that she wanted.
It was up to her. Her choice.
She knew that.
He was giving her the opportunity to say what she needed.
What she wanted. He was making it about her, while making it clear he was the one who knew exactly what he was doing.
She thought of her book. Her favorite book.
“I think I want... I want you to show me. There are things I think I’d like, but I... I trust you. I have trusted you, this whole time. You found me in the woods, and you took me in. You took the lead. That’s what I want. I want whatever you’re going to give me. Because it could never be anybody else. Not this time. Not for this first... It needed to be you. And I need for this to be... about you and me. Not about any other things I’ve wondered about...”
That was when he kissed her again. Cut off what she was saying and kissed her. Deep and hard and long. Everything she had
ever wanted.
Because he was everything she had ever wanted. All the things she had never known she’d wanted. All the dreams she had been
afraid to have. “Take me home,” she whispered.
“Gladly.”
He took her by the hand and led her back through the trees, around the outskirts of the party. Nobody noticed them as they
picked along the outskirts of the revelry.
They got into the truck, and she put her brick in her lap, vibrating with need as they took the slow drive down the dirt road
back to the ranch.
“We could do it in your truck,” she said, impatience making her giddy.
“No,” he said. “I’ll have you in a bed. With all the space, and all the time that I want.”
She had told him that he got to choose. And what he was promising sounded good. Very good.
When he pulled the truck up to the front of the house, he got out, and for some reason, she stayed where she was. He came around to her side and opened the door, taking her out and into his arms, brick and all.
“Daughtry,” she whispered.
“This is a show of trust on my part,” he said. “You are holding a weapon.”
She grinned. “I am.”
“I’m trusting you not to use it on me.”
She tightened her fingers on her brick. Her brick. It had her name on it and everything. “I promise.”
“You did once tell me that death was always unexpected,” he said, carrying her up the steps, and there was something extremely
comforting about the fact that he was still himself, even though there were aspects of him that felt new. This was still Daughtry,
and she was still Bix. Even while he made wildly sexy promises to her, and told her he relished her virginity.
“I did say that,” she said. “But I promise you, I won’t kill you tonight.”
“You won’t?”
“No. Most likely in the morning.”
“Good to know,” he said.
“I think so.”
He pushed open the door to the house, and set her down. She was reminded of that moment of fear she felt last week when she
thought that maybe he brought that other woman home. But also of the fantasy she’d had of him in the shower.
She was glad that they agreed this wouldn’t be just one night. That it would be for while she was here. Because that was truly
the most realistic way that this could pan out.
Of course, she wondered if that meant she needed to think a little bit more clearly about how long this would be. Because what she’d said to him was true. She couldn’t get used to this.
But she also knew she wanted to live in it. For just a while. A little while.
A little while was better than Bix had ever had. Dreaming of forever was a foolishness that she wouldn’t allow herself.
That much she knew. She might’ve changed a little bit, but she would never change that much.
It was impossible.
She prayed it wasn’t.
Because she really needed to keep her wits about her. And it was hard when he was standing there looking like that.
When she already knew how he looked without his shirt on.
“You should take your shirt off,” she said.
She hadn’t meant to say that. It had just sort of fallen out.
“I thought I was in charge.”
“Yeah, like in a little,” she said. “But the first night that I was here... you walked out without your shirt on. And I think it just about killed me. I’ve never seen... I’ve never seen anything like that. You. Your body. I knew right then that I wanted you. And I’ve never wanted anybody like that before. The night that we both... When we both went out with other people... I told you that you were like a cardboard cutout, I was lying. I was completely obsessed with how you look. I thought you were the most handsome man I had ever seen. And I have been dying to see you half-naked again.”
“You know I’m going to be more than half-naked, right?” he asked as he grabbed the back of his T-shirt and pulled it up over
his head.
She stood there, staring. At all of that broad chest, the dark hair sprinkled there.
“I... Yeah. I am. I... Please. Be all-the-way naked.”
“Calm down,” he said, moving toward her. She reached her hand out and placed it flat on his chest, her fingertips tingling
as they made contact with his hot skin.
“You said you wanted me to take the lead,” he said. “So trust me.”
He put his hand on the back of hers, pressing it flat to his skin, and she shivered. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Attagirl,” he said.
And that made everything inside of her go still. Pleased.
She liked that he was happy with her. She more than liked it. She felt brilliant. Effervescent with his approval.
He wrapped his arm around her, crushing her to his chest, stroking her hair as he leaned in and kissed her. Deep and long.
Slow. He wasn’t in a rush. And she wanted him to take it slow. She wanted him to let her enjoy every little bit of it.
Because long nights of being hungry seemed to pass in torturous increments.
Because when you were cold, time slowed to a crawl.
Up from the moment their mouths had met, she had felt like time had raced forward.
So she loved this. This moment to slow it all down. This moment to let it feel different.
To let it feel real. To let it feel right.
To be able to savor everything. The feel of his heart raging under her palm. The sound of their breathing.
The aching, tender way that his mouth claimed hers, before it got rough and hard and delicious.
She wanted this man. And it was a glorious feeling. To be able to want.
To have cravings. To know they could be satisfied. And she would never take that gift for granted. Other people would. Other
people would never understand the glory and the joy in simply wanting like this. In the anticipation of satisfaction. Because
it had always been a luxury she couldn’t afford.
She could afford this.
What an incredible realization. It was bigger than anything.
“I want to make you feel good,” he said. “That’s what I want, Bix. I want to make you shake and tremble, and scream because
it feels so damned good.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I would like that.”
She wasn’t going to let herself cry, because she knew well enough to know that would probably alarm him.
But it was incredible now, to be standing on the edge of all the good things the human body could feel. Instead of just living in the knowledge that it would be nothing but hunger and cold as far as her eye could see.
This was soft beds and rough hands. It was safety and the feeling of edgy danger she knew would only result in good things.
Risk and reward all rolled into a kiss.
Fear and satisfaction encapsulated in a moment.
She had spent so many years feeling tired. Her age had never meant much to her. When she had been a child it hadn’t meant
that someone was taking care of her, not like it should.
And as she had become an adult, it had meant even less.
But she’d been tired. Maybe more than a twenty-three-year-old should be.
She didn’t feel tired now.
This, their connection, it went past time and age and experience.
When she had knelt there on the ground and looked up at him, he’d seen her.
And she’d seen him.
It had been real and honest and this was too.
She didn’t have a snarky comment to make. Didn’t have a way to make light of the glory she felt around them then.
He held her. And she loved it.
She thought she might even love him. It didn’t scare her. It felt sort of beautiful. The idea that she could maybe love another person. Not feel tied to them because of genetics and a sense of loyalty for family that shouldn’t have to exist when that family had never been loyal to you.
Bix had never really been loved.
But maybe worst of all, she had never loved.
The idea that she could was beautiful. A flower unfolding at the center of her chest, making something new and pretty and
lovely.
She clung to him, then moved her hands down his bare chest, down the front of his flat, ridged stomach. She luxuriated in
the way that he felt. In the way this felt.
“Sheriff,” she breathed. “You really are something.”
“So are you. Something else. Something special.”
It was his turn to kiss her. Her nose, the edge of her lips. Her mouth, just tenderly, and it made her knees feel weak.
It was strange how this could feel so pure when her thoughts were anything but. How it could feel right and good at the same
time it felt gloriously dirty in the loveliest way.
She supposed if she could thank her dad for anything it was that she didn’t have any shame around the idea of sex. She’d only
held herself back from it because of her sense of self-preservation.
In the environment she’d been in, she’d known that would have only exposed her to hurt. To maybe being pregnant. To all kinds
of things she just didn’t want to deal with.
And so now, while she had some concerns, some worries, she at least didn’t have any shame to shift.
She could feel some happiness about that.
And mostly, she didn’t want to give any credit to her dad. Not for her being here. Because this was all her. And all Daughtry.
She clung to him, let him kiss her. Kissed him back.
Until she was panting, until she could barely breathe.
He moved his hand around to cup her ass, and she gasped, arching against him, rolling her hips forward in an instinctive bid
to feel him right where she was most needy for him.
He moved his hands up her spine, and she wanted to purr like a cat, and then he brought his hand around to cup her breasts.
Oh, she was very disdainful of her breasts. She thought of them as small and unremarkable. But as Daughtry ran his thumb over
one tightened nipple, she had never been more grateful for her breasts. She would never shame them again. Because when he
put his hands on them it was like being struck by lightning. Like she finally understood what they were for.
What her whole body was for.
She just wanted to be touched and appreciated and luxuriated in by Daughtry King. Over and over again. Until she couldn’t
breathe.
“Please,” she panted, as he squeezed her, as he sent fire rolling through her veins.
“I have to have you,” he said against her lips. The desperation in his tone making her lightheaded. He picked her up again,
right off the ground, his strength a damned sensation.
He laid her down slowly on the bed, spread her out before him.
She was still fully clothed, he with his shirt off, and she found herself wanting to cover up her body, even though she was still covered.
She found herself feeling exposed as he stared at her, his eyes filled with heat.
Then he moved his hands to the buckle on his jeans, undid them as he kicked off his boots and socks. Pushed everything down
his lean hips and exposed all of himself to her hungry gaze.
“Oh my,” she said.
It was perhaps the most demure, pearl-clutching reaction to anything Bix had ever had.
She lay there for a full ten seconds, immobilized by the sight of him.
And then she remembered who the hell she was. Bix Carpenter. Survivor, moonshiner, and no shrinking violet.
She sat up, getting onto her knees, and putting her hand on that rigid abdomen again. She was close now, to that most masculine
part of him. The part of him that was making her tremble and quake. Making her wet at her center. Making her internal muscles
pulse with need.
She moved her hands down that gorgeous scoop right by his hipbone, down his thigh. He groaned, letting his head fall back.
Curiosity drove her, and she moved her head toward him, and he grabbed her hair. “I’m on a hair trigger, Bix. It’s not a good
idea.”
“But I want...”
“Later,” he said.
His eyes were filled with molten promise. She was about to argue, but then she found herself flat on her back again, with that big, dominant man on top of her. Making her feel all kinds of things. All kinds of delicious things.
He took her dress up over her head, then her bra. Leaving her needy breasts bare to his gaze.
Then he dragged her panties down her legs, and she gave thanks for the simplicity of dresses.
“You are gorgeous,” he said, the words a growl, taking on the same edge as all the better to eat you with might.
And that was when she realized. He wasn’t Captain America. Not in this one moment. He was the big bad wolf if he was anything,
and she wasn’t afraid of him. No. She was too turned-on to be afraid.
This man... She wanted this man. With every fiber of her being she wanted this man.
And all that he was. All the complexity. It was then she realized that she had awakened something inside of him too.
He had introduced her to this. This feeling of need. Of desire.
But he had been something different when they’d met. Suppressing this. This part of himself. And it was very real. Raw. Beautiful.
He was afraid of it. She knew that. She had listened and collected all the little pieces that he had left for her to grab
when he had spoken about his childhood. About his father.
It was her job to make him not afraid of this. To make him see how much she wanted it. How much she loved it.
And so she let her legs fall open, forgetting to be modest or nervous in any regard. Because she was watching his face. Watching
the greed there, watching the desire. And she knew that this was about to be everything.
That he was about to be everything.
He moved down, kissing her neck, down her collarbone, all the way to one tightened nipple. He drew it into his mouth, sucking
hard. She arched her back up off the mattress. “Daughtry!” she shouted.
“That’s right,” he growled. “Tell me how much you like it.”
“I love it,” she said. “I love it so much. I love it more than the first night I was here and I saw all that food, and you
let me eat everything. I love it more than that.” She was incoherent. She was babbling. As he licked and kissed his way down
her body. Over her skin. She cursed and cried out. And when he reached the center of her need, his breath hot against her
desire there, she whimpered. She lifted her hips in helpless entreaty, in desperate need of his lips, his tongue.
He put his face between her thighs and licked her. He ate her like she was a glorious delicacy.
She whimpered, throwing her arm over her eyes, moving her hips in time with the rhythm of his movements.
He shifted, pushing a finger inside of her, and the world exploded behind her eyes.
She screamed, gripping the bedspread, a shattering release immobilizing her as her internal muscles pulsed around that finger.
“Holy shit,” she said. “I didn’t... I had no idea... I...”
“I’m not done,” he growled against her slick flesh. Then he continued to pleasure her that way, adding a second finger and
moving them in and out of her body. She grabbed his shoulders, his hair. Her fingernails pierced his skin. She wrapped her
legs around his back, opening herself even more to him as he licked deeper and deeper.
A second climaxed rocked her. Shook her. Her body was so hungry for this. For release it had never known before.
For pleasure it had always been denied.
She didn’t give herself things like this.
She held every good thing back. Because she didn’t trust it. She never had.
Tears were streaming down her cheeks. And she was shaking. Lord how she wanted this. Him. He was everything. And this had
changed her.
Because now she knew what her body was capable of. The heights. The glory.
Now she knew.
She looked down and watched him, his tongue sliding over her slick flesh. And she felt herself tremble, shatter again, not
as drastically this time, but an aftershock, a wave of arousal that overtook her when she watched him take his pleasure by
tasting her.
“Daughtry,” she said, her voice thin and thready. She felt hollow. She needed him.
“I have to be sure you’re ready,” he said, his speech slurred. He pushed a third finger into her, and she froze, the stretch
of her untried body painful as he worked them in and out of her channel.
Gradually, she adjusted to the feel of him. And when he felt her relax, he withdrew. He moved away from her and straightened,
up on his knees. He was fiercely aroused, standing thick and proud away from his body.
She was struck by the sheer physical beauty of him. The hard masculine lines.
And much in the same way she had appreciated her own femininity, her own delicacy, moments before, she appreciated his strength.
His masculinity.
Something that had seemed like a threat most days, seemed like a glorious thing now.
Another gift.
The gifts from Daughtry were endless. It didn’t need to be forever to matter.
“Please,” she whispered.
She felt restless and edgy, needy in spite of the fact that she’d had three climaxes. He reached into the side table drawer and took out the condoms. And she smiled. He opened the box and tore a plastic packet off the strip. She watched with rapt attention as he rolled the latex protection over his length. He was beautiful. She hated that he had to cover himself. To put a barrier between them. But she loved that he’d done it. Because he was keeping them both safe. Because she knew that the con sequences for her could be devastating. Particularly on the verge of her freedom. Of her new life.
He moved to her, kissing her mouth as he positioned himself against the entrance to her body. He kissed her deep as he began
to move slowly inside her. Filling her. Inch by agonizing inch.
It was almost too much. But at the same time... it wasn’t enough. It almost never could be. She lifted her hips, encouraging
him to go deeper. He moved his hand around to cup her ass, then thrust hard.
She gritted her teeth against the pain as the last bit of her barrier was torn away. He stayed there like that for a moment.
And she clung to him. Waiting for the pain to become pleasure.
It didn’t take long.
It was different. Having him in this deep. So deep it was like their bodies had become one. And when he began to move inside
of her, the pleasure that built was something all-encompassing. Something new and different and wonderful.
She moaned, gripping his shoulders, looking into that face. That gorgeous, familiar face that had brought hope and pleasure
and this deep, unending care into her life.
She suddenly felt overwhelmed. The depth of emotion expanding inside of her was something unexpected.
Pleasure was one thing. This connection... it transcended pleasure. It was more. More than she had expected. More than
she had ever hoped to experience.
His movements were measured, rebuilding the pleasure within her.
Until she was strung out on a glittering wire, suspended over all the stars.
“Bix,” he said, her name rough on his lips. And she had never liked her improbable name all that much, but broken, on Daughtry’s
lips, she thought she might love it.
His movements became hard. Intense. And she lost herself. In the rhythm of it. The intensity of it. The desperation of it.
She herself was wrapped all up in that glittering wire now. Everything drawn so tight she thought she might never be able
to breathe again.
And then it snapped. And she cried out his name as she fell. Into that endless sea of shining stardust. It was more than a
handful. It was more than anything. It was everything. All-encompassing and glorious. A moment of pure, glittering glory.
She opened her eyes and met his gaze as he thrust into her, his breath coming in short bursts, the tendons in his neck standing
out. He was trying to control himself. Trying to hold on.
She lifted her head, and whispered in his ear, “Let go. Just let go.”
He groaned, his thrusts becoming wild, hard.
Pushing her over the edge again as she clung to him, as his own climax overtook him, and he came holding her hips hard, pulsing
inside of her.
She let her head fall back, his name a prayer on her lips as she gave herself over in an endless surrender.
She had lost control.
She had forgotten to protect herself.
She had forgotten to hold any part of herself back.
She was replete.
She was happy.
And for the first time in her memory, she fell asleep entirely, exceedingly comfortable.