Tracing Scars (KORT #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

TY

R ena’s face blanches, the porcelain shade morphing into an ashen gray before my eyes. I never lied to her, but it’s clear my cryptic explanation of not giving her a choice in the marriage read differently from her vantage point.

Before I can address it, Ryker balks. “That’s fucking rich.”

“What are you talking about?” Rena asks, her voice so small and gravelly that it’s evident she’s choking on disillusionment.

“Last night with those guys … I didn’t realize who they were,” I begin while the rest of the room remains in a battle stance. “They were foot soldiers for a Mafia family we’re supposed to be aligned with.”

“Motherfucker,” Axel hisses, no doubt suspecting which family I’m referring to.

Maddox’s eyes squint, as though he’s piecing something together. “Did you draw up a prenup?”

“No,” I scoff, thrown off by the asinine assertion of priorities. “ We didn’t have time for that shit. I did what I had to do to protect her without a second thought.”

“Are you hearing this, Rena?” Ryker is lasered in on me while addressing his sister. “After years of insisting that you would only marry for love, you ended up as a pawn in a business transaction anyway. And now, he owns you and your shares.”

She shakes her head as though she’s trying to dislodge the notion while Jax rubs her back and Ivy sidles up on her other side.

“Jesus Christ,” Wells hisses. “Let’s not muddy this nightmare any more than necessary. Why would Ty give a fuck about Noire shares? He’s got more capital at risk than she does. We all care about her and your whole family. You know that.”

Axel considers that for a beat, but walks to Rena and lifts her chin. “We should go home. We’ll sort through this. It’s okay. You’ll still be anchored to him, to them, but I’ll fix it. I’ll find a way.”

“Fuck that,” I spit, over this bullshit. “I know you’re upset, but you’re all messing with her head and hurting her.”

Axel peers back at me. “The marriage can protect her whether she’s here with you or not. If that was your intention, I appreciate it. But there’s no point—”

“She’s not leaving with any of you because she is my wife .” I stride toward her, not giving a fuck if one of them shoots me or not. “I’ll be the one protecting her.”

Rena glances between all of us, finally settling on Jax. “Help me pack.”

“No.” I snag a belt loop in her jean shorts, tethering her to me. “They’re confusing things. We need to talk about this, Little Moon.”

“Little Moon?” Cash sneers.

“Don’t, Ty.” Rena holds up her palm as tears drip down her cheeks. “Just don’t.”

The sight of her reeling is gutting. All these years, I’ve denied myself getting close to her in any respect so that I wouldn’t cross the line, wouldn’t risk endangering her, and because I believed it was the right thing to do for countless reasons. And when it finally happens, every fear I ever held regarding her comes barreling at me.

Crunch. Squeak. Blood.

Hell is all I’ve ever had to offer.

Even though I can’t let her go because she’s relegated to the same eternal burning as me now, I release the hold on her shorts and allow her to escape, if only for a few fleeting breaths.

As she and Jax amble down the hallway into the bedroom, the buzz of incensed quarreling resumes. I’m rooted to this spot though. This empty view. The arguments and contention are nothing but a monotonous burial hymn.

Liam bumps my shoulder. “Fuck them, man. Go get her. Explain it. Convince her.”

I don’t respond because Ryker hits me with another rancorous query.

“You left everyone and chased after her. Tracked her down and hid her from us. How long have you been fucking her?”

That’s a fair question. Expected even. And yet my blood boils.

“That part is new, but my feelings aren’t. I should’ve made her mine a long time ago. So, let me be clear now. I know your concern and outrage are because you love her, but that’s the last time you disrespect my wife with a question like that.” That’s all I give them before nodding to Liam, sticking my gun in my waistband, and bolting for my girl.

She isn’t in the bedroom when I reach it, but Jax is clearing out her drawers.

Breezing past him, I check the en suite, which is vacant, as is the walk-in closet. So, I stop a few feet away, stashing my hands in my pockets so he sees that I’m noncombative. “Where did she go?”

“I’m not a hothead like them,” he says, his focus never shifting from the drawers. “But Rena … she’s mine. She’s always been mine. I fucked up with her, too, so I can’t say anything about that. At least you tried to make it right. It’s just … the method you chose to fix things … it’s what Ryker was trying to explain in his harsh delive ry. Rena has a big heart, the biggest. And when it comes to you, she …” He raises his gaze to mine, but unlike the other Noires, his doesn’t possess outrage; it ushers a plea. “If you fucking break it, she’ll never be the same.”

“I don’t intend to. There is no one more important to me,” I assure him, an anvil of overwhelm walloping my chest.

His mouth straightens into a line. “I figured as much when you nicknamed her. You might want to clarify things with her though. She’s gathering her laundry from the dryer.”

“Thanks, Jax.” I hurry toward the hall when his voice catches me.

“And, Ty …”

Halting at the threshold, I grip the molding and swivel to see him. “Yeah?”

“Don’t hide from her. No one respects demons more than Rena. She’s welcomed all of mine.”

With that advice still lingering, I burst into the laundry room and lock the door behind me to ensure privacy for this conversation.

Rena’s head snaps up to me, her blueberry-field eyes flooded and stained red. She scans my face with a swallow but recommences her task. Even angry and despondent, she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. She’s still in her black bikini and cutoff shorts, skin flushed pink to match her hair.

The space isn’t small for a utility room, but it’s compact enough that berries and butterscotch permeate every molecule of the air. She’s got her candy bag sitting atop the folding table, which is both sad and adorable. It makes me wonder what she’d be doing if she wasn’t chomping that hard candy to bits. Something crazier than what she’s planning?

“What are you doing?” I’m not sure why that’s what I start with. It’s obvious she’s folding clothes, but I’m a nervous wreck.

“Packing,” she states, ripping a shirt from the dryer and tucking it into a small square.

“You’re really leaving?” I pose it as a question when, in reality, I know the answer. She can’t. It’s too late. She’s named and claimed and owned by KORT, like the rest of us. I couldn’t bear to let her go now anyway, not without losing my mind once and for all. But I also need to know if she’ll choose me.

“Yep,” she answers, popping the P and tearing another garment from the tangled pile.

“Things got twisted out there,” I assert.

“Twisted?” She barks a disbelieving laugh. “They were freaking twisted long before that. This is my fault.” Animated as always, she flings a shirt through the air as she drives home her point, folding it, only to have it fall apart with her gestures. Over and over again. “I’ve replayed our conversations. You were telling me. But I heard what I wanted to hear. Believed what I wanted to believe. Ryker isn’t wrong. He’s a blunt asshole, but he has a way of seeing things clearly.”

Not wanting to expel the outright rage I feel for how Ryker mangled everything and made it worse, I opt for a straighter route. “That may be. But he is wrong about this. About us.”

“Really?” Her pupils blow wide, and her jaw locks as she shakes the T-shirt out like she’s waving a red flag at a bull. “Because what I know is that I held a torch for you for years. And you didn’t reciprocate it. You barely acknowledged me beyond pleasantries. So, eventually, I decided it wasn’t worth risking the relationships I had with Ivy and Celeste or the ones you had with my brothers on something that was obviously one-sided. I’m a big girl. And as a casino owner, I’m no stranger to knowing when you should hedge your bets. So, I moved on.”

She pauses there with a huff, but her lips are parted, plainly ready to expand. “But then you did that whole flirty thing and ran your fingers over my neck and stared at my lips and nicknamed me and told me I didn’t imagine any of it. And it was everything I’d ever wanted. So, actually, you did this. You fucked with me.”

“I didn’t fuck with you,” I counter, suddenly hot. “I’m here. If I had done those things and abandoned you, this would make sense. But I’m fucking here. ”

“Because of an obligation, Ty! You married me to protect me.” She crumples the shirt in her hands, balling it up with her rage and flattening it out on the table three seconds later as she garners some semblance of tranquility. “I’m not some weak, pathetic, lovestruck girl who is going to beg someone to want me. Screw that. I pushed you because you flirted and texted back and came all the way here and looked at me like I was the only one in the room. And I freaking melted. But I won’t—”

“You’ve always been the only one in the room.” Truth.

She points at me, the same top she just flattened out becoming a casualty of her accusation. “That’s the shit—that right there.”

“You’ve folded and refolded that shirt six times now.” That is my poor attempt to proffer the levity she is generally so adept at providing. It doesn’t work.

“Yeah? Well”—she throws it onto the table—“I’m pissed. I had accepted that you wouldn’t … and then I was lost, and you were there, telling me you couldn’t be. Shouldn’t be. Until, suddenly, poof”—her arms fly wide, displaying evidence—“ let’s get married . I mean, when Ryker is right, he’s right. Not that I’ll ever admit that to him. But I was dumb and blind.”

Inching closer to her, I station my shoulder against the wall and cross my arms. “Are you done?”

She scowls on a gasped, “What?”

So, I slowly reiterate my question. “Are you done with your rant?”

“Did you only marry me because you’d fucked up?” she volleys with a heaping mound of sass. “Yes or no?”

I scrub my hand over my mouth, the scruff bristling against my palm and my bruised jaw aching. “It’s not cut and dry like that.”

“Then, it is,” she argues. “Your refusal to answer is the answer. The whole middle-of-the-night, fuck-me-on-a-balcony-so-I-agree-to-till-death-do-us-part, ostracizing-our-families ceremony was to cover your ass and, in turn, protect me. I guess that’s admirable. People are always protecting me, it seems. From myself. From my roots. From the truth. From the unseen. But I don’t want that from you.”

“Too fucking bad,” I snipe, hurling my arm into the air. “I won’t even apologize. Because I can’t help that. I will never stop protecting you.” I grab my chest, feeling my lungs dispel any morsel of oxygen inside them at the mere thought of something happening to her. “Keeping you safe will always be my top priority.”

“That would be fine if … it’s like you’re still here for my brothers.” She flips open the washer, drags an item out, smells it, and immediately throws it back inside, slamming the lid and adding detergent as she continues. “I want you to be here because you can’t not be with me. Because you’re out of your freaking mind for me. I don’t care how quick it was. I didn’t ask for it to be this quick. I would have been content with waiting years to be Mrs. Reynolds. But I wasn’t afforded that option, and that’s what I need from my husband—for him to be out of his mind for me. What I fucking deserve. From you, Ty.”

“Why do you think I came out here, Rena?”

She doesn’t turn to face me when she extends her flat response. “You said it was for my brothers.”

“Right,” I scoff. “So much for your brothers that I didn’t even tell them where you were. Or that you were safe. Which was such a shitty move as their friend. And I stayed. And, yes, I forced you to marry me. Partly to protect you. But also because I’ve been out of my mind over you for longer than I should admit. The only part of marrying you that bothered me was that I couldn’t do it the way you deserved.”

Everything in me wants to go to her, to scoop her up, to devour every inch of her until she understands this, but I’m not sure she’s ready for that.

So, I settle for crowding in behind her, my arms bracketing her against the washing machine without touching her, only that electrifying buzz zapping between us and my fanning breath pebbling her bare skin. “I know that sounds romantic, but, fuck, I … they ar en’t wrong. I’ve chained you to me in ways you don’t fully understand yet. And it was selfish. But I still can’t let you go. I’m too fucking crazy for that. You’re mine. It’s the only thing I’m certain of. I don’t even know how to let you out of my sight. The thought … I can’t breathe. So, when your brothers tell you that you sold your freedom, believe them.”

She twists within the circle I’ve enclosed her in, those wary hazels coasting over me with a tenderness that wasn’t present before. “I hear what you’re saying, Ty. And I love so much about it. I know protecting the people you care about is the most important thing to you, so I’m grateful to be one of them. But I can’t stay for that. It has to be more. For me, it has to be more than your residual nightmare about your sisters.”

That slams into me like a brick wall of defeat because I know what she’s saying, and the only way to help her see past it is to slice into wounds I never willingly open. But Jax’s words course through my veins, bolstering me to try something different.

“Don’t hide from her. No one respects demons more than Rena.”

“That’s fair,” I concede. “Quick or not, you deserve to understand that part of me.”

And it all comes bubbling to the surface. Years of torment. Of guilt. Of hopelessness. So, I step back and drag a hand down my face, doing my damnedest to compose myself like a fucking man.

But my eyes sting with grief, my chest shudders, and my voice quavers anyway. “I’ve been the walking dead for over thirteen fucking years, Rena. I see them when I close my eyes, when I look into the faces of women at the shelter, when I thought we’d lost Ivy, when Celeste was hurt, when the Skulls attacked and I didn’t know whether the three of you were okay—whether you were okay.”

A hushed sob flows out of her, but I keep going, rubbing the emotion from my leaking eyes.

“They. Are. Everywhere. Like my goddamn penance.” I suck in a jagged breath and take a seat on the bench, fastening my bleary gaze to the ceramic-tiled floor. “I’ve plastered on a smile like a demented lunatic, terrified if people look deeper, they’ll know I’m nothing more than a zombie at heart. A coward who made the wrong fucking choice and let that motherfucking predator take them.”

She hoists herself to perch atop the washer, and I appreciate the fact that she knows to give me space here more than she could ever comprehend. Because so much about this feels like failing. Grieving and joy. Laughter and anger. All of it is failure. Human experiences I get and my mom and sisters don’t.

But I really could use a reprieve. And this girl is it. Jax was right about her respecting demons. She asked for ours to dance. She pleaded for me not to hold back. And for the first time, I don’t want to.

My heart is thrashing against my sternum, thrumming to the beat of remorse and shame and solace—the somber dirge that guides me every day. “Don’t get me wrong. I love my family. Wells saved my life. More than once. All three of the guys are my refuge. Ivy, Celeste, and Felicity have brought me joy again. So, when I tell you this, I don’t want you to feel like you’re responsible for … anything other than being you. I won’t put this shit on you.”

I lift my chin and stare at her anguished face, tears tracking down her pink cheeks, makeup smeared, chin wobbly.

Breathtaking.

All I want is for her to see how she’s been with me far longer than she realizes, so I spell it all out. “But four years ago—that day when you were in the black shirt with boning and your pink-and-blonde curls framed your angel face—you gave me a gift. Even if it was out of reach and something I shouldn’t want, you were the first desire I’d had. The first craving. The first dream. Hope.”

My heartbeat steadies to a more comfortable rhythm as relief blooms through the confession. “I didn’t get it then. Not like I do now. I was just so grateful to yearn for something. To hunger for an outcome that wasn’t death. That was enough for a while. A glimpse of what life could be.”

Rising, I move toward her statuesque body, stationing myself between her legs and gripping her trembling thighs. “But it wasn’t. I always wanted more—always hated myself for wanting more. It didn’t just feel like a line I shouldn’t cross. It was a glass wall, dangling the beauty I could see, but never touch, right in front of me. Another element of torture. And I know how fucking selfish it is. You deserve so much more. So, maybe this makes me a monster, but I think, eventually, I was going to make you mine one way or another because you are my sanctuary.”

A choppy exhale tumbles past her lips, cascading in unison with another drop of her pain. “I don’t know how I feel about that … The way you’ve been tormenting yourself wrecks me. I’m so glad that you trust me with this, that I gave you hope. I want to be that for you, but what if I’m not enough to be your healing? And is that really why you married me? Because if you hadn’t messed up, I don’t think we’d be wed right now.”

Addressing only the former part of that inquiry, I squeeze her legs in reassurance. “I’m not expecting you to heal me. I told you I wouldn’t put that on you.”

“So, what are you expecting?” she returns, wiping her wet, streaked cheeks.

I tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear, grazing my knuckles down her neck, over her battering pulse. “To take care of you. To steal a sliver of happiness. To spoil my wife.”

“Ty, I just … it still feels like this was a mistake.” She lowers her chin, her focal point somewhere behind me on the bare laundry room wall as she sniffs. “I don’t want to be someone’s mistake—certainly not yours. This marriage was rash and a means to fix something. I get it. I’m not mad. And I’m not walking away from you completely, but I think maybe …”

“Rena, look at me.” I hook my fingers around her jaw and bring her eyes back to me. “You are the furthest thing from a mistake. You’re a miracle. It’s not about healing me. It’s that you’ve gifted me a new vision.”

A boulder of grief balls in my throat because I don’t know how to convey what she does for me simply by existing, how she crashes through the prison walls I’ve been encased in. How she’s always been my strong tower, my fortress, my true north.

My chest rattles as I attempt to get this out. “I might never stop seeing their dead eyes or feeling those fucking leaves crunch under my feet or hearing that goddamn squeaky door, but your light is bright enough to blur the pain.” I choke back the sorrow and cling to my resolution. “So, yeah, I took you, protected you, made you mine because that’s what you do with a precious treasure.”

“God”—she hangs her head on a puffed breath—“you really say all the right things, which is how I got into this mess with you in the first place.”

“So, believe me and stay,” I plead even though I have no intention of letting her go. I want her to fight for us. Admitting that all out loud was like a scorching shot in the arm, igniting every ember I’d ever felt for her. Everything I’d attempted to extinguish all these years.

“And if I do, what does that look like to you?” She’s so serious, so composed with that question that I feel a sense of pride ballooning in my chest. Maybe that’s weird. But she’s not always two speeds—impulsivity or denial. She can slow down and work through things. She just doesn’t trust herself.

But aside from pride, I’m harboring a host of other feelings because the swell of her breasts is peeking out of her bikini top, jiggling with the thrum of the washer beneath her. Those porn-star nipples with the bars that she boasts about are boldly lurching through the fabric. Goose bumps litter her tanned skin, and her breaths are shallow.

Fuck, she’s pretty.

And mine.

Whether she sees it or not.

“For starters”—I keep my features stony, battle ready, as though I’m about to drop a bomb—“your stay will begin with me fucking you on this washer. ”

She bursts out laughing—the sweetest sound in existence—her gaze flitting down to note the motion of the machine and the fact that she’s at the ideal height. “It’s good to see you prioritizing, sailor.”

“There’s my fucking girl.” I cradle her face and nip at the corner of her grin as my fingers journey into the leg hole of her jean shorts. “Don’t leave me.”

Her tongue darts out to lick her lips, collecting a salty droplet on the tip. She’s as wanton as I am, but she’s steadfast in her resolve to think straight. “I can’t promise forever right now. I don’t want to be the blind, impulsive girl Ryker’s claiming I am. What about the burn you kept mentioning? What does that look like?”

I ignore her lack of commitment, confident in my ability to persuade her otherwise, and field the more troubling inquiry. “Yeah. That’s still going to happen. I can’t prevent it, but I’ll keep you safe through it.”

She inhales a considering breath. “When?”

“Three to four weeks from now,” I provide, hoping that eases her distress. It will give us the time to solidify who we are before KORT does everything in their power to tear us apart.

Her fingers dip under the hem of my shirt, perusing my abs. “And where will we stay until then?”

Since she seems amenable, I shift her bikini bottoms to the side and swipe my fingers through her arousal, feathering over her clit until her eyes glaze over.

“Always so fucking wet for me,” I praise but manage to refocus while curling one finger inside her. “I think we should stay here. Let your brothers go home. Give us some space.”

She purrs a wispy echo of contentment and bites her lip as her knees grip on to my hips. “And what does the burn entail?”

With my free hand, I palm her head, rasping against her mouth and thrusting a second digit inside her. “I don’t know, baby girl.”

“So, if I pack my shit and leave, what will you do?” she taunts, lashes fluttering in pleasure. Her pouty simper tells me that there’s only a fraction of validity to her musing. “Maybe I’m safer with my brothers.”

Goading me. I don’t know why that turns me the hell on, but it does.

My beautiful brat.

Adding a third finger, I chuckle against her mouth. “I won’t allow it. This is the part of me I didn’t want you to see. But if you force my hand … you’re not going anywhere without me, Rena. I’d run with you, so we could avoid it, but that would only get everyone we love killed.”

“Killed?” she croaks, hazels wide and alarmed. “By KORT?”

“Yes.” Sweating through this conversation, I haul her toward me so her inner thighs are nestled against my hips, my cock raging inside my jeans. “There are rules. We agreed to bylaws, and there’s no going back. Anything that puts the organization at risk is punishable by death.”

Her breath hitches, even as she rocks into my hand. “And you killing those guys, does it put the organization at risk?”

Unable to concentrate on anything other than the tragedy of her still clothed, I pull the string on her bathing suit top and watch those glorious tits break free.

“Fuck, baby.” My mouth descends on one, my tongue whirling the cool metal piercing and her peaked nipple as my fingers keep tangoing insider her.

She whimpers, holding my head against her and arching her back. It’s possible she’s forgotten she asked a question about the risk to KORT, lost in this moment between us while God only knows what ensues beyond the door.

I answer anyway between sucking and lapping because she deserves to understand. “Not exactly. It’s messy. Killing those guys doesn’t hurt KORT, but it puts us in the line of fire without a good fucking shield.”

She reaches for my dick, cupping it with a hushed groan when she discovers how hard and ready I am for her, but still pants out more questions. “And everyone in our families could be targets? Does this marriage keep my brothers safe?”

For this answer, I latch my eyes to hers. I won’t promise her things I can’t deliver. “No.”

Her body stills, spine rigid as she soaks that in. “So, their lives could be at risk because of this? No wonder they’re pissed.”

“Yeah. I’d hate me too.” I abandon her breasts while still massaging her clit with my thumb because I need to stare into her eyes when I explain this. It’s vital to her acceptance. “But your brothers aren’t worried about themselves. They’re worried about you. It’s a perilous process to become part of KORT. What I’ve done is unforgivable.”

Divulging the fact that not everyone survives the loyalty test doesn’t seem beneficial. It’s not an outcome I’m willing to entertain, so there’s no sense. All it would do is terrify her more than necessary.

I capture a dripping tear from her, one that makes me think she’d leave me if she could. I guess I’ll have to live with that, but I won’t squash her fear completely. The only thing worse than dragging her through the flames is pretending I’m offering her the rain she longs for.

Her jaw locks, and she glances away with a hard swallow. “You know that old saying about setting a bird free, and if it’s meant to be, it will come back to you?”

So, she’d definitely leave me if she could. After everything I’ve endured, that spears me more than expected. Not-worthy , chants in the recesses of my mind.

“That doesn’t apply here.” I remove my fingers from her sopping cunt, gliding the glistening tips over my tongue with an involuntary growl. “Did you really believe that after I spent a lifetime in Hell, you could tease me with a taste of Heaven and I’d ever let you go?”

With that question still loitering in the space between us, I smear my arousal-coated fingers across her lips before pushing them into her mouth. “Fucking heaven, Rena.”

She tilts her head, all the previous irritation melting into a boiling puddle of lust before my eyes. “Heaven,” she whispers, sampling herself with a moan. “I think maybe you should shut up and fuck me, Mr. Reynolds.”

Jesus, she’s fucking perfect.

Her spontaneous whims are growing on me. More than growing on me. It’s safe to say that I am madly in love with her. No idea when that happened. Maybe I have been to some degree for years. Either way, there’s no denying it.

“Whatever my naughty wife wants.” In the spell of a single heartbeat, I lift her, shuck her shorts and bikini bottoms off, place my gun on the dryer, wrench down my zipper, and unsheathe my throbbing cock.

She whimpers at the sight, shimmying her weight to position herself closer.

Swiping the dripping head of my dick over her with a taunting friction—clit to entrance—I pluck my phone out of my back pocket and pull up a song that will express far more than I could with words. After setting it on the dryer, I thrust inside her as the opening chords of “Me and Bobby McGee” trill from the speaker.

She gasps through the stretch as her face brightens with both rapture and awareness. “You understood my Joplin reference in the hallway that day?”

The washer has her quivering against me, enhancing every touch I offer so that I know she’ll come undone quickly. I want to savor this though, so I maintain an agonizingly slow pace.

“Not that day.” Anchoring her legs around my hips—where my jeans are hanging on for dear life—I angle her so that I can burrow a little deeper with every pump while I finish answering. “When you were missing, I replayed every moment we’d ever spent together. Especially those last ones at La Lune Noire. I told you that I hadn’t eaten or slept since I had gotten the call that you’d gone missing. Nothing left to lose clicked. There was nothing that could’ve kept me from finding you.”

Her eyes are hooded, and she’s shivering with need, but she reaches up and strokes my face, like she did that day in the hall, a curious scrunch to her sweet little nose. “So, you’re saying we have nothing left to lose now?”

I smile, coiling myself tighter around her and moving my face within an inch of hers. “No. At least, that’s not what this is for me. You’re my everything, Little Moon. Now that you’re mine, I have everything to lose.”

Those hazels teem with so many unspoken things before she tugs me even closer. And the way her chest shudders against mine has me convinced she’s saying goodbye, if only emotionally.

But then she rasps out the last sentiment I would expect. “You’re a good man, Ty. The best.”

My tempo accelerates. An urgency to save this moment from a fiery demise burns through me, even as I’m compelled to impart the ugly truth. “I’m not, Rena. I’m the worst kind of man. I’m your cage.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” She detangles her arms and peels off my shirt. “You’re not a monster.” Tosses it to the floor. “You didn’t fail.” Her eyes lock with mine. “And I’m not a prisoner.”

A shuddering breath billows out of my lungs, so I meld us—skin to skin—and grit out my demand. “Don’t do that—romanticize this. I’ll spend my life trying to be … I’ll end up haunting you.”

“You’re more than your past,” she rasps, her streaming tears wetting my shoulder as her heels dig into my jean-clad ass.

She’s in agony while I’m inside her. Because no matter how I skew it, loving her is the epitome of plundering a treasure to destroy it.

There’s a part of me that needs her to understand that, needs her to hate me for what I’m stealing from her. But the other part is so fucking desperate to be a man worthy of holding her.

I tweak her nipple, delivering a more exhilarating type of pain, and sink my teeth into her collarbone for the same purpose—biting and branding. Peppering her neck and shoulders and breasts with frantic kisses and nips.

Rough and soothing .

Affliction and atonement.

Claiming and clemency.

She moans, succumbing to the euphoria of her impending release, but her sticky, anguish-soaked cheeks heckle me.

“It’s happening right now.” I thrust harder, contrition seizing the breath in my lungs and shame blanketing me, knowing she’s the slice of heaven I don’t deserve. “I told you I’d drown you in darkness.”

Deeper.

Harder.

More.

She pants from the intrusion as I slam into her inner walls, no doubt rendering her even sorer than she already was. That stinging jolt has her teetering on the edge though, her cunt strangling my cock so vehemently that stars mar my vision and a heated zing rockets from my balls to my abdomen to my spine and limbs.

“That’s it, baby girl,” I encourage, pounding into her as the music croons a new tune and the washer judders and the air wafts butterscotch and blueberry fields.

“Such a good girl.” I circle her clit to shove her over the precipice, soaking in her seeking hazels, which showcase how utterly ravenous she is for her climax. “So beautiful when you come,” I praise. “Give it to me. I want it all. Every fucking part of you.”

Because I’m selfish. But at least I can give her this.

A sheen of sweat seeps out of her pores, glimmering in a potent announcement of her soaring into ecstasy. But, as if she were suspended mid-flight, she clutches my cheeks. “Ty?”

It’s a question of some sort, and even though I don’t know if I can deliver, I can’t bear for her to want to leave me, so I simply say, “Anything,” on a ragged exhale. “You can have anything.”

She slants her head, tear-soaked lashes fluttering through her valiant pause. “All I want is you. All of you.” A satiny purr falls from her lips, but she forges ahead, her voice raw yet resolute. “If you’re a cage, then lock me up. If you’re a haunting, I’ll be a ghost. And if you’re the darkness, I’ll be your Little Moon. ”

And she fucking broke me. Cracked me wide open. Stealing the chilling wind from my lungs and replenishing it with sacrificial words.

How could she still want me? See it all and still want me?

Thirteen years of guilt and shame. Of misery and torment. Of never-ending fucking hellfire. It all showers onto her as I hoist her to my waist, spin us around, flatten her to the wall, and thrust with everything I have, trembling as we both plummet off the edge, releasing in unison.

“Are you even fucking real? Jesus, tell me this is real and that you’re mine, Rena.”

“It’s real, Ty,” she breathes. “I’ve always been yours.”