Chapter 11 #3
"Let go," he whispered against my temple. "Take it back. Your voice. Your pleasure. Everything Hewes tried to steal from you."
The orgasm built slowly this time, not a sudden crest but a rising tide. I felt it in my core, spreading outward—heat and pressure and something that felt like breaking and healing simultaneously. My chest felt tight, my throat aching with the effort of holding back.
And then I stopped holding back.
The sound that tore from my throat wasn't just pleasure—it was defiance.
Rage. Reclamation. "Ahrick!" His name ripped free like a battle cry, echoing off the metal walls, and I didn't care who heard.
Didn't care what they thought. This was mine—my voice, my choice, my body responding to someone who saw me as a person worth protecting instead of a thing to be used.
"Yes," he growled, his fingers working me harder now, matching my intensity. "Like that. Let them all hear you."
The pleasure crashed through me in waves, each one stronger than the last, and I screamed again—wordless this time, pure sound, pure release. My back arched off the bed, my hands fisting in the sheets.
The orgasm rolled through me, leaving me shaking and gasping, tears streaming down my face—not from pain or fear but from the sheer overwhelming relief of being heard. Of choosing to be heard. Of reclaiming the parts of myself I'd thought were gone forever.
Ahrick worked me through it, his fingers gentling as the aftershocks faded, his mouth pressing soft kisses to my temple, my cheek, my jaw. "You're so brave," he murmured against my skin. "So fucking brave."
I turned my face into his shoulder, still trembling, still crying, but the tightness in my chest had loosened. Instead of feeling exposed, I felt free.
"Okay?" he asked quietly, his voice rough with barely controlled desire.
"More than okay." I looked up at him, seeing the hunger still burning in his eyes, the tension in his body, the way his cock was hard and heavy against my thigh. "But I need you inside me. Please, Ahrick. I need to feel you."
He groaned, his forehead dropping to rest against mine. "Are you sure? We don't have to—"
"I'm sure." I reached between us, wrapping my hand around his cock, guiding him to my entrance. "I need this. I need you."
He settled between my thighs, pushing forward slowly, the blunt head of him pressing against me, and I felt my body resist for just a moment before yielding.
The initial stretch made me gasp—not pain exactly, but the overwhelming sensation of being opened, filled, claimed.
He was thicker than a human man, and I felt every inch as he eased forward, my body adjusting around him in incremental waves.
"Breathe," he murmured against my temple, his own breathing ragged. "Just breathe, my heart. We have time."
I did, drawing air deep into my lungs, and felt something shift.
The resistance eased. My body softened around him, accepting him, and what had been almost-too-much transformed into something else entirely.
Fullness. Completion. The kind of pleasure that bordered on overwhelming because it wasn't just physical—it was connection.
"Okay?" His voice was strained, his whole body trembling with the effort of holding still. I felt him watching my face, reading every micro-expression, every flutter of my eyelashes, cataloging my responses like they were the most important data in the universe.
"Yes." I wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, and we both groaned at the sensation. "God, yes. Don't stop."
He sank in another inch, and I felt the stretch intensify—a delicious burn that made my toes curl. My hands gripped his shoulders, nails digging into the soft pelt and hard muscle beneath, anchoring myself to him as he filled me completely.
"You feel—" His voice broke. "Merrilee, you feel incredible. So tight. So perfect around me."
I felt him shaking, saw the gold of his eyes nearly swallowed by dilated pupils, felt the way his cock pulsed inside me—his body telling me things his words couldn't. That this mattered. That I mattered. That being inside me was undoing him as thoroughly as it was undoing me.
He pushed forward the final distance, and suddenly he was fully seated, his hips flush against mine. The sensation stole my breath—not just the physical fullness but the intimacy of it. Just skin and breath and the thundering of two hearts.
His long dark hair fell forward, creating a curtain around us, blocking out the harsh lights and metal walls.
In that small space, with his forehead pressed to mine and our breath mingling, the rest of the universe ceased to exist. Just us—two broken people choosing to be whole together, even if only for this moment.
"I need a second," he whispered, his voice raw. "You're—this is—I need to just feel you for a second."
I understood. This wasn't just sex. This was trust. Vulnerability. The terrifying act of letting someone see you completely.
I ran my hands up his back, feeling the scars beneath my palms, the places where violence had marked him. "I'm here," I whispered back. "I'm right here with you."
He shuddered, and I felt the tremor run through him into me, our bodies so connected that I couldn't tell where his response ended and mine began. We stayed like that, joined and still, breathing together, learning the shape of this new thing we'd become.
"I need to move," he said, his voice strained. "Can I—"
"Yes." I rolled my hips experimentally, and we both gasped at the sensation. "God, yes, move."
He started slow, pulling almost all the way out before sliding back in, each thrust deliberate and controlled. But I felt the tremor in his arms, the tension in his body, the way he was holding himself back.
"Don't hold back," I told him, my hands sliding down to grip his ass, pulling him deeper. "I won't break."
The next thrust came harder, the angle changing just slightly, and suddenly he was hitting that spot deep inside that made white light burst behind my eyelids. I cried out, unable to stop the sound, and felt his whole body respond—a shudder running through him.
"There," he breathed against my throat, and I heard the wonder in his voice. "Right there. I can feel you tightening around me when I—" He did it again, that same perfect angle, and my back arched involuntarily. "Yes. Like that."
He set a rhythm that built slowly, each thrust a little deeper, a little harder, reading my body's responses like a language only he could speak.
When my breathing quickened, he adjusted.
When my nails raked down his back, he groaned and gave me more.
The sound of our bodies moving together filled the room—skin against skin, the slick slide of him inside me, the desperate gasps we couldn't contain.
I felt the pleasure building in waves, each one cresting higher than the last. My thighs trembled where they gripped his waist. The tension coiled tighter in my core, spreading outward until every nerve ending felt electrified.
I was aware of everything—the weight of him above me, the flex of muscle beneath my palms, the way his long hair brushed against my shoulders, the heat of his breath against my collarbone.
"I need—" I gasped, not even sure what I was asking for, just knowing I needed more, needed something to push me over the edge I was teetering on.
He understood. One hand slid between us, his calloused fingers finding my clit with unerring accuracy, and the dual sensation—him inside me, his fingers circling that bundle of nerves—made me scream his name.
"I've got you," he murmured, his voice rough with strain. "I can feel how close you are. You're so tight around me I can barely—" His words broke off in a groan as I clenched involuntarily around him.
The pleasure spiraled higher, tighter, until I couldn't think, couldn't breathe, could only feel. Every thrust pushed me closer. Every circle of his fingers wound the tension impossibly tighter. I was dimly aware of sounds escaping my throat—half-words, pleas, his name repeated like a mantra.
"That's it," he breathed, and there was something almost reverent in his tone. "Don't fight it. Let me feel you come apart. I want to know what it feels like when you—"
The orgasm crashed through me before he could finish, stealing my breath, my voice, my ability to do anything but feel.
My body clenched around him in rhythmic pulses, pleasure exploding outward from my core in waves so intense they bordered on pain.
I heard myself cry out—his name, I think, though I couldn't be sure—and felt him follow me over the edge.
He buried himself deep, his whole body going rigid, then shuddering as he came, my name falling from his lips broken and raw.
We stayed like that for a long moment, both of us trembling, breathing hard, our bodies still joined. Finally, he shifted, carefully pulling out and rolling to the side, pulling me with him so I was tucked against his chest.
His hand traced lazy patterns on my back, fingers running through my hair.
I pressed my face against his chest, listening to the steady thud of his heartbeat, aware of every place our bodies touched.
The scent of sex and sweat hung in the air between us, intimate and raw.
Above me, his long dark hair splayed across the pillow, and when I looked up, those gold irises set within cobalt were watching me with an intensity that made my breath catch.
"That was—" I started, then stopped, not sure how to put it into words.
"Yeah," he agreed, his voice rough. "It was."
We lay there in comfortable silence for a moment, both of us processing what had just happened. I settled against him, my head on his chest, his arms wrapped around me. Outside, Fange City hummed with its usual violence and desperation. Inside this room, we were safe.
For now.