Chapter Nine #3
He eased me back onto the mattress and settled beside me.
I hooked my leg over his hip and slid my arm beneath his, pulling him closer.
My fingers pressed into his back, tracing the skin, muscle and tendon I knew by heart.
He rested his forehead against mine, drew in a slow breath, then let it go just as carefully.
His fingers slipped inside his mouth, and then he reached down before sealing his lips on mine.
I let out the faintest sound as I shifted closer to his hand, my mouth opening to him while his tongue slid inside, exploring me with an intimacy that made my breath stutter and my body respond in ways it hadn’t in too many months.
As I worked to keep quiet, Thomas positioned himself between my thighs, his control nearly unbearable.
He rocked forward, achingly slow, sliding into me as he’d done a thousand times before.
The contact drew a sharp breath from both of us.
Once he was fully inside, he stilled, pressing his forehead to mine, his arms tightening as if he needed to anchor himself there.
He held me close, letting the heat and desperation settle between us before he moved again.
He was cautious only for a moment, as if he were trying to remember how to slow himself down.
The restraint didn’t last. Whatever he’d been holding back cracked open, his rhythm turning rougher, more demanding, driven by something urgent and unfiltered.
My breath broke as his body pressed harder into mine, his movements no longer careful, making love no longer possible.
He needed to fuck me, and without conversation, without hesitation, I gave into him.
My fingers dug into the muscles of his back, feeling the tension there, the barely contained force warring inside of him.
This wasn’t the Thomas I knew in our bed.
Here, only need remained, brutal and bare, fear, adrenaline and relief colliding all at once.
Every movement pulled a sound from me I fought to silence, my body responding before thought, before caution.
He held his hand over my mouth but quietly groaned my name as if it were torn out of him, the word rough against my mouth as he pulled his hand away to kiss me.
His grip locked at my hip, driving into me as if he needed proof—of life, of now, of someone who loved him solid beneath his hands.
I could feel it, the edge he was on, and instead of holding him back, I gave myself over to it.
I wrapped around him, meeting the pain and rage pouring from him, and letting him take what he needed.
The world narrowed to heat and motion and the raw, almost feral intensity of a man coming apart and finding his way back through me.
He broke with a low, fractured sound, his body locking against mine as the last of the tension tore through him.
His grip tightened once, involuntary and helpless, before his weight collapsed forward, every ounce of control spent.
His breath came apart in short, ragged bursts, exhaustion shaking through him as he pressed his face into my neck.
“I’m sorry,” he sputtered between breaths. “I’m… sorry.”
The ferocity now absent, the urgency burned out, leaving only the aftermath.
He lay above me, barely holding himself up, chest heaving against mine, his body trembling as if he hadn’t yet trusted himself to move.
When his eyes finally opened, he didn’t pull back.
He drew in, his forehead lowering to my shoulder, his arms folding around me.
“It’s okay,” I whispered, holding him tight, my hand at his neck. “You’re okay.”
He struggled to control his breathing, each inhale just short of a sob. He swallowed, hard, then once again, desperate to force his emotions back to a place he could manage them. I refused to move, holding him while he gathered himself from the wreckage he’d just burned through.
“I’m okay,” he repeated. “We’re okay.”
“We’re okay,” I reassured him.
“I can’t lose you,” he choked out. “As long as I still have you and Stella, I can survive this.”
I waited a beat, watching as he repositioned himself next to me. I stared directly into his eyes, making sure he understood the commitment behind my words. “Then you’ll survive this.”
He pulled me close, and though there was so much I wanted to say—in anger, aimed at his brothers, desperate to defend him from the words they’d used that would scar him long after tonight, to seethe over how easily they’d forgotten everything he’d sacrificed, how quickly they’d left him standing outside the family he built—I held back.
I let the fury rest, let the arguments go.
I let him hold me, choosing to be his ballast instead of the sword I so badly wanted to raise on his behalf.
“Liis?” he whispered.
I kissed his chest, then rested my cheek against his skin. “I love you.”
He breathed out a laugh, emotion still straining his voice. “That’s what I was going to say.”
I closed my eyes, smiled, and nestled into him. “I know.”