Chapter 19
Marie POV
The mattress gave under the heavy, unyielding press of his body, and the remaining space in the bedroom vanished.
Two hundred and twenty-eight pounds of hard, functional muscle settled over me, not crushing my smaller frame, but pinning me into the dark charcoal linen with an immovable, fever-hot weight.
His chest, broad and corded with scar tissue, pressed flush against my bare breasts, skin sticking to skin with the slick, humid friction of our shared heat.
His mouth devouring mine was no longer a question or a challenge. It was a slow, ruthless claiming.
His lips moved with deep, unhurried demand, tasting of mint, cedar, and the salt of our labored breathing. Every time my lips parted to draw in oxygen, his tongue swept deep, catching my breath in his throat, drinking the soft whimpers that broke from my chest until my head swam.
My hands, splayed wide against his back, learned the violent topography of his body.
The heavy swell of his shoulder blades, the thick ridge of muscle along his spine, the jagged knot of bone at his collarbone where an old break had set hard and crooked—I mapped every line of him.
My fingernails dug into the dense muscle beneath his shoulders, my knuckles white, pulling him down, needing the solid, suffocating pressure of his weight to keep my racing heart inside my ribs.
"Marie," he groaned against my mouth, the sound vibrating through my jaw.
He broke the kiss for half a second, his chest heaving in ragged, uneven drags that dragged over my sensitized skin. His dark hair was damp with sweat, hanging in dark curls across his furrowed brow.
He reached down, his blunt, calloused fingers finding mine.
He didn't trap my wrists this time. He laced his thick fingers through mine, pressing our palms together, forcing my hands flat against the pillows on either side of my head. The silver signet ring on my pinky dug cold and hard into the side of his palm, an anchor of metal between our burning skin.
His dark eyes, black with dilated hunger in the snowlight, locked onto mine.
"Look at me," he rasped, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that rolled straight down my spine. "Don't close your eyes, Marie. Not for a second."
My breath caught on a sharp, shallow hitch. My pupils expanded to take in every harsh, beautiful angle of his face—the flare of his nostrils, the split corner of his bottom lip, the raw, unmasked reverent hunger burning in his gaze.
"I'm here," I whispered, my voice trembling with an honesty that stripped away every clinical defense I had ever owned. "I'm right here, Chosen."
* * *
He shifted his hips, settling his heavy thighs between mine.
The deliberate, scorching contact of his bare skin against my inner thighs sent a violent, full-body tremor rippling through my limbs. My throat closed on a dry swallow. A dark, fevered warmth rushed beneath the skin of my chest, blooming across my collarbone in an uncontrollable, blooming flush.
He paused, his jaw setting hard, the masseter muscle bulging against his stubble as he held himself back on sheer willpower.
"Look at me," he commanded again, his voice dropping into that dark, velvety register that took the air straight from my lungs. "Tell me you're ready, Marie."
"I'm ready," I breathed, my hips lifting instinctively off the mattress, seeking the heat of him, refusing to yield an inch of the space we had fought to reach. "Please, Chosen."
He lowered his hips with agonizing, breathless slowness.
The first press of him entering me stole the very sound from my throat.
My back arched off the charcoal sheets, my neck tilting back into the pillows as my lungs seized. The sensation was overwhelming—a slow, unhurried stretch of burning friction that filled me to the brim, taking up every spare inch of space, demanding every scrap of my surrender.
A sharp, fractured gasp tore from my lips, my fingers tightening violently around his, our interlocked hands gripping so hard our knuckles clicked together.
Chosen froze.
A low, ruined groan broke from deep in his chest. He buried his face in the crook of my neck, his rough jaw scraping the soft skin beneath my ear, his entire massive frame trembling with the strain of keeping his weight from overwhelming me.
His breath came in hot, ragged bursts against my collarbone, scorching my skin.
"Breathe, Marie," he whispered, his lips grazing my jaw, his voice thick and broken with effort. "Just breathe for me. Good girl. Look at me."
I forced my eyelids open through the haze of sensory overload.
His face was inches from mine, his dark eyes fierce, protective, and completely stripped bare of every defense. He watched my expression with terrifying intensity, searching for the slightest flicker of hesitation.
"I've got you," he murmured, his thumb stroking the back of my hand where our fingers remained locked. "You're taking all of me, Marie. That's my girl."
The praise hit my nervous system like a direct strike to the sternum.
My breath released on a long, shuddering exhale, my tight muscles softening beneath his touch, yielding to the solid, unmoving presence of his body. The initial sharpness dissolved into an all-consuming, liquid heat that coiled deep in the pit of my stomach.
I lifted my hips half an inch, my thighs wrapping higher around his waist, drawing him in.
"Chosen," I gasped, the sound a desperate, breathless plea.
He didn't hold back any longer.
* * *
He began to move.
The rhythm was slow at first—deep, heavy strokes that drove the air from my chest and sent waves of fevered warmth rolling up my spine.
He maintained the contact of our joined hands, holding me pinned to the mattress, using his body weight to anchor me against the steady, relentless momentum of his hips.
With every glide forward, my head fell back into the dark linen, a soft, broken cry slipping past my lips.
He filled the room with his presence—the harsh, rhythmic rasp of his breathing, the faint scent of cedar and rain, the dull creak of the wooden platform bed beneath our bodies, and the howling storm battering the glass outside.
"Look at you," he rasped, his voice dropping into that dark, commanding cadence as his pace shifted, growing firmer, deeper, more possessive. "Taking every inch. Good girl. Don't look away from me, Marie."
"Chosen... I can't—"
"Yes, you can," he growled, releasing my hands only to slide his thick arms beneath my shoulders, hauling my torso upward until my chest pressed flat against his, our heartbeats slamming together in an erratic, deafening cadence. "Stay with me. Feel what you do to me."
His lips found mine again, swallowing my fractured gasps in a bruising, breathless kiss that tasted of pure surrender.
The pressure building between my hips grew unbearable, a coiling, tightening knot of raw kinetic heat that pulled my abdomen taut. My toes curled against the sheets, my fingernails digging into the dense muscle of his upper back, pulling him deeper, needing every ounce of the friction he offered.
"Chosen, please," I whimpered against his mouth, my hips moving with his in a frantic, uncoordinated desperation.
"I've got you, Marie," he whispered, his mouth trailing down to my throat, his teeth catching the sensitive skin above my collarbone with rough, claiming pressure. "Let it go. Give it to me. Now."
The command shattered the last barrier in my brain.
My body detonated.
A sharp, breathless scream caught in the back of my throat as an intense, rolling release broke across my nervous system, pulling my muscles into long, shuddering spasms that clamped tight around him.
My back arched off the bed, my vision blurring into flashes of pure light as wave after wave of pleasure ripped through my marrow.
Chosen lost the last scrap of his discipline.
A low, guttural roar tore from his chest as my release pulled him over the edge. His arms locked around my waist with crushing, unyielding possessiveness, lifting my hips to meet his final, desperate thrust.
His frame went rigid as iron, his face burying into the dark waves of my hair as a violent, shuddering completion overtook him, his hips locking against mine in a deep, absolute surrender that emptied his entire soul into my body.
In the heavy, amber silence of the bedroom, surrounded by four feet of Adirondack snow, the quiet covenant was sealed.
He didn't pull away.
He slowly lowered his chest against mine, his heavy weight a warm, protective shield that kept out the cold of the world outside. His face stayed nestled in the crook of my neck, his breath slowing to a deep, ragged rhythm that warmed my skin.
One of his large, calloused hands slid down my side, his blunt fingers settling heavily over the curve of my hip, his thumb tracing slow, lazy circles across my lower abdomen.
I wrapped my arms around his broad neck, my fingers tangling in the damp curls at the base of his skull, listening to the steady, indestructible thud of his heart against my ribs, and knew with terrifying certainty that I was his forever.