Chapter 19
Penny Correa POV
The cold from the casement window was a dead, frozen thing, but between the dark linen sheets of Justin’s bed, the heat was suffocating.
Outside, sixty-mile-per-hour winds drove lake-effect snow against the glass, coating the panes in thick, crystalline frost. The storm groaned through the brickwork of the carriage house, but every sound from the outside world faded beneath the ragged, heavy tempo of Justin’s breathing.
His weight settled over me, two hundred and twenty-eight pounds of impact-hardened muscle bearing down with an immovable, grounding gravity.
The contrast made my chest hitch on a sharp, shallow breath.
I was five-foot-four, slender and unarmored, pinned beneath a man who broke forwards along the boards for a living.
His chest pressed against mine, skin to skin, fever-hot and slick with sweat, the rough hair over his sternum abrading the sensitive peaks of my breasts.
He didn't rush. He reached out with both hands, his large, calloused fingers sliding between mine.
He pressed my palms flat against the mattress on either side of my head, interlacing our fingers, his broad grip anchoring me to the dark charcoal bedding. The veins stood out along his forearms, thick and corded, holding his weight off my ribs while keeping me entirely caged within his perimeter.
"Look at me, Penny," he rumbled, his voice scraping low and raw against the silence.
My eyelashes fluttered, heavy and dark. I looked.
In the dim amber light filtering from the hearth down the hall, his face was a portrait of savage, beautiful restraint.
His pupils were blown wide, black drowning the brown, the jagged white scar through his left eyebrow standing out against his flushed skin.
The masseter muscle in his jaw was bunched tight, fighting a war against his own hunger to keep from crushing me.
"Don't look away from me," he commanded softly, the bass in his voice vibrating straight through my skull into the pillow. "Not for one second."
"I'm here," I whispered, my voice trembling, my throat tight as my hips shifted instinctively against his, seeking the heavy, solid friction of his body.
A guttural sound rumbled deep in his throat, dark and starved.
He leaned down, his mouth catching mine in an unhurried, bruising kiss that stole the remaining oxygen from my lungs. His tongue swept deep, tasting the salt on my lips, claiming every breath, while his lower body shifted forward, testing the delicate threshold between my parted thighs.
The heat pooling low in my belly turned molten, burning straight through my nervous system until my toes curled into the linen sheets.
* * *
He paused at the edge of me.
The sheer size of him was an overwhelming, terrifying reality, but there was no fear left in my blood.
Every defense mechanism I had built over twenty-one years—the weaponized competence, the cynical distance, the terror of becoming like my ruined father—had been burned away by the devotion in his hands.
Justin slowly released my right hand, his large palm sliding down my side, his fingers gripping the soft curve of my hip. He lifted me slightly, tilting my pelvis to meet his angle, his thumb stroking the sensitive hollow beside my hip bone with a steady, calming pressure.
"Breathe, sweetheart," he murmured against my parted lips, his forehead coming down to rest against mine. "Just breathe for me."
He pressed forward.
The invasion was slow, heavy, and absolute.
A sharp gasp tore from my throat as my body stretched to accommodate him, the tightness of the barrier yielding under his steady, unrelenting momentum.
My fingers tightened convulsively in his left hand, my nails digging into the callouses of his palm as a sharp sting flared, instantly consumed by an overwhelming, profound fullness that knocked the air from my ribcage.
My back arched off the mattress, a tear escaping the corner of my eye to slip into my hairline.
Justin froze.
His entire frame locked rigid as iron above me, his muscles trembling with the agonizing effort of holding himself completely still. His chest heaved in ragged bursts against mine, his face pale with a fierce, protective agony as his gaze dropped to the tear tracking across my cheek.
"Penny," he rasped, his voice breaking on the syllable, his lips instantly pressing against the wetness on my skin, kissing the tear away with reverent gentleness. "Did I hurt you?"
"No," I whispered, the word shuddering out of me on a broken breath as my legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper, refusing to let him retreat. "No, Justin... please."
His breath hitched in a ragged gasp.
He looked down into my eyes, searching the dark, gold-flecked irises for any hint of retreat. Finding only surrender, the restraint in his face fractured down the middle.
"Good girl," he rumbled, the praise dark, low, and thick with a reverent awe that made my blood sing. "You're taking all of me. Look at you... so damn good for me."
He began to move.
The rhythm was slow, deep, and devastating.
Every stroke was a deliberate claiming, his hips driving into mine with an unyielding, measured friction that sent waves of heat radiating outward from the junction of our bodies.
He filled me so profoundly that my hands lost their strength, my fingers relaxing in his grip, my head falling back against the pillows.
The friction was an unbearable, climbing fever.
Justin’s mouth followed the line of my throat, his lips and teeth grazing the racing pulse point beneath my jaw, leaving a trail of hot, damp marks across my collarbones.
Every time he drove forward, a broken, breathless sob slipped from my lips, swallowed instantly by his mouth as he slanted his lips over mine.
"Justin," I gasped against his cheek, my hips rising to meet his cadence, my body moving on pure, primal instinct. "Justin, I can't..."
"You can," he commanded against my ear, his voice a ruined, gravelly rasp that scraped over my sensitized skin. "Stay right here with me, Penny. Don't fight it. Give it to me."
His hand left the mattress, sliding beneath my lower back, his powerful arm lifting me into his hips to deepen the angle, driving the friction to an agonizing, blinding peak.
The heat wound tighter and tighter behind my ribs, a coil of pure tension snapping taut. My breath came in short, desperate gasps, my heels digging into his calves, the room around us dissolving into a haze of sweat, cedarwood, and the raw, rhythmic thud of his body against mine.
"Good girl," he growled, his hips picking up speed, driving home with heavy, possessive force. "Take it, Penny. Come apart for me."
The dam shattered.
* * *
A high, shattered cry tore from my throat, muffled against the hard curve of his shoulder as my entire body seized in a blinding, convulsive release.
Wave after wave of pure, scalding heat ripped through my lower abdomen, my muscles contracting around him in violent, rhythmic spasms that stole every thought from my mind. The world went white behind my closed eyelids, my lungs emptying as a long, trembling shudder racked my spine.
Justin lost his control.
A low, animalistic groan ripped from his chest, his head throwing back as his jaw locked tight. He drove into me one final, devastating time, his hips pinning mine flat against the mattress as his body went rigid.
He buried his face in the crook of my neck, his massive frame shuddering with the force of his own release, spilling deep inside me in a fierce, unbridled rush that left him gasping for air against my skin.
For a long, unbroken minute, neither of us moved.
The only sound in the room was the harsh, ragged cadence of our breathing, slowing down together as the blizzard howled against the casement window outside.
Justin’s weight remained heavy on top of me, an anchor of solid, comforting warmth that kept the world from spinning away. His heart was hammering like a sledgehammer against my sternum, violent and steady, beating in perfect sync with the chaotic pulse in my own throat.
Slowly, carefully, he shifted his mass, rolling onto his side without leaving me, pulling me with him until I was curled flush against his chest.
He reached down, dragging the thick charcoal wool quilt up over our shoulders, tucking the heavy fabric around my bare back, sealing out the winter draft completely.
My head rested in the hollow of his shoulder, my cheek pressed against the smooth, heated skin of his pectoral muscle. My fingers rested over the faint scar on his ribs, my skin still tingling with the aftershocks of the fire we had walked into.
Justin didn't speak.
His large, scarred hand stroked slowly down my spine, his calloused palm warm and heavy as it came to rest over the curve of my hip, pulling me half an inch closer until there wasn't a sliver of air between us.
He pressed a slow, lingering kiss to the crown of my head, breathing in the scent of my hair, his chest expanding on a long, deep exhale that rattled through his ribs.
I closed my eyes, listening to the steady, indestructible rhythm of his heart beating beneath my ear.
The silence of the snow-covered night settled over the carriage house, thick and peaceful.
I had spent my entire life building walls to keep people out, terrified that if I gave anyone a piece of myself, they would take it and leave me with nothing.
Lying in the dark, held tight in Justin Ibarra’s arms, the realization washed over me with devastating clarity:
My walls were gone, reduced to ash.
I hadn't just given him a piece of my life.
I had given him everything.