Chapter 22 #2
"I'm sure." I pull him down. "I want this. I want you. Now."
He eases over me slowly, bracing a forearm beside my head, breath unsteady, body hot and solid against mine.
His hips sink between my thighs, the weight of him perfect, the heat of him everywhere, his body aligning with mine in a way that feels inevitable.
He positions himself at my entrance, and my breath catches. This is it. The moment I've been both craving and dreading. What if it doesn't work? What if I'm too small, too tight, too inexperienced?
"Breathe," he murmurs, kissing my jaw, my cheek, my temple. "We go slow. As slow as you need."
I nod, can't speak, and then I feel the first pressure.
He pushes forward—just the tip—and my body resists. Instinctively clenching against the intrusion even as I'm slick and ready from everything that came before. The wetness from his mouth, from my own arousal, eases the way but doesn't eliminate the strangeness of it.
"Relax," he breathes. "Let me in, cara."
I try. Consciously unclenching, opening, and he advances another inch. The stretch burns, a deep, unfamiliar pressure that rolls through me, not quite pain but intense and demanding, overwhelming, too much and not enough all at once.
"You okay?" His whole body is trembling with the effort of holding still.
"Don't stop." My nails dig into his shoulders. "Please don't stop."
He withdraws a fraction—just enough to let my body breathe—then pushes forward again in a slow, steady glide. Another inch claimed. Then another. Each slow thrust teaches my body what to do, how to take him… how to want more.
"So tight," he grits out. "Charity, you're—fuck—"
Then the last resistance yields, and with a flare of pain that morphs into pleasure, he sinks deep—finally, completely—and we both freeze.
The fullness is shocking. Overwhelming. I'm stretched impossibly around him, every nerve ending screaming awareness. He's inside me. We're joined. Two bodies becoming one in the most primal, sacred way possible.
"Okay?" His voice is wrecked.
"Move," I whisper. "Please move."
He answers with a careful roll of his hips—a slow retreat, then a measured slide back in, deliberate and gentle.
And oh—
"Yes." The word escapes on a moan. "Like that. Exactly like that."
The discomfort melts with each slow pulse forward, replaced by friction and heat and a pleasure that builds in steady, insistent waves. My body adjusts, welcomes, wraps around him, claims him right back. What started as conquest becomes a slow, hungry dance.
"More," I demand. "Harder."
"Don't hold back," I gasp. "Please. I want all of you."
The gladiator unleashes.
He drives into me with controlled power—deep and steady and relentless.
The bed frame protests with each thrust, headboard tapping the wall in rhythm with our bodies.
Each hard stroke sends pleasure spiraling through me, the angle hitting places I didn't know existed, nerve endings lighting up like fireworks.
I arch to meet him, matching his rhythm, and the shift makes him go deeper still. I cry out—wordless, overwhelmed—and he swallows the sound with a kiss that's all tongue and teeth and desperation.
His hand slides between us, finds where we're joined, and when his fingers circle that sensitive bundle of nerves, I nearly come apart on the spot.
"Not yet," he growls. "Wait for me."
The dual sensation—him inside me, fingers working my clit—is almost too much. I'm drowning in it, lost in the slide and stretch and perfect friction of him claiming me over and over.
Sweat slicks our skin. Our breathing is ragged, punctuated by moans and gasps and my name falling from his lips like a prayer. The pleasure builds impossibly higher, coiling tighter in my core until I'm shaking with the need for release.
"Draco—" His name breaks. "I can't—"
"You can." He drives deeper, harder, fingers relentless. "Come for me, Charity. Let me feel you."
The command in his voice, the authority—it shouldn't be hot, but it is. Everything about him is hot. The way he fills me completely. The way his muscles flex with each powerful thrust. The way he's looking at me as though I'm the only thing in the world that matters.
My body tightens around him, pleasure cresting, and his rhythm falters for just a second before he regains control. Driving into me with renewed intensity, angle shifted, so every stroke drags across that perfect spot inside.
"That's it," he rasps. "Feel me. Feel what you do to me."
I do feel it—the tremor in his arms, the raggedness of his breathing, the way he's barely holding himself together. This powerful man is undone by me. By us.
"You're mine," he growls against my ear, and the possessiveness in his voice makes me clench around him.
"Yes." I dig my nails into his back, scoring down his shoulders, marking him the way he's marking me. Drawing blood maybe—I don't care. I want to leave evidence on his skin the way he's leaving it inside me. "Yours. And you're mine."
"Fucking mine." He captures my wrists, pinning them above my head with one hand. The position arches my back, changes the angle, and suddenly he's hitting even deeper. Impossibly deep. "Say it again."
"I'm yours." The words come out broken as he pounds into me. "Only yours. Always—oh God—"
His free hand grips my hip, holding me steady for his claiming. There's nothing gentle about it now—just raw need and possession and years of loneliness being exorcised with every desperate thrust.
The pleasure builds to something almost painful in its intensity. My thighs shake. My vision blurs. I'm so close, teetering on the edge, and he knows it.
"Look at me," he demands.
I force my eyes open. Meet his gaze—dark and wild and burning with something that looks like worship and dominance all at once.
"I want to watch you fall apart," he says, voice rough. "Want to see it in your eyes when I make you come."
His fingers find my clit again—circling, pressing, working in perfect rhythm with his thrusts—and I shatter.
The orgasm rips through me like lightning. I arch off the bed, screaming his name, clenching around him so hard he curses. Wave after wave of ecstasy crashes over me, whiting out everything except the feel of him inside me, the sound of our bodies meeting, the brutal perfection of this moment.
"Fuck—Charity—" His control fractures. Rhythm turns erratic, desperate, and then he's coming too. Driving deep one last time and staying there, pulsing inside me, my name torn from his throat like a battle cry.
We shudder together, riding it out, and it seems to last forever. Every nerve ending firing. Every muscle locked. Two bodies fused into one perfect, devastating whole.
When the tremors finally subside, he releases my wrists, and I immediately wrap my arms around him, holding him close. He's still inside me, both of us too wrung out to move, too overwhelmed to do anything but breathe.
He presses his forehead to mine, eyes closed, chest heaving. "Holy—"
"Yeah." I can't form full sentences either. Can barely think past the bone-deep satisfaction, the rightness of having him still buried deep inside me.
"Did I hurt you?" His voice is rough with concern.
"No." I kiss him softly. "You were perfect. That was perfect."
He pulls back enough to look at me, searching my face for any sign I'm lying. Whatever he sees satisfies him because he kisses me—slow and deep and tender in a way that makes my chest ache.
We collapse together, breathing hard, hearts racing in sync.
He pulls out carefully, then gathers me against his chest. I can hear his heartbeat beneath my ear—steady and strong and alive.
"I love you," I whisper into the darkness. "I know it's fast and crazy and probably too soon to say, but I love you."
His arms tighten around me. "I've loved you since you asked me to stay instead of calling the police."
Outside, the world is still spinning. Still judging. Still questioning our choices.
But here, in this bed with this man, I've found something no one can take away.
I've found home.
Lucky stirs on the second bed, then hops down and ambles drunkenly across the room—his cone bumping gently into the bed frame as he approaches.
Draco laughs—soft and genuine and full of happiness I've never heard from him before.
"Our chaperone approves," he says.
"Good." I snuggle closer. "Because I'm never letting you go."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
We fall asleep tangled together, Lucky at our feet, and for the first time in either of our lives, we're exactly where we belong.
Together.
Whole.
Free.