That’s all it takes.
He thrusts inside me in one deep, brutal stroke.
I cry out—shock and pleasure slamming into me all at once. The table jerks beneath us. His hand tightens on my wrists, holding me there, helpless against the force of him.
He sets a rhythm, rough, deep, punishing. The sound of skin on skin echoes through the room, vulgar and raw.
My cheek presses to the wood, eyes squeezing shut as hepounds into me like he’s trying to carve his name inside me.
“You’re mine,” he growls, every thrust a declaration. “Say it.”
“I’m yours,” I gasp. “I’m fucking yours.”
He groans at that, deeper now, hips snapping harder, rougher, until the table threatens to shift beneath us.
“You take me so well,” he rasps. “You were made for this.”
Made for him.
For his hands, his hunger, the way he breaks me down just to build me back up again with every filthy word, every bruising stroke.
And when I finally come—shaking, wrecked, his name a broken cry on my lips—it’s with his hand still wrapped tight around my wrists and his mouth pressed to the back of my neck like a promise.
He follows with a growl, spilling inside me like he belongs there.
The bathroom is quiet. Too quiet. The kind that presses against your skin, that makes your thoughts echo louder than they should.
The silk slips off my shoulders and pools at my feet. I catch my reflection as I move; flushed cheeks, kiss-bitten lips, pupils still blown from the fire he lit inside me just minutes ago. I look like a woman who’s been claimed, who’s been loved so thoroughly her bones should remember it.
But I don’t feel any of that.
Not now. Not anymore.
My hands drift to my stomach before I can stop them. It’s flat. Smooth. Deceiving. It gives nothing away. It never did. But I know. I know what it held. What it lost.
I haven’t been able to bear to tell him.
My chest tightens, that old heaviness crawling up like vines. The kind that doesn’t scream. The kind that just... presses. Until you can’t breathe without hurting. Sometimes I miss the Prozac.
I step into the shower and don’t even wait for the water to warm. I drop to the tile, folding in on myself, arms circling my knees as I press my forehead to them and let the steam build around me like a fog meant to erase everything.
I sit there, barely breathing, until my chest starts to ache from holding it all in. And then it comes. Soft, broken, almost silent at first—a sob that shudders loose from somewhere deep, a place I’ve kept locked for too long.
But even now, I want to be quiet. I want to pretend.
The door opens behind me.
I don’t move. I don’t even flinch.
His steps are slow. Careful. Bare feet on tile. I hear the pause, the hesitation, and then the soft sound of him stepping fully into the room.
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t demand.
He just joins me. He lowers himself beside me, shoulder to shoulder, knees brushing, and says nothing.
Not at first.
“What’s wrong,” he asks eventually, and it’s not sharp. It’s not cold.
