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Then I bury myself in one hard thrust. Balls-deep. And I swear to God, stars explode behind my eyes.

Her scream ricochets off the walls—wild, desperate, filled with need and surrender.

“Liam—fuck—yes!”

I start slow. Deep. Grinding my hips so she feels every inch, every heartbeat, every goddamn claim I’m making on her.

“You feel that?” I rasp against her neck, teeth grazing skin. “That’s me. Every part of me. Claiming every inch of you.”

She whimpers, legs trembling beneath me, nails clawing the sheets like she’s trying to hold herself together.

I reach around, find her clit, rubbing tight circles until she cries out, shattering again.

“Give it to me, sweetheart. Come on this cock. Let go.”

Her scream is ripped raw, a ragged, ragged thing that rattles my soul.

I pound into her harder, losing control, hips snapping fast and furious. Sweat drips from my body, slick and hot, mixing with the slick between us.

“Say it,” I growl, my voice rough and ragged, full of need and desperation. “Say you’re mine.”

“I’m yours! Liam—I’m fucking yours!”

I lose it. Coming so hard I swear the world snaps white around me.

We collapse. Tangled. Broken. Destroyed.

But later—when her breathing settles into that slow, open-mouthed rhythm, and sleep finally drags her under—I slip out of bed like I’m gutting myself quiet. No sudden moves. Just a man trying not to wake the one thing in the world he knows he shouldn’t want this bad.

I get dressed by feel. Tug the pants over sticky skin. Shirt inside out. Don’t care. Every motion is mechanical, controlled. Like taping a bruised rib before a game—tight, necessary, so it doesn’t break open.

And then I just stand there. Watching her.

Not in some poetic, pretty-boy bullshit kind of way. I stare at her like a guy waiting for the next hit, like if I blink, she’ll vanish.

Her hair’s a mess. Her thighs are marked with my hands. My come is drying on her inner leg.

It should’ve been just sex. It could’ve been.

But it wasn’t. Not now. Not after that look she gave me. Not after she said it felt real.

And the worst part? She meant it.

I drag a hand over my jaw, feel the burn of stubble and guilt. I’m not walking away unscathed. I’m fucked. Ravaged. Completely and utterly wrecked. I mean, I haven’t even told her the truth. I haven’t told her I was sure I recognized her. That I’ve been chasing a ghost and she’s been under my nose the whole damn time.

I leave the room like I’m skating off the ice after a dirty hit—knowing it’s gonna cost me. Knowing I’ll never hear the end of it. And not giving a single fuck.

Because I’d do it again. Hell, I’d beg for it.

She wrecked me. And I liked it.

Chapter twenty-nine

Katarina

Sunlightclawsattheedges of the blinds like it knows something I don’t.

I stretch my hand across the bed—still warm, still tangled in the sheets that reek of him—and find nothing.