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She breathed hard and heavy, feeling like she had just run a marathon. And then she looked at him, and he was hard and huge and wanted her.

She reached out tentatively, curling her fingers around his erection.

She bit her lip as she tested his heat and the strength of him. He closed his eyes, his breath hissing through his teeth.

“I want...” She scooted forward, lowered her head and flicked her tongue across the tip of him.

The sound he made was short and tortured and he reached out and grabbed her hair, pulling her head back hard. “I won’t last if you do that.”

“But I want you.”

“The world has tested me enough. You can test me later. But now... I just need you. I need to have you.”

And she didn’t want to resist him. So she didn’t. She let him wrap his arms around her and pulled her body against his. She let him ease her down so that she was lying on her back and he was settled between her thighs. He kissed her, long and deep, put his hand between her legs and pushed two fingers inside her again, slowly and rhythmically moving them in and out.

He was much bigger than that. But she knew that he was trying to prepare the way.

“It’s okay,” she whispered.

He gritted his teeth, the veins in his neck standing out as he pressed the head of his cock against the entrance of her body. And slowly, very slowly, he entered her.

It hurt. But it was a wonderful kind of hurt.

She had felt wrong and lonely and like parts of her didn’t line up with anyone or anything for most of her life.

But Gideon Payne fit her. This man who felt alone, ostracized, who felt like he’d been abandoned, fit her. And she fit him.

And when he was fully seated inside her, he pressed his forehead against hers and stared into her eyes before kissing her, deep and long.

She shivered, her internal muscles rippling as his tongue slid against hers. As her need began to build, past the discomfort, past the pain.

And when he began to move, the slick friction, the feeling of his possession, began to heighten her arousal. Pushing her back toward that sweet, sultry place of release.

She locked her legs around his, opening herself wider and taking him deeper as she met his every thrust with rolls of her hips. It wasn’t romantic, not in the traditional sense. Their sounds were broken, their skin sweat-slicked. The sounds of need he made were more savage than they were heartfelt. Except it was real. It was real, and it mattered.

Because this wasn’t a game.

This wasn’t something manufactured to manipulate or embarrass her. They were both beyond control. It had nothing to do with showing anyone. With being legends for the sake of it.

They were just legends for each other. In this room, in this bed.

And as her orgasm crashed over her, making her cry out in ecstasy, she knew for certain that he might not think he was a hero, but he would always be one to her.

Always.

And then, on a low growl, his control snapped. His thrusts became hard, erratic, the intensity of it pushing her up the mattress so that her head met the headboard.

He gripped her hands, his fingers threaded through hers as he thrust within her, his eyes bright, a blue flame.

And she hadn’t thought she would come again. She really would’ve said it wasn’t possible, but when he thrust into her so hard their skin slapped together, and she felt a zip of pain through her body as her head made contact with the headboard and he went deep, something in her unraveled.

There was no anxiety. There was no fear. She was enough. This moment was enough. Together. The two of them.

And this orgasm was different. It was like shattering. Like coming apart and being made new. Because when she did, so did he, his body pulsing within her as he found his release. That raw, masculine energy infusing her with a matching feminine power.

She was destroyed. And yet remained.

And they lay there, together. She watched his chest rise and fall, moved her fingertips over his bare skin. Across that sweat-slicked body, down to his scars. Back up again, so she could feel his raging heartbeat.