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He worshipped me.
There was no other word for it.
His tongue moved like he knew my every need before I did, slow and deliberate, teasing and coaxing until I was trembling, my thighs shaking, my back arched off the mattress.
I came once—fast and hard. He didn’t stop.
Just kept going until I was breathless and blinking up at the ceiling, dazed with the kind of pleasure that made my soul ache.
Then he stood, unzipped, and crawled over me.
“You sure?” he asked, breath hot against my ear. “I don’t ever want to take this for granted.”
“You’re already inside me,” I whispered. “Even when you’re not.”
He slid in slowly—so deep it stole my breath—and we moved together like something ancient. He kissed me everywhere—my lips, my neck, my chest—his hands cradling my hips like they were breakable.
“I used to think God only loved the clean,” I said softly, tears slipping free now. “The quiet. The untouched.”
He stilled inside me.
“And now?”
“Now I know He made me to love you.”
He kissed me so slow then—so reverent—it felt like salvation.
I rolled him onto his back and straddled him, taking him in deeper, watching his mouth fall open as I rode him. His hands gripped my thighs, his gaze locked on mine like I was the last thing he’d ever see.
“I’ll come back,” he swore, voice shaking. “I swear it, Hallie Mae.”
And I believed him.
Even if I knew it might not be true.
He flipped me again, lifted my hips, and thrust into me hard, his fingers between my legs, coaxing me higher and higher until I came again, crying out his name.
We collapsed together, sweat-drenched and trembling, tangled in each other like the only thing holding the world together was this moment.
This breath.
This love.
He shifted first—rolling onto his side, pressing a hand to my cheek like he could memorize the shape of me in one touch. I turned into his palm, kissed the inside of his wrist, and whispered, “Don’t go yet.”
He glanced at the clock on the nightstand, then back at me.
I sat up, the sheet pooling around my waist. “Shower?”
His brow arched, surprise flickering through the shadows in his face. “You want to ...?”
“I want you to remind me,” I said, sliding off the bed and holding out my hand. “What it feels like to be clean. To be claimed. Before you go off to battle.”
His jaw clenched—emotion tightening the edges of his control—but he took my hand anyway.
The bathroom lights were dim, just the faint glow ofthe vanity mirror. I turned the faucet, waited for the steam to rise, then stepped into the water and let it hit my skin—warm, endless, a river to carry away everything I couldn’t name.
Noah stepped in behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist, his lips brushing the curve of my neck. I could feel him—hard again, impossibly so—his cock pressed between my thighs like it belonged there.