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Something warm and dangerous coiled low in his belly. “I thought you just gave me everything.”
He looked up at her again, her green eyes caressing his face. “I did,” he whispered. “But you didn’t take all of it yet.” Joining with Grace… it wasn’t about release. It was about claimingherand reclaiminghimself. In her body. In her arms. Leading him back to a wholeness he hadn’t believed was possible.
She blinked, a flush sweeping her chest, his heart skipping. Her hand slid down over the flexing of muscle of his abs, until her palm settled over his swollen, throbbing sack. She squeezed gently, rubbed them, and he buried his face in her throat, groaning, everything about her made him off-the-charts-fucking-crazy. “Then don’t hold back.”
His breath left him in a rush. He pulled back just enough to look down between them, the way their bodies were still joined. The way she cupped him so tenderly, it aroused him even more. So close. Still fused.
“I want to go slow,” he rasped.
All she could give him was a soft gasp of heated breath as she guided him gently onto his back, straddling him again, her movements slow, deliberate, full of grace and intent. His hands roamed her thighs, his touch steadier now, anchored in the storm instead of fighting it.
He watched her like she was the only light he’d ever seen.
Her hips shifted, the slick heat of her surrounding him again, and he growled as she took him back inside, inch by aching inch. The sensation was somehow sharper, deeper,purer. Like his body had been reset, like every nerve ending had recalibrated to worshipher.
“You feel it?” she whispered.
He nodded, unable to speak. It wasn’t just her body. It was everything she gave him. Her trust. Her fire. Her stillness. Her damncourage. Somehow, impossibly, she made him feel worthy of it.
She rocked her hips, slow and devastating, drawing long moans from his throat, each one quieter than the last. Not because the pleasure dulled, but because the silence between them wassacrednow. Her nipples touched his chest, dragging over his skin like hard silk nubs.
She was watching him too. Eyes wide. Luminous. A slow smile curved her mouth, not seductive.Knowing.
Like she could see the manhe didn’t believe still existed.
He thrust up into her gently, hands sliding to her hips, his thumbs pressing into the soft dip where skin met bone. Her body met his with perfect rhythm, a slow, erotic grind that made the world vanish.
“Don’t rush,” she whispered. “I want to feel every hard, gorgeous inch of you, every sweet, aching thrust of you taking me. We have time.”
He let out a strangled sound, half-broken, half-grateful.
That was the truth he never let himself believe.That maybe, after everything…he still had time. To feel. To live. Tolove.
Her hand slid to the side of his face, fingers brushing the edge of his jaw. “Let it be good this time,” she whispered. “Not punishing. Just good.”
His breath caught.
Then the rhythm changed.
Her body tightened around him, hips rolling, the pleasure turning sharp again, pulling him toward the edge not with force butwith permission.
She rode him slowly, squeezing him deep, milking him with every pass. His breath fractured.
“Grace,” he gasped. “I’m gonna?—”
She leaned down, kissed his mouth, soft and sure.
“I know,” she whispered. “Give it to me. I want it. I want you.”
The orgasm hit him like a wave, rolling through his spine, his legs, his hands, deeper this time, sweeter. A different kind of surrender. He held her through it, groaning into her neck as his body arched, spilled,offered. She took it all. Stayed right there with him. Her body still moving, slowly, gently, coaxing every last pulse of pleasure from his soul.
He didn’t collapse this time.
Hebreathed.
For the first time in longer than he could remember…he just. Breathed.
CHAPTERTEN