Page 155 of Blood & Throttle

His gaze drags up to mine. “Then I burn the world down and build us one with your name on every fucking wall.”

I don’t respond.

I just grab him by the collar, pull him up, and kiss him like I already said yes.

Because maybe I just did.

The warehouse is mostlyquiet when we pull in. Ghost and Bishop are still up, heads bent low over some screen, wires snaking across the workbench in tangles that only make sense to them. They don’t look up when we kill the engine. No words exchanged. Just the hum of machines, the occasional clang of metal echoing through the steel bones of the Verge’s ugliest sanctuary.

We don’t speak either, not until we’re back in our quartersgrabbing towels, the sting of fresh ink still humming under our clothes.

The showers are abandoned at this time of night. Everyone else is either asleep or too wrecked from the last race to move. It’s just us and the steam curling from the busted old pipes, hissing like they’re glad to be useful one more time.

Riot turns the knob. The water blasts out hot and hard, fogging the mirrors, filling the air with a hiss that drowns everything else out.

We strip slowly.

Tugging off layers, careful where they brush the fresh marks.

The water’s almost too hot, but it feels like absolution. I step into it, the stream pounding against my back as he follows. One hand plants against the tile beside my head, his other grabs the soap.

He lathers it slowly, dragging the bar over my shoulders, down my spine, and around my waist. His hands are sure, reverent. He avoids the ink, but every other part of me? He learns all over again. Like he’s not just washing off sweat and grime—he’s cleansing me. Resetting us.

When I turn to face him, my fingers curl into his shoulders. I drag the soap over the curve of his bicep, down the grooves of his stomach, rinsing the blood from his ribs. The skin there is darker, bruised from the last race, but the stitches are holding. Clean, tight, healing better than they should be.

His breath catches when my hands linger there, when my thumb brushes too close to the seam but he doesn’t stop me.

His forehead presses to mine. The water runs down our faces. Steam clings to every inch of skin, curling around us like smoke.

“I need you,” he mutters, voice thick with grit.

I meet his eyes, breath ragged, heart thundering.

“Then take me,” I whisper, rough, sure, like a challenge.

His hands slide down to my thighs, and he lifts me in one clean movement, like I weigh nothing. My back hits the wall, cool tile shocking against heat. His mouth crashes into mine—hungry, deliberate, but still slow. There’s no rush this time. No frenzy.

He lines himself up, the heat of him pressing against me then pushes in, deep, hard, and slow.

It’s not brutal. It’s not wild.

It’s fucking worship.

Every stroke is slow and dragging, like he’s memorizing the way I wrap around him. The way I shudder when he bottoms out. The way I clutch at his shoulders like I’ll break without him.

He moves like he’s not just fucking me but claiming every inch, branding it as his. One deep thrust at a time.

His hands grip my thighs tighter, pulling me closer, like he wants me welded to him. The muscles in his arms strain, and his jaw’s tight, clenched like holding back is costing him. His mouth finds my throat, lips dragging over slick skin, teeth grazing the curve where my pulse hammers wild.

“Fuck, Sin,” he breathes, like he can’t believe I’m real. Like this is the first time he’s allowed himself tofeelit.

A low groan vibrates through my chest as his hips rock with unrelenting precision—deep, slow, devastating. I feel every inch of him. Every twitch. Every greedy push deeper, like he’s carving his name from the inside out. Like he wants me sore tomorrow. Ruined. Remembering.

My back arches, head tipping, jaw slack. The sting of the fresh tattoo still burns across my hip, but it’s nothingcompared to the throb building between my legs—tight, hot, impossible to ignore.

He shifts, angling up, hitting deeper, harder, and I gasp, clawing at his back as my body pulses around him.

“Riot, fuck—”