Page 200 of Buried in Blood

That undoes me.

Completely.

I slide the hoodie off her and drink in the sight—her body marked, healing, beautiful. I kiss every scar I can see, every place he ever touched that I want to reclaim. Not to erase. No, I’ll never pretend her past didn’t happen. But I’ll rewrite it—with pleasure, with safety, with something honest.

When I finally slip inside her, slow and careful, she gasps and arches into me like it’s the only thing she’s been waiting for. I swear I see stars.

She grips onto me, legs wrapping around my waist, and we move together—slow, deep, desperate.

Her eyes never leave mine.

Neither of us speaks much. We don’t need to. Everything is said in touch, in breath, in the rhythm of our bodies colliding in that dark, quiet bedroom.

And when she cums, soft and sudden, with a whimper muffled into my shoulder—I follow seconds later, unable to stop, completely undone by the feel of her wrapped around me, trusting me, choosing me.

After, I hold her close, burying my face in the crook of her neck, breathing her in like she’s air and I’ve been drowning.

She whispers, “Stay.”

I kiss her temple. “Always.”

And I mean it.

For the first time in my life, I mean every single word.

59

Harmony

Three Months Later

The world is soft again.

Not in the way it used to be, before the darkness swept in and shattered everything I knew. But in the way Reese holds me in the morning, the way his thumb brushes the curve of my spine like he’s drawing a map only he understands.

Three months have passed since the bleeding stopped.

Since the hospital sheets stopped sticking to my skin.

Since the terror behind my eyelids finally started to fade.

I live in a quiet house now—his house, though he’d never call it that. It’s ours. Even if we haven’t said it out loud. Even if my boxes are still half-unpacked and my clothes live mostly in drawers, not closets. It feels like mine because of him.

He wakes up early, but never too far from me. He still moves like a soldier, careful and calculated. Always listening. Always watching. But the way he looks at me is different. He watches me like I’m a sunrise, like I’m something that never should’ve survived but did—and now he won’t dare look away.

Iopen my eyes to the smell of coffee and cinnamon.

I don’t move right away. I just breathe it in, listening to the hum of his music playing softly from the kitchen. Probably some old vinyl he rescued from a garage sale. I tease him about being an old man trapped in a young body; but secretly, I love it. I love the scratch of his records, the way he pretends not to dance when he thinks I’m not watching.

I roll onto my side, eyes landing on the photo on his nightstand.

It’s us. One of the only real pictures we have. We’re lying in the grass outside the hospital, sun in our eyes, his head tipped back in laughter, and my hand wrapped tightly around his. We look… happy. And for once, we were.

I sit up slowly, careful with my healing side. It still aches when I move too fast, the scar a constant reminder of how close I came to not making it.

The door creaks open.

“You’re awake,” he says, carrying a tray with two mugs and a cinnamon roll the size of my face.