Page 92 of Cara

My knees clamp his naked hips, finding a synced rhythm to match his. His grip is excruciatingly tight, wrapped around me, sliding from my shoulders to the delicate nape of my neck. Each pump of his hips warrants a gasp, a strained cry.

Our pleasure fills the silence of the room. It's the sweetest sound in the world—our voices entangled in the ether.

"I loveyou." The words spill from my lips. Only now, when his eyes spasm, do I realize I haven't said them yet. In the midst of so many words, somehow, those got lost.

The most important out of all of them.

He smiles dazzlingly, nuzzling my jaw.

"Aboutdamntime."

I don't remember the last time I smiled like this. "I can say it again."

"Please do." Exhaling when I comply, he grips me harder, his hips pumping faster. "Never stop."

Bucking into his thrusts, my mouth finds any part of himI can reach. When my teeth grip his lip, pulling his mouth open to welcome my tongue, the moan he releases drives me wild, igniting a budding flame that can only burn brighter, stronger. The skilled strokes of his cock knock the air out of my lungs, my toes digging into the backs of his knees.

I begin shaking beneath him uncontrollably, warm sweat mixing with salt water and rain. When one of his hands slides between us, his fingers targeting that sensitive bud, the tender muscles inside of me clench, eliciting a hungry sound from him, a sound that makes him lose control, his lips crashing down on me as he reminds my body of his power.

It says you're mine.Allmine.

The fact that it's him transcends the physical aspect of this.

Any hand could build my nerves to a peak—only love can chase away the residual hate stored in my body, even if just for these fleeting moments. Only love can make me forget my own name, erasing the entirety of the world, leaving only his body on mine.

His lips are by my ear as we near heaven. "Let go, baby. Let go for me.”

This peak swells so differently from the first because this time, Xavier’s pulse is raging to the drum of my own.

Wavering on the brink of sanity, waves of pure ecstasy surge through me—from my dizzying mind to my curled toes.

My neck arches as I give into his steady fingertips, into his timed thrusts that are dragging out my pleasure for as long as he can. His lips spread into a smile against my cheek.

"Fuck, I missed this."

He doesn't need to tell me when he's close. I sense it through his hands flexing against my skin, in his muscles that twitch under my grasp, in every thrust he holds off.

My hands startle him, clasping onto each side of his face, my fingers quivering against his glistening cheeks. Strippedof anything that could protect us, his hips pump faster, his eyes surrendered to mine. His jaw hardens under my touch.

He glances between our bodies, as he's done so many times when he's gone to pull out of me, but my hands settle upon his ass, urging him deeper—as deep as he can go. There's no describing how soft his gaze becomes, his head dropping onto my throat as he moans, his shoulders shaking.

He breathes my name like a vow before he spills himself into me.

Sophie

He’ssleeping.

I hadn’t realized how anxious his insomnia was making me until I saw his eyes finally lull closed, lying flat on his stomach, his inked biceps swelling as he hugged the quilted pillow.

A lamp on the desk casts a warm glow across the bedroom, granting me a fleeting opportunity to observe him without his masterful façade slipping into place. That frustrating mask he expertly erects whenever he wants to conceal his true self.

The man who’s just over thirty may look boyish while he sleeps, but the lines etched into the corners of his eyes no longer vanish as they once did. The delicate skin around his lashes bears a hue reminiscent of welts, a darkness that could only stem from deprivation. All forms of it.

Over the past hour, the squall that battered this secluded corner of the island has subsided. Through the window, the violent, turbulent waves I immersed myself in for release have pacified—just like my heart.

After coming at me with no holds barred for most of the night, not leaving this bed for food or even water, decidingthishunger was far more satiating, Xavier’s eyes only closedbecause they had to. I lose track of time, watching the plane of his back, wide enough to gorge half of this full-size mattress, ebbing and flowing in peaceful slumber.

His phone vibrates on the night table beside a loaded gun. Both are always present, a familiar fixture in our lives. He’ll always have those who seek him out at all hours, expecting him to drop everything to answer the call of duty.