Page 39

His clothes came off with efficient movements, revealing the body I'd mapped with my hands but never fully appreciated.

Scars told stories across his skin—combat, club business, life lived hard.

But it was the look in his eyes that made me shiver.

Pure possession, like he was about to claim something that had always belonged to him.

"Say it," he commanded, covering my body with his. The weight of him pressed me into the mattress, grounding me in sensation after floating in emotional space. "Say you're mine."

"I'm yours," I breathed, and the words came out like prayer. "Only yours, always yours, forever yours."

His hand fisted in my hair, tilting my head back to expose my throat. "Louder."

"I'm yours!" The words tore from me, raw and desperate. "Dex, please, I need—"

"I know what you need."

He thrust into me without warning, one powerful stroke that seated him completely.

I cried out—my body tender and sensitized from the discipline, every nerve ending alive.

He was big, almost too big, stretching me in ways that bordered on pain but transformed into pleasure.

I could feel every inch of him, filling me completely, pushing against my inner walls.

His hips pressed against mine, and I could feel the roughness of his pubic hair against my smooth skin.

"Fuck," he gritted out, holding still with visible effort.

His jaw was clenched, the tendons in his neck standing out in sharp relief.

"So tight. So perfect. Been wanting this all night, watching you break apart, watching you trust me with everything.

" His voice was a low growl, a rumble that I could feel against my chest.

I locked my legs around his torso, heels digging into the small of his back, desperate to draw him deeper into me.

But he was unyielding, maintaining an agonizingly slow pace.

He withdrew almost entirely, leisurely, letting me feel every thick, pulsing inch of him retreating, leaving me empty and wanting.

I could feel the engorged head of his cock lingering at my entrance, a promise, a threat, before he plunged back into me with a force that left me gasping, lungs emptied, fingernails clawing into the firm muscle of his shoulders.

He set a relentless rhythm, his hips crashing against mine, the bedframe creaking and groaning beneath us, protesting our brutality.

Each thrust was a conquest, a searing brand meant to mark me, claim me, remind me of my place.

I could feel the slick sweat on his skin, the radiant heat of his body, as I raked my nails down his shoulders, holding onto him like a lifeline.

My breath came in shuddering gasps, my heart a frantic drum in my chest, as he took me, owned me, possessed me utterly.

"Every. Time. You. Lied." He growled, each word a staccato thrust, driving him deeper, punishing me. "I wanted this. Wanted to fuck you so hard the truth would pour out of you. Make you remember who owns you."

"Yours," I gasped, every fiber of my being on edge, teetering on the precipice of something both terrifying and exhilarating.

The room was a vortex of raw emotion and primal intensity, with his gaze penetrating me to my very core.

I felt like his most cherished treasure, a coveted prize meant to be claimed and never relinquished. "Dex, please, I'm—"

"Not. Yet." His voice was a velvet rope, binding me to him with its lustful authority. His large hand encircled my throat, not in a grip that constricted but in a tender yet unyielding reminder of his dominion over me. "You'll come when I say so. Not a moment before."

His voice, thick with desire and command, sent ripples of electricity racing down my spine, igniting every nerve ending.

I tightened around him involuntarily, a reflexive response to the blend of pleasure and power he wielded over me.

He swore under his breath, his teeth gritted in a feral snarl as he drove into me with a force that made the world dissolve around us.

Harder, faster, he pushed me toward the brink, unraveling me until all boundaries disintegrated, leaving me suspended in a universe defined only by the sensation of him filling and stretching every inch of me, and his voice urging me to hold on, to wait, to be his good girl just a little longer.

"Please," I implored, my voice barely more than a whimper as my body screamed for release, the need coiling within me like a spring wound too tight. "Please, Daddy, I need—"

The word slipped from my lips with a life of its own, and in that moment, his carefully maintained control shattered.

The rhythm of his thrusts devolved into a frantic, erratic dance of desperation, each movement a testament to the wild abandon that had overtaken him.

His hand tightened around my throat, just enough to make breathing a conscious effort, heightening every sensation until I was nothing but a conduit for the raging storm of our shared desire.

"Come," he commanded. "Come for Daddy. Show me you're mine."

I shattered.

The orgasm ripped through me with the same intensity as the emotional release earlier—total devastation, complete surrender. I screamed his name, his title, nonsense words that might have been prayers. My body clenched around him, milking his cock, and I felt him follow me over.

"Fuck, Cleo, fuck—" His release pulsed into me, marking me from the inside, and the feeling of it—of being claimed so completely—sent me into another wave of climax.

We collapsed together, sweat-slicked and shaking. I couldn't stop trembling, couldn't process the intensity of what had just happened. Not just the sex but everything—the confessions, the discipline, the forgiveness, the claiming. I felt flayed open, rebuilt, transformed into something new.

"I've got you," Dex murmured when the shaking turned to sobs. "Let it out. All of it."

I cried against his chest—not from pain or sadness but from the overwhelming relief of being accepted. Every ugly truth of my whole life had been dragged into the light and met with forgiveness. Every fear had been faced and found powerless against his certainty.

"Clean slate," he murmured into my hair, hands stroking my back with infinite tenderness. "Everything forgiven, everything new. Just you and me and the truth from here on out."

I wanted to respond, wanted to tell him what this meant, but words had deserted me completely. So I just held on, let him anchor me while I slowly came back to myself.

Eventually, the tears stopped. My breathing steadied. The trembling eased to occasional shivers. Dex shifted us carefully, reaching for the supplies he'd packed. The lotion was cool against my heated skin, his hands gentle as they smoothed it over marks that would bloom into bruises.

"Battle scars," I mumbled, echoing my words from days ago.

"Badges of honor," he corrected, pressing a kiss to a particularly tender spot. "Proof that you're brave enough to face the hard stuff. Strong enough to submit to healing."

He helped me sit up, held a water bottle to my lips when my hands shook too much to manage alone. Everything felt tender—my skin, my heart, the very air between us. But it was good tender, like new growth after fire.

And like a new shoot pushing through ash, I felt myself stretching up toward the light of his love.