Page 143 of Dual

When he’s finally naked, I press my palm flat against his chest, feeling the steady thrum of his heartbeat.

“Touch me,” I breathe. “Please.”

His hands are gentle as they map my body, relearning every curve and hollow. He traces the line of my collarbone with his fingertips, then follows the slope of my breast with his palm. By the time he’s moved to skim the sensitive skin of my inner thigh, I’m trembling with need.

I can barely contain the feelings he awakens in me. I’m learning to reconnect to my body like never before. Every one of his exquisite touches is deliberate and worshipful, like he’s memorizing me all over again.

It’s been so wild learning how to allow the physical connection to finally tie in to the burning emotional connection that’s always been there between us, and, oh god, it sears me from the inside out.

“I love watching you respond to me,” he murmurs, his voice thick with emotion. “The way your breath catches when I touch you here...” His thumb brushes across my nipple, and I gasp, arching into his touch. “The way your eyes go dark when I do this...” He cups my breast fully, his mouth finding the hollow of my throat.

My hands tangle in his hair, holding him close as he lavishes attention on my neck. My shoulders. Then the sensitive spot just below my ear that makes me shiver. I can’t help the noises that escape my throat at the mounting pleasure.

He knows my body so well, every secret place that makes me come undone, and he uses that knowledge like a symphony conductor drawing music from his orchestra.

“You’re everything to me,” I whisper, the words tumblingout before I can stop them. “Everything good in my life starts and ends with you.”

He pulls back to look at me, his eyes bright and jaw working with unspoken emotion. “Anna...”

“I know we don’t say it enough,” I continue, my own voice thick. “How grateful we are. How miraculous this all feels. But I need you to know—we both need you to know—that you saved us. Not just from the bad things, but... you taught us how to live.”

His thumb traces my cheekbone, catching a tear I didn’t realize had fallen. “You saved me, too, love. Both of you. Made me more than I ever thought I could be.”

The tenderness between us builds like a physical force, wrapping around us until the rest of the world falls away. When he guides me back to the bed, his hands never leaving my skin, it feels like a sacred act. Like we’re making promises with our bodies that our words could never capture.

He settles between my thighs, his weight a comforting presence above me. When he enters me, slow and careful, I feel complete in a way that has nothing to do with physical pleasure and everything to do with soul-deep connection. This is home—not the house around us, not even our bed, but this joining of bodies and hearts and futures.

We move together slowly, finding our rhythm and letting the pleasure build gradually. He watches my face constantly, reading every expression, adjusting his angle or pace based on what he sees there. His consideration and attention to my needs make me love him so fiercely it’s almostpainful.

“More,” I breathe, my nails digging into his shoulders. “I want to feel everything.”

Oh, oh—I dig my nails into his shoulder as the wave rises even higher. It’s so close to cresting. Ohgod.

Domhn responds by deepening his thrusts, hitting that spot inside me that makes stars burst behind my eyelids. But even as the physical sensations intensify, I feel something else building—that familiar shifting inside my head, consciousness flowing like water between vessels.

Let me feel this, too, comes the whisper from deep inside, and I smile because I know what she needs. What we both need.

“Switch with me,” I tell Domhnall, my voice already changing subtly. “Let her have this, too.”

His movements slow but don’t stop, his eyes searching my face for the signs he’s learned to read. The shift is gradual this time, like sinking into warm water, and I let myself drop back willingly, knowing I’m not losing anything but gaining everything as she and I learn to work together.

MADS

The change islike waking up inside a dream of pleasure. Every nerve ending is already alive, sensitized by Anna’s careful preparation, and when I fully surface intoconsciousness, Domhnall is still moving inside me with that gentle reverence that makes something twist in my chest.

“There she is,” he murmurs, his voice full of wonder and heat. “Hello, beautiful.”

I grin up at him, letting all my hunger show in my expression. “Miss me, Donny?”

“Always,” he says, and there’s such honesty in it that I have to look away for a moment, overwhelmed by the depth of feeling.

This is what I’ve always struggled with—not the sex, not the pain, not even the surrender, butthis.

The naked emotion.

The vulnerability that comes with being truly seen and loved.

Anna’s better at accepting it and believing she deserves it. But Domhnall’s patient with me, the way he’s always been patient, and slowly I’m learning to let him love the broken parts of me, too.