Page 145 of Dual

When he finally, finally thrusts into me, hard and deep and without warning, I scream with the sudden fullness.

“Fuck,” he groans, his hands gripping my hips hard enough to bruise. “You feel so good. So tight and wet for me.”

He doesn’t give me time to adjust, setting a brutal pace that has the bench creaking beneath us. Each thrust drives me forward, the friction against my sensitized clit making me see stars. This is what I need—to be taken apart and rebuilt, to be reduced to nothing but sensation and need.

“This what you wanted?” he pants, one hand sliding up my spine to tangle in my hair, pulling my head back so I have to arch my breasts out. “To be fucked like the desperate little slut you are?”

“Yes,” I gasp, pushing my ass out and back to meet his thrusts. “God, yes. Harder.”

He obliges, driving into me with a force that borders onviolent. The pain from the flogging and the stretch of his cock and the relentless pressure against my clit blur together until I can’t tell where one sensation ends and another begins. I’m floating in a haze of pleasure and pain, completely at his mercy.

“Tell me you’re mine,” he demands, his voice rough with his own approaching climax. “Tell me who you belong to.”

“Yours,” I sob, my orgasm building like a freight train, unstoppable and overwhelming. “I’m yours, Domhnall. Only yours. Always yours.”

“That’s right,” he says, his rhythm becoming erratic as he chases his own release. “Mine to hurt, mine to heal, mine to love. All of you ismine.”

The words shatter something inside me, some last wall of defense I’ve been clinging to. I come with a scream that tears from my throat like something wild and primal, my body convulsing around him as wave after wave of pleasure crashes over me. I’m vaguely aware of Domhnall shouting my name as he follows me over the edge, his hips slamming against my abused ass as he empties himself inside me.

But even as the aftershocks fade, even as I feel his come leaking down my thighs and his gentle hands soothing the marks he’s left on my skin, I feel something else building. Not another orgasm but something deeper, more profound.

Understanding. Acceptance.Peace.

For so long, I’ve thought of myself as the dark half.

The broken one.

The part of us that had to be hidden away or managed or controlled.

But lying here, marked and claimed and thoroughly used, I finally understand what Domhnall’s been trying to tell me all along.

I’m not the shadow to Anna’s light. We’re not two halves of a broken whole.

We’re both complete, both necessary, both loved exactly as we are.

And as that realization settles into my bones, I feel my consciousness shifting again, flowing like water from one vessel to another. But this time, I don’t fight it. I let it happen, knowing that Anna will be there to catch us both as we fall back into each other.

ANNA

I come backto myself slowly, like surfacing from deep water. We’re still in the dungeon, but Domhnall has moved us to the soft couch in the corner, his arms wrapped around me as we both catch our breath. My skin is flushed and sensitized, marked with the evidence of what just happened, but I feel no shame or embarrassment. Only satisfaction and deep,bone-deep, completion.

“Welcome back,” he murmurs against my hair, pressing a soft kiss to my temple.

I turn in his arms to look at him, taking in his disheveled hair, the sweat still gleaming on his chest, and the tenderness in his eyes despite the intensity of what we just shared. “Was I gone long?”

“Not long,” he says, his hand stroking gentle patterns on my back, tracing over the marks that are already beginning to fade. “Just long enough.”

I know what he means. Long enough for him to give Mads what she needed—the roughness and dominance and complete surrender that helps her feel grounded and loved in the only way she can accept. And now we’re here together—all of us, complete.

“How do you feel?” he asks, his eyes searching my face for any sign of distress or discomfort.

I take inventory of my body. There’s a lingering ache in my ass. I always love this—being able to feel the evidence of his wild but controlled passion in the tender spots where his hands gripped me. It brings such an indescribably satisfied heaviness to my limbs.

But underneath all of that is something else, something that makes my chest tight with emotion.

“Whole,” I whisper, the word carrying more weight than I can properly express. “For the first time in my life, I feel completely whole.”

His expression softens, understanding flickering in his eyes. “Both of you?”