Page 67 of Inheritance

Then his hands found my hips again.

"Good girl."

I could feel him throbbing inside me. His voice owned me.

One hand teased between my legs. The other yanked my hair, pulling my head back as he pounded into me.

Our shadows crashed against the wall, seeming violent but flooding me with a loving warmth.

Then it hit—a slow rise that crashed into white heat.

My body shook. My voice broke.

He flipped me onto my back, laid on top of me.

His breath hot against my skin, his weight holding me in place.

He moved harder, slow, brutal precision. His lips brushed below my ear.

"You’re mine," he growled, the sound vibrating through me.

There was no space left. No air. Just the weight of him. The rhythm. The heat. Each thrust drove me higher.

I arched into him, surrendering everything.

My body gave it all. Every thrust, every cry, every desperate movement.

And when I finally shattered—when the last thread snapped—I moaned his name with a broken cry.

His rhythm faltered. He groaned, low and long, burying himself deep as he came. The warmth of it was overwhelming, flooding through me as he held tight, locked in.

His breath shuddered across my neck.

Only then did he slow. His grip eased, his forehead resting against mine.

"Never fucking leave me again."

The fire still burned. Two shadows remained, still, as one.

Sophia

Iwoke to a soft clatter, faint and uncertain.

Gabriel’s arm still draped across my waist, heavy with exhaustion and satisfaction. His breathing stayed even. The room lay in half-shadow, fire dying low in the grate. For a moment I thought I’d imagined the sound, but it came again—louder this time.

I eased his arm away. He murmured something unintelligible and settled onto his side.

I slipped from the bed, pulled on his discarded shirt, gathered myself, and crept into the hallway.

The hall stretched dark and still, goosebumps rising on my arms in the cool quiet air. Fear starting to creep in, then a faint, unmistakably female grunt carried from the left, followed by a dull thud.

That stupid girl was either trying to force her suitcase closed or dragging it across the floor.

Half asleep, I tip toed toward Carolines’s room, my hand trailing along the wall for guidance.

I reached her door, set my palm on the cool handle, and swung it open.

Moonlight gave the room a pale glow.