Page 143 of Rescuing Ally: Part 2

I don’t. Can’t. I drive into her until thought becomes impossible, until there’s nothing but sensation and connection and the primal satisfaction of claiming what’s mine.

After, we lie tangled together, sweat cooling on skin marked by teeth and nails. Ally turns in my arms, studies my face with eyes that hold wonder alongside satisfaction.

“There you are,” she says softly.

“What do you mean?”

“The man I fell in love with. The one who looks at me like he wants to devour me whole.” Her fingers trace the line of my jaw. “I was starting to worry he was gone forever.”

“Not gone. Just buried under a mountain of guilt and grief.” I catch her hand and press a kiss to her palm. “Still working on digging him out, but I think he’s going to make it.”

“Good. Because I missed him.”

“Missed who I am with you?”

“Missed who we are together.” She shifts closer, eliminating the last inch of space between us. “This—what we just did—that felt like us. Like the real us, not some pale imitation.”

She’s right. The careful distance is gone, replaced by the easy intimacy that always existed between us. The way she fits against my body like she was designed for this exact purpose. The way I can read her needs in the arch of her spine, the catch of her breath.

“Shower?” I suggest. “Before we get too comfortable and spend the entire day in bed.”

“Would that be so terrible?”

“Terrible? No. But I’m pretty sure we need to eat actual food at some point.”

She laughs, the sound lighter than anything I’ve heard from her since the medical bay. “Fine. But I’m stealing your shampoo.”

“You always steal my shampoo.”

“Because it smells like you, and I like smelling like you.”

The casual intimacy of the statement hits me harder than it should. These small things—shared shampoo, tangled legs, the way she steals my coffee in the morning—these are what make a life together. Not grand gestures or dramatic declarations. Just the accumulated weight of a thousand small choices to choose each other every day.

The shower is exactly what we need—hot water washing away the last traces of distance, steam creating a cocoon where only we exist. I wash her hair with the reverence she deserves, fingers massaging her scalp until she melts against me.

She returns the favor, hands mapping every inch of skin like she’s memorizing me all over again. When she drops to her knees and takes me in her mouth, I have to brace myself against the shower wall to keep from falling.

“Fuck, Ally.”

She hums around me, the vibration nearly destroying what little control I have left. When I fist my hand in her wet hair, she doesn’t pull away. Just looks up at me with eyes that hold challenge alongside submission.

The combination unravels me completely. I come with her name on my lips and stars exploding behind my eyelids, knees threatening to buckle from the intensity.

She stands slowly, licks her lips with satisfaction that makes my spent cock twitch with renewed interest.

“Better?” she asks.

“You’re going to kill me.”

“What a way to go.”

We finish the shower with hands that linger and touches that promise more later. When we finally emerge, pink-skinned and thoroughly satisfied, the world feels manageable for the first time in days.

I wrap her in the oversized towel she loves; the one that swallows her whole and makes her look impossibly beautiful. She does the same for me, movements gentle and reverent.

“I love you,” I say, because the words feel important in this moment.

“I love you too.”