Page 44 of Roar Me Like You Mean It

He kisses his way back up my body, his skin hot against mine, and I can feel him hard again, pressing against my hip. A slow smile spreads across my face. I push at his shoulders, rolling him onto his back in the damp grass. He goes willingly, a dark brow arched in amusement, his hands settling on my waist.

I swing a leg over him, straddling his hips, and lower myself slowly. The head of his cock presses against my entrance, and I sink down onto him, taking his full length inside me with a soft, shuddering sigh. He fills me completely, a deep, stretching ache that’s pure pleasure.

His hands slide from my waist to my hips, his grip firm. “Take what you need.”

I rise up on my knees until he’s almost slipped out, then drop back down, setting a slow, grinding rhythm. My hands brace on his chest, feeling the hard beat of his heart under my palms. I lean forward, changing the angle, and his breath hitches. His cock brushes a spot deep inside me that makes my vision blur.

“Right there,” he groans, his fingers digging into my flesh. “Don’t stop.”

I move faster, my thighs burning with the effort, riding him with a desperation that’s new and raw. The only sounds are our ragged breathing and the wet, slick noise of our bodies joining. He thrusts up to meet me, his hips pistoning, driving himself deeper with every lift and fall.

“You feel incredible,” I gasp, my head falling back.

One of his hands leaves my hip to cup my breast, his thumb circling my nipple. The dual sensation—the deep, internal friction and the sharp pull of pleasure at my breast—sends another wave of heat crashing through me. My rhythm falters, becoming erratic, driven purely by the need for release.

He sits up suddenly, wrapping his arms around me, holding me tight against his chest. His thrusts become harder, deeper, pounding into me from this new angle. I cling to him, my face buried in the curve of his neck, breathing him in.

“Come with me,” he rasps into my hair, his own control fraying. “Now, Jennifer.”

His release follows mine, a sharp, guttural sound torn from his throat as he shudders beneath me, his arms locked like steel bands around my body. We stay like that for a long time, tangled together in the quiet aftermath, our breathing the only sound in the sacred grove. The air itself seems to hold its breath.

Slowly, he lowers us back to the soft earth, keeping me tucked against his side. My head rests on his shoulder, my legthrown over his. I trace the line of his collarbone, feeling the steady, solid beat of his heart under my palm. The high, sharp branches of the trees above us form a latticework against the deepening twilight sky.

“I used to think places like this were a myth prosecutors told each other to make paperwork seem more exciting,” I murmur into the skin of his shoulder.

A low chuckle vibrates through his chest. “And now?”

“Now I’m lying naked in one with a man I was sent to destroy. The case files never mentioned this part.”

“A glaring oversight in your human legal system.”

The smile fades from my lips as the vision blooms behind my eyes, not with the painful clarity of before, but with a soft, certain warmth. I see our worlds—his shadowed, mine glaringly bright—not as a collision, but a weaving. I see his cunning not as a weapon against me, but a shield for us. A future where the lines we drew don’t matter anymore. The beauty of it is so profound it aches.

“I saw it,” I whisper, the words feeling too fragile for this air. “A way through. For us. For… everything.”

He goes still beside me. His fingers, which had been drawing lazy circles on my back, still. He turns his head, his dark eyes searching my face. “What did you see?”

“A united front. Not a surrender. A… merger.” I give a weak laugh. “God, listen to me. I sound like I’m pitching a corporate takeover.”

“The most valuable acquisition I’ve ever considered.” His voice is low, devoid of its usual slickness. It’s just raw. He pushes up on one elbow, looking down at me, his expression utterly serious. “But that future has a price, doesn’t it? It demands we survive what’s coming.”

I just nod, the weight of the coming storm settling back over us. The grove’s peace feels suddenly fragile, borrowed.

He leans down, his forehead resting against mine. His next words are a vow, spoken into the minute space between our lips, each syllable etched in fire. “Then I’ll burn the world before I lose you.”

The old me, the prosecutor with a file three inches thick on his operations, would have heard a threat. A villain’s monologue. Now, I hear only truth. I see it in the unblinking darkness of his eyes, feel it in the possessive grip of his hand on my hip. He means every word. He’s mapped the pyre and chosen his torch.

I bring my hand up to his cheek, my thumb stroking the sharp line of his jaw. “I know,” I say. And for the first time, with my body still humming from his and the vision of a united future lingering behind my eyes, I actually do. I believe him completely.