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I run my hands along his arms—those powerful, inked arms—and for the first time, I don’t see the man who once loved my sister. I see the man who loves me. And somehow, impossibly, that makes all the difference.

He presses his face to my belly, breathing me in deep, then spreads my legs with his broad hands.

And when he licks me—fuck—I’ve never felt anything so good, so perfectly made to unravel me. I moan, my hand reaching instinctively for him—only for his palm to slam down on my thigh in warning.

“Put your hands by your sides,” he says in that same low, commanding tone. “There’s something you’re gonna learn, woman. I let you get away with your mouth. I let you be a little brat. But in here? Behind these doors? I am king. Do you understand that?”

“What if I say no?”

His eyes darken, lips curling into a slow smirk as he shakes his head with a low, dangerous chuckle. “Then I’ll have to teach you how to obey.”

“Is that what you need, little brat?” he asks, mouth brushing my belly, inhaling deeply as he parts my legs. “You need a lesson?”

He ends the sentence with a long, lazy lick to my clit, and my hips arch instinctively. I can’t help it. I whisper, “No, of course not. I’m a good girl.”

He licks me again, slower this time. “Then show me how good girls come,” he murmurs—a challenge, a dare. “Go ahead, angel. Come on my tongue. Let yourself go, baby.”

And then he’s devouring me, two fingers sliding into my slick heat, curling just right as his tongue torments my clit. I moan, reaching out before I even realize I’ve moved.

His hand smacks down hard across my thigh, his voice a dark warning between my legs. “I told you not to move those hands,” he growls. “If you want to come, you’ll do what I say. Understand me?”

“Yes,” I breathe out. My hands fall obediently back to my sides. I’ve never played a game like this before. But god—it’s making me burn.

He licks me again, his fingers pressing deeper, firmer. It’s perfect—so perfectly placed I could scream. I feel it building, that sweet, devastating pressure.

“Are you close, beautiful?” he murmurs, voice low and reverent. “Come on my tongue. I want to feel it. I want to taste you. Come for me. ”

I fall over the edge, crashing into the kind of orgasm that rewrites reality.

My pussy clenches and pulses around nothing and everything, shaking with the force of it.

Earth-shattering. Bone-melting. The best of my life.

It’s so much I can’t breathe. I’m wrecked and weightless—and yet all I want is more of him. A primal, feral need coils inside me.

“I want you inside me,” I say, desperate now. “I’m on birth control. I trust you. I know you haven’t been with anyone. I need you.”

He shoves his boxers down and slides into me, thick and perfect, filling me to the brim.

Stretching me until I’m trembling, gasping, mindless.

Every thrust is a promise, every drag of his cock inside me a possession.

He moves like he owns me. Because in that moment—he does.

He fucks me until we’re both coming, and it’s everything.

Raw and real and emotional. The kind of sex that changes something inside you.

I wait for the guilt. I expect it. But it never comes.

I love him. I wanted to comfort him. And it felt right. It still does.

“Stay there,” he says again in that low, growling voice. “I’ll clean you up, baby.”

His hand is warm again, comforting. I’m half-asleep when he returns with the washcloth and carefully slides it between my thighs, wiping me down.

I make it to the bathroom, freshen up, but I’m still dazed, still spinning.

I feel high. Victorious. I’m not alone in this feeling.

He feels it too. But I need to get out of here—before the weight of what just happened hits.

Before consequences catch up with us. Still, I don’t regret a thing. Not a single thing .

He climbs into bed with me, so sexy it should be illegal, and murmurs, “Don’t say a word about regretting this.” His voice is rough, raw. “I don’t. And I don’t want to be a regret for you.”

But then, in a quieter moment, he says it differently: “I never slept so well as I did that night with you. You can stay, Ruthie. You don’t need to go to the guest room. Stay here with me. Let’s get some rest.”

And I know what he means. Not just physical rest but the kind of rest that seeps into your bones. The letting go of everything—worry, grief, the gnawing fear about what’s coming next.

"Yeah," I whisper, "let’s get some rest."

Even as I say it, my mind refuses to still, already bubbling with questions.

What did we just do? Where do we go from here?

What does this even mean? But the feel of his heavy arm draped across my waist settles me more than anything else could.

It makes my muscles soften, making me sink deeper into the mattress.

He falls asleep long before I do, his breathing heavy and even, his body a warm, solid line at my back.

And I find myself hoping—aching—that somewhere, somehow, Mariah will forgive me.