Page 166 of Under Your Scars

I nod, not yet having the strength to look at him. I experimentally rise up a bit, gasping at the light friction. Then back down.

Up and down. Up and down. Up and down.

It’s awkward at first. I can’t find any sort of rhythm. I pause to wipe tears out of my eyes and then I slump my shoulders in defeat.

“I’m sorry,” I whimper.

“Elena, look at me.”

“I can’t.”

“Do it anyway.”

I take a deep breath and look at him. “Grind,” he commands softly. “Don’t think about me. Think about you.”

I tremble as I roll my hips in a circle. He squeezes my hands in encouragement, our fingers still tightly tangled together.

“That’s it, angel. I’m all yours to use, to devour, to hit and to scratch. However you want to love me, that’s what I’m here for.”

“I shouldn’t have hit you,” I whisper.

He uses one of his hands to run his thumb across my clit. “It made my dick so hard I could have shattered diamonds across it.”

I exhale with a tremble. “You like it when I’m rough?”

He chuckles, and I can feel it deep in my core. “I like it when you’redefiant. I always have.”

I lean over, careful of his wound, and lick the column of his neck. The new angle has me seeing stars when I grind against his dick. He’s reaching parts of me I had forgotten existed. With each sharp prick of pleasure, moving becomes a little easier. I get wetter. Slicker. He can feel it too, because I can feel him flexing his abs under me even though it hurts.

I lean back again, adjust my legs, and start to bounce on him, slowly at first until I find a steady pace that has him stringing curses together as he grips my hips so tight it hurts.

“That’s it, angel. Oh,fuck, I’m going to cum.”

“Not yet,” I beg. “We do it together. Please.”

He hisses, gripping my hips impossibly tighter. “Okay, baby. Okay.”

I throw my head back and bounce a little faster, trying to be mindful of his gunshot, but I think I could stab him right now and he wouldn’t care.

I take him harder. Deeper. Faster. I let my free breasts bounce shamelessly in his face. I lean over again, grinding against him at a relentless pace, my clit rubbing against his pelvis with each sway of my hips. I kiss him, hot and frenzied as my body explodes with love and passion and safety.

Christian lets out a pained grunt, and then digs his hands into my ass, holding me tight against him while he paints my wet, velvet walls with his release. I moan into his mouth, having forgotten how erotic it is to have the man that loves me cum deep inside me. To claim me. To mark me as his and only his, like I’ve always been.

A rush of emotion envelops me, and I begin to cry. Not because I’m sad. I’m crying because I’m relieved. I feel like a new person.

I feel like a survivor.

Christian and I haven’t discussed our fight about Kate, and I haven’t attempted to see her or contact her. She gave me her phone number the other day, but other than texting her my name so she knew it was me, she hasn’t said a word to me.

I’m sitting in the downstairs study. Edwin is with me, working on a new puzzle. He finished the one my mother got him for Christmas in less than a month, so every month since, I’ve gotten him the same puzzle in different colors. The one he’s currently working on is a pretty sunset orange. Caroline is helping him.

I’m sorting through the mail. Well, my mail, at least. Christian gets so much mail here from fanboys and people begging for money that he has two staff members sort through all the letters once a week. They pass on my private mail to me, and anything else they think is important, they put in a pile for Christian to go through.

I hardly get anything exciting. Student loan correspondence, mostly. Postcards from Travis and Justin. They cashed in Christian’s wedding gift and took a year off to travel the world. They’re in Aruba, planning on visiting Ibiza next.

With only one letter left, I take a long sip of the fresh-squeezed lemonade Paolo made for me.

I feel a kiss on the top of my head and smile.