Page 73 of Vows in Sin

It’s a fucking thrill when someone pulls the words straight from your heart. Feeling the same feelings. Having the same thoughts.

It makes the loneliness wash away.

I lean down. Our mouths meet like we’ve been waiting years instead of hours. My good hand buries in her hair. She climbs onto my lap, straddling me carefully, gently, mindful of my injury but not of my restraint.

There is none.

Her robe parts. She’s wearing nothing underneath.

And God help me, I forget how to breathe.

Her skin is like heaven under my palms—warm, flushed, impossibly soft. My hand trembles as I run it over her waist, down the curve of her hip. Not from hesitation. From reverence. From awe. From a kind of hunger I don’t know how to name.

She settles onto my lap with careful grace, mindful of the sling on my arm, but reckless with everything else. She kisses me like she’s starving for it—like she’s waited too long and can’t stand another second. And I kiss her back like a dying man clutching the only taste of salvation he’ll ever get.

My lips trail fire across her throat, her collarbone. She arches into me, her breath catching when I trace my mouth lower. She’s all soft sounds and warm curves, a symphony of sensation. Myname escapes her lips in a whisper, almost reverent, and it guts me.

Because this isn’t lust.

This is surrender.

Her fingers knot in my hair, holding me to her as I explore her slowly, thoroughly. I don’t rush. I don’t dominate. I don’t need to.

We make love like we’re rediscovering touch.

Like we’ve both been starved for something real and finally found it in each other.

I guide her gently, lifting her with my good arm as she sinks onto me. Her gasp breaks into a moan that echoes through my chest. She fits me like we were made for this—this slow, aching rhythm that feels more like worship than sex.

Her hands slide over my shoulders. Her forehead presses to mine. We breathe each other in, eyes wide open. No masks. No pretense. Raw, stripped honesty.

Every rock of her hips is a confession.

Every gasp is a promise.

“Don’t disappear on me again,” I growl against her skin, my voice low. “Ever. You hear me?”

“I won’t,” she whispers, breathless, trembling. “I swear, I won’t.”

And then I lose myself completely.

She’s everything. The pulse of her body around mine. The grip of her thighs. The heat of her mouth when I kiss her again andagain like I’ll never stop. And maybe I won’t. Not now. Not after this.

Not after knowing what it feels like to be wanted finally.

I lift her hips, sink into her deeper, and everything else disappears.

The ache. The guilt. The fear.

“Dad?” The familiar voice freezes us both.

We jolt apart, Seraphina yanking the sheets over her chest as we turn toward the door.

Tabitha.

Standing in the doorway.

Wide-eyed.