Chapter 3: Chapter 3
He cupped her cheek, thumb brushing her cheekbone, and with a ragged voice said, “Let’s go home.”
Home was their apartment, a space that held the ghost of every noise they’d ever made. The air still felt charged from the previous night, a low hum beneath the mundane act of kicking off shoes, of Ronan shrugging out of his jacket. Aria walked to the kitchen, poured a glass of water, her hands steady. The adrenaline was leaching away, leaving a hollow, buzzing fatigue. She felt unmoored.
“Talk to me,” Ronan said, leaning against the doorway. He looked carved from the same worn stone as the alley walls.
“About what? The weather?” She didn’t turn around. “Your internship? My hypothetical roommate?”
“About this.” He pushed off the frame, crossing the room in three strides. He turned her to face him, his hands firm on her shoulders. “We’re not okay.”
She finally looked up at him. “When have we ever been ‘okay’? Okay isn’t what we are. We’re this.” She gestured between their bodies, a sharp, frustrated slash of her hand. “Messy and secret and so fucking hungry it scares me. But ‘okay’? That’s for people eating brunch. Not for us.”
He stared at her, his jaw working. The truth of it hung there, ugly and inescapable. He pulled her into a kiss, but it wasn’t like the others. It was slow, searching, almost sad. It tasted like the end of a fight no one had won. When he pulled back, he rested his forehead against hers. “I don’t know how to do this,” he admitted, the words a bare whisper.
“So we fake it,” she whispered back. “We just keep faking it, until we don’t have to anymore.”
The week that followed was a study in forced normalcy. Ronan started his internship, coming home each evening smelling of starch and helpless frustration, the phantom scent of the alley still clinging to him somewhere deeper. Aria picked up extra shifts at the bookstore, trying to fill the hours, to exhaust the nervous energy thrumming under her skin. They danced around each other, conversations brittle and practical. The frantic, public sex had paradoxically built a wall, highlighting the impossible chasm between their secret and their public lives.
Aria started feeling off by Wednesday. A rolling nausea in the mornings, a fatigue that felt woven into her bones. She blamed the stress, the emotional whiplash, the weird kale smoothie she’d tried. Her IUD was a five-year, statistically immovable fact. It had never so much as blipped in the two years since she’d gotten it. It was her armor. Her guarantee. She pushed the other, ludicrous thought away every time it surfaced.
By Friday night, the fatigue was a dense fog. She came home to find Ronan already there, a bottle of whiskey and two glasses on the coffee table. His tie was loose, his hair mussed from his hands running through it. “I need out of my head,” he said, his voice flat. “Help me.”
It was an invitation back into their language. The one with rules, with safewords, with a clear script. It felt like a lifeline. “What do you need?” she asked, slipping off her shoes.
“I need quiet. I need your submission. I need everything to just… stop.” His blue eyes were haunted, not by passion, but by a weary, corporate ghost.
“Okay,” she said softly. She went to the bedroom, to the chest. She pulled out the red silk rope, the familiar coils cool and smooth in her hands. She brought it to him.
He took it, his fingers tracing the weave. “On your knees. By the couch.”
She complied, the old ritual settling over her like a second skin. The plush carpet was rough against her knees. He moved behind her, his motions practiced, automatic. He tied her wrists together behind her back with swift, efficient knots. The silk was a firm, beautiful pressure. He guided her to lean forward, her torso resting on the seat of the couch, her ass elevated. He secured her bound wrists to a leg of the heavy wooden coffee table, leaving her presented, exposed, and utterly immobile.
He didn’t touch her intimately. He stood back, drinking his whiskey, watching her. The silence was heavy, almost punitive. He finally set the glass down with a soft click.
“You’re mine,” he stated, his voice devoid of its usual heat. It was a recitation.
“I am,” she breathed into the cushion, the position starting to ache in her shoulders.
He undid his belt, the leather slithering through the loops. He folded it in half, the sound ominous. “And I will remind you.” The first strike landed across the backs of her thighs. It was sharp, clinical, a bright line of pain that made her gasp. It wasn’t about pleasure. It was about erasure. He laid down another, parallel to the first. Then another. Each one was a methodical attempt to scour away the images of dorm rooms, of other men’s eyes, of a future where this couldn’t exist.
Aria lost herself in the rhythm of it, the predictable sting a counterpoint to the chaotic nausea swirling in her gut. She focused on her breathing, on the texture of the couch fabric against her cheek. Ronan was murmuring above her, filth and possession, but his heart wasn’t in it. It was rote.
He dropped the belt. She heard his zipper. He knelt behind her, his hands gripping her hips. He was hard, but it feltfunctional. He spat once, a crude lubricant, and guided himself to her entrance. He pushed in, a slow, filling invasion. She clenched around him, instinctively seeking the old connection.
“Good,” he muttered, beginning to move. “Take it. Just take it.”
He fucked her with a steady, rhythmic pace, each thrust rocking her body against the couch. Her bound hands pulled subtly at the rope. The nausea, which had been a background hum, began to climb, a rising tide in her throat. She tried to swallow it down, to focus on the feeling of him, on the submissive space she loved. But her stomach gave a violent, oily lurch.
“Ronan,” she choked out, the word garbled.
“I’m not stopping,” he grunted, his pace increasing, seeking his own release. His hand came down on her ass in a sharp slap.
That was the trigger. The pain, the angle, the deep, jarring penetration. A hot, acidic wave surged up her esophagus with terrifying force. She couldn’t turn her head. She couldn’t move.
She vomited explosively all over the couch cushion and her own face and hair.
The violent heave wracked her body, temporarily wrenching him out of her. Sour, half-digested food splattered the fabric, pooled near her mouth, dripped down onto the carpet. The act was immediately followed by a second, wrenching dry heave that seized her entire frame.
Ronan froze. For one horrifying second, the scene was silent save for her ragged, wet gasps and the drip of vomit. The smell—sharp and deeply wrong—flooded the space.
“Oh, fuck. Aria.” His voice wasn’t disgusted. It was pure, unadulterated alarm. All dominance, all pretense, vanished. He fumbled with the knots at her wrists, his fingers clumsy with panic. “It’s okay. Shhh, it’s okay, I’ve got you.”
The second her hands were free, she crumpled, sobbing and gagging simultaneously, trying to wipe her face with her filthy hands. He didn’t hesitate. He scooped her up, vomit and all, cradling her against his own soiled chest. “I’m here. I’ve got you,” he kept repeating, a frantic mantra, as he carried her to the bathroom.
He set her on the closed toilet lid, her body wracked with sobs and dry heaves. He turned on the shower, testing the temperature with his hand. He didn’t care about the mess on himself. He carefully, gently peeled her soiled shirt over her head, his touch infinitely tender. “Can you stand, sweetheart?”
She couldn’t speak, just shook her head, another dry heave convulsing through her. He stripped his own clothes off, kicked them aside, and then lifted her again, stepping them both into the warm spray.
The water cascaded over them, sluicing the worst of the mess away. Aria gripped the tile wall, her body trembling violently as another wave of nausea hit. She retched, throwing up a thin, bitter stream of bile onto the shower floor. Ronan held her hair back from her face with one hand, the other rubbing slow, firm circles on her back.
“It’s alright,” he soothed, his voice low and steady against the sound of the water. “Let it out. I’m right here.”
She retched again, her empty stomach offering nothing but pain. The humiliation was a physical burn worse than the bile. He’d seen her utterly broken, but never like this. Never sick, and helpless, and disgusting. She wept, the tears mixing with the shower spray.
When the heaving subsided into shaky, exhausted breaths, he turned her gently. He cupped her face, his thumbs wiping away tears and water. “Look at me.” His blue eyes were wide with concern, soft in a way she rarely saw. “Are you hurt? Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head, a fresh sob escaping. “I’m s-sorry.”
“Stop. Don’t you ever apologize.” He reached for the soap, lathering his hands. With the utmost care, he washed her face, her neck, her shoulders, rinsing away every last trace. He washed her hair, his fingers massaging her scalp. He was meticulous, gentle, a caretaker instead of a conqueror.
He washed himself quickly, then turned off the water. He wrapped her in a large, clean towel, then another around himself. He led her, shuffling and weak, to the bed. He pulled back the covers and tucked her in, then climbed in beside her, pulling her damp body against his. She shivered, the aftermath of the physical trauma setting in.
“The couch…” she whispered miserably.
“Fuck the couch.” He kissed her temple, his arm a solid band across her. “Just rest. We’re not moving until you tell me what’s been going on.”
The tenderness was a different kind of vulnerability, one that scared her more than any belt. She burrowed into his warmth, the truth coiling like a cold snake in her gut. The IUD was supposed to fucking work. But the evidence was a foul smell still clinging to the apartment, and a relentless, alien wrongness in her own body. The fragile world they’d built on secrets and silk ropes was cracking, and something far more terrifying was seeping through.
The fragile world they’d built on secrets and silk ropes was cracking, and something far more terrifying was seeping through. She lay against him in the dark, listening to the furious drum of his heart. It hadn’t slowed. Her own body felt alien, a traitorous vessel humming with a wrongness she could no longer ignore. The smell of cleaning products and underlying bile lingered in the apartment air, a testament to the violent rupture of their script.
His hand stroked her hair, the motion repetitive, soothing. “You’ve been sick before,” he said, his voice a low rumble in his chest under her ear. “You threw up that time you tried those prescription painkillers on an empty stomach. This is different. Tell me.”
She closed her eyes. The memory of the IUD insertion two years prior flashed—the cold speculum, the sharp, cramping pinch, the doctor’s reassuring words about efficacy. Her armor. Her guarantee. She touched her lower abdomen, a flutter of dread moving through her. Her period was a ghost she couldn’t quite remember. The math was a silent, screaming thing.
“Aria.” His hand stilled. “Look at me.”
She shook her head, burying her face deeper into his skin. The words were a physical blockage in her throat. She thought of the coffee shop bathroom, the alley, the countless times with no thought, no barrier, just him spilling into her with a possessive groan. The raw, perfect trust of it. A sob broke loose, harsh and ugly.
“I think…I think the IUD failed…” she sobbed into his chest.
He didn’t even freeze. He just burrowed his face into her hair on her neck, his arms tightening around her like a vise. He held her through the shaking, through the wet, hot tears soaking his skin. His breath was warm and steady against her pulse point.
“It’s ok…if it did we’ll figure it out. It’s ok baby.” he whispered to her. The word ‘baby’ hung in the air, a terrible, beautiful double meaning. His voice was thick but unwavering. “We’ll figure it out together.”
The promise was a lifeline and an anchor. It didn’t fix the chasm, but it built a narrow bridge across it. She cried until she was hollow, until the fear had poured out of her and left a numb, exhausted shell. He held her through all of it, his silent strength the only solid thing in the universe.
When her breathing finally evened, he shifted. He kissed her damp eyelids, her salty cheeks, her trembling mouth. This kiss was different. It wasn’t about domination or hunger. It was a claim of a different kind—softer, deeper, terrifying in its permanence. “We need to know,” he murmured against her lips.
She nodded, mute.
He slid out of bed. She heard him in the bathroom, brushing his teeth, splashing water. He returned with a glass of water for her and a damp washcloth. He helped her sit up, gently wiping her face again. The care in his hands made her want to cry all over.
“Stay here,” he said. He pulled on a pair of sweatpants, no shirt. He left the bedroom, and she heard the front door open and close. The silence of the apartment pressed in. She stared at the ceiling, one hand resting on her stomach. The possibility took shape inside her, a tiny, hypothetical star of pure chaos.
He returned twenty minutes later, a small paper bag in his hand. He placed it on the nightstand. It wasn’t just one box. It was three different brands. “Eliminate doubt,” he said simply, his voice rough.
The clinical packaging looked grotesque in their intimate space. She looked from the bag to his face. His blue eyes were dark with an emotion she couldn’t name—a fierce, protective determination that made her chest ache. “Now?” she whispered.
“Unless you want to spend the night imagining the worst.” He sat on the edge of the bed, pulling the boxes out. He read the instructions aloud in a flat, focused tone, his finger tracing the text. “First morning urine is best… but we can do it now. It says it’s accurate.”
The process was absurdly mundane. Pee on the stick. Wait three minutes. The three longest minutes of her life. She did it in their bathroom, him waiting right outside the door. She placed the plastic stick on the edge of the sink and walked out, unable to look. He went in. The silence from the bathroom was absolute.
She stood in the center of the bedroom, her arms wrapped around herself. She heard the soft tap of plastic on quartz. Then nothing. A ragged inhalation.
Ronan emerged. His face was bloodless, all sharp angles and stunned eyes. He looked at her, and for the first time since she’d known him, he looked truly, utterly lost. He held out his hand. In his palm lay the plastic stick.
Two solid, bold pink lines.
The world didn’t end. It didn’t shatter. It simply tilted on its axis, rearranging every molecule of their future into a shape she couldn’t comprehend. She stared at the lines, a biological verdict. Positive.
“Fuck,” Ronan breathed, the word dropping like a stone.
He didn’t touch her. He just stared at the test in his hand as if it were a live grenade. Then his gaze snapped to her, scanning her body, her flat stomach, with a new, horrified comprehension. The alley. The bathroom. The couch. Every reckless, glorious time. His jaw tightened, a muscle feathering.
“We need another test. These can be wrong.” His voice was all control, a desperate facade. He tore open the second box, his movements hurried. “Do it again.”
She did. The result was instant, a cruel digital confirmation: PREGNANT.
The third test, a different brand, repeated the same truth in a stark blue plus sign.
The evidence was irrefutable, a trilogy of disaster lined up on the bathroom counter. Ronan braced his hands on the sink, head hanging between his shoulders. His back was a landscape of tense muscle. She watched his reflection, watched him close his eyes, his long lashes dark against his skin. He was wrestling with it, the magnitude of it.
When he turned, his expression had shifted. The shock was still there, but it had been forged into something harder, resolved. He walked to her, took her face in his hands. His thumbs brushed her cheeks. “Okay,” he said, the word firm now. “Okay. This is our reality. We deal with it.”
“How?” The word was a crack.
“I don’t know.” He kissed her forehead. “But we will. You’re not alone. I am not going anywhere. Ever.” He pulled her against him, and she felt the wild hammer of his heart against her ear. It matched her own. “We’re in this. Together.”
The promise was a door slamming shut on every other path. No dorm. No quiet dissolution. A secret that could now grow and kick and scream. The terror was paralyzing, but underneath it, woven into the DNA of their chaos, was a thread of something else. Something undeniable. His arms around her were the only coordinates in a shipwrecked world.
He led her back to bed. He didn’t reach for her with desire. He wrapped himself around her, his front to her back, his hand splayed possessively over her lower belly. His breath was warm on her neck. “Sleep,” he commanded, his voice a low vibration. “Just sleep now.”
She did, eventually, falling into a black, dreamless hole. He did not sleep. He lay awake in the dark, his hand resting on the place where his future was now irrevocably seeded, feeling the first faint tremors of a storm that would change everything.
He lay awake in the dark, his hand resting on the place where his future was now irrevocably seeded, feeling the first faint tremors of a storm that would change everything. Dawn arrived not as a gentle light but as a slow, gray seep around the blinds, delineating the shapes of their disaster in monochrome. He felt her stir against him, a sharp intake of breath as consciousness returned and with it, the memory of the plastic sticks on the counter.
Her body went rigid. He tightened his hold, pressing a kiss to the knot of her spine. “Don’t,” he murmured. “Don’t spiral yet. We move forward. One thing at a time.”
She rolled to face him. In the grim morning light, she looked young and impossibly tired, her green eyes glassy with held-back tears. The playful glint he lived for was utterly extinguished. “What is the first thing?” Her voice was scraped raw.
He sat up, the sheet pooling at his waist. The room felt too small, the walls pressing in with the weight of unspoken futures—parenthood, scandal, their families’ shattered faces. He focused on the concrete, the mechanical. It was the only way through.
“Okay, first things first.” His tone was calm, a forced clinical steadiness that contrasted with the havoc in his chest. “We need to go to the ER to have the IUD removed, if it is in a position where it can safely be removed. They’ll do an ultrasound to determine where it is, and that will also tell us how the baby is.”
The word ‘baby’ in the quiet room was a physical blow. Aria flinched. She drew her knees up to her chest, a defensive ball. “Okay…” she whispered, already on the verge of tears again.
He cupped her chin, forcing her gaze to his. “Ria. Look at me. It’s going to be okay.”
A single tear escaped, tracking a slow path down her cheek. “I’m scared.”
He leaned in, resting his forehead against hers, closing his eyes. He breathed her in—the lingering scent of his soap, the fear-sweat at her temples. “I know.” His voice dropped to a husk, a private fracture. “I know, sweetheart.”
The ER waiting room was a purgatory of fluorescent lights and low-grade misery. A child wailed monotonously. An old man coughed into a handkerchief. They sat side-by-side on rigid plastic chairs, not touching. He had filled out the forms, his handwriting a tense slash. Relationship to patient: Step-brother. Reason for visit: Possible IUD complication, pregnancy test positive. The lies were already stacking up, a fragile house of cards.
“Aria Reyes?” A nurse called, bored.
The intake process was a blur of blood pressure cuffs and repetitive questions. Ronan answered for her, his hand a firm weight on her knee when she stammered. The nurse’s eyes flickered between them, lingering on their dissimilar last names, but she said nothing. They were led to a curtained bay, the thin fabric a pathetic semblance of privacy.
“The doctor will be in shortly. Ultrasound tech first. Change into this, open at the front.” The nurse left, the curtain swishing shut.
The paper gown was cold and humiliating. Aria changed, her back to him, her movements slow and shaky. She perched on the edge of the exam table, the thin paper crinkling under her. Ronan stood by the curtain, arms crossed, a sentinel. He looked out of place, his tall frame and dark energy too large for the sanitized space.
The ultrasound tech was a cheerful woman with a kind smile that felt like an assault. “Hop back, honey, and we’ll take a look. Just some gel, little cold.”
Aria lay back, staring at the acoustic tiles of the ceiling. Ronan moved then, coming to stand beside her head, his fingers threading through hers. He didn’t look at the screen. He watched her face.
The tech moved the transducer low on Aria’s abdomen. The room filled with a rhythmic, static whooshing sound. Aria’s breath hitched.
“Ah, there’s your little one,” the tech said, her voice softening. “See that flicker? That’s a beautiful, strong heartbeat.”
Ronan’s gaze snapped to the screen. A black-and-gray smudge, a pulsing, tiny flash of white. A rapid, relentless thump-thump-thump filled the room. It was the sound of consequence. It was the sound of a life. His grip on her hand became viselike. Aria made a small, choked sound, a sob or a gasp, he couldn’t tell.
“Measuring about seven weeks,” the tech chirped, clicking keys. “Now, let’s look for that IUD… Okay. I see it. It’s low. Very low. It’s not in the uterine cavity with the pregnancy; it’s descended into the cervix. That’s why it failed. Doctor will explain, but that’s actually good news—means it should be straightforward to remove.”
The doctor arrived, a harried man with intelligent eyes. He reviewed the images, nodded. “The pregnancy is intrauterine, which is what we want. The IUD is right here, sitting in the cervical canal. It’s essentially fallen out of place. That’s your culprit. We can remove it now. It’s a simple procedure, but there’s a small risk of miscarriage associated with removal. We have to proceed, however, as leaving it in carries a much higher risk of infection and loss.”
Aria just nodded, numb. Ronan signed the consent form.
The removal was brutally fast. Aria winced, her fingers crushing Ronan’s as the doctor used a narrow instrument. A faint, metallic clink as the tiny, T-shaped piece of plastic and copper dropped into a steel basin. It looked so innocuous, so stupidly small. That was the thing that had broken their world.
“All done. Some cramping and spotting is normal. Follow up with your OB in a week.” The doctor left.
They sat in the car in the parking garage, the silence absolute. The echo of that heartbeat seemed to still thrum in the enclosed space. Ronan gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white. He stared straight ahead at a concrete pillar.
“It’s real,” Aria whispered. It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah.” The word was punched out of him. He finally turned his head. Her vulnerability in the paper gown, her hair spilled on the exam table, the sound of that heartbeat—it had carved something out of him. A raw, primal cavity now filled with a terrifying sense of ownership. Not just of her. Of the flicker on the screen. Of the situation. His chaos crystalized into a single, directive impulse: protect what’s mine.
He drove home, not to the apartment, but to a quiet overlook by the river. He killed the engine. The morning sun glinted hard off the water. He turned to her, the leather seat creaking. Her gaze was distant, terrified.
“Listen to me.” His voice was low, graveled with sleeplessness and resolve. “This is our line. Everything that came before—the brunches, the coffee shop, the alley—that was practice. This is the real thing. You are carrying my child.” The word ‘my’ was possessive, final. “There is no more playing house. No more fantasy. This is life and death now. Our secret. Do you understand the weight of that?”
She nodded, tears welling again but not falling. “I’m so sorry.”
“Stop.” He unbuckled his seatbelt and hers in one sharp motion. He leaned across the console, his hand sliding behind her neck, pulling her to him. His kiss was devastating. It wasn’t gentle or searching. It was a brand. A searing claim that tasted of salt and desperation. He bit her lower lip, not hard enough to break skin, but enough to make her gasp. “You are mine. That,” he jerked his head vaguely, back toward the hospital, “is mine. We will not apologize for it. We will survive it. On our terms.”
His words were a dark anchor. They steadied her. The submissive part of her, the part that thrilled at his control, latched onto his certainty like a lifeline in a hurricane. Her fear didn’t vanish, but it transformed, morphing into a sharp, desperate need for the only hierarchy that made sense to her: him in charge.
They returned to the apartment, the site of last night’s breakdown. The cleaned couch still held a faint, acidic smell. Ronan locked the door behind them, the deadbolt sliding home with a sound of finality. He looked at her, standing in the middle of the living room, looking lost.
“You need to not think for a while,” he stated, his dominance settling over him like a familiar, heavy cloak. This was the script. This was how they processed. “I’m going to fuck the fear out of you. I’m going to fuck you until all you can feel is me. Until you remember who you belong to and why that is the only thing that matters.”
A spark returned to her green eyes. Not playfulness, but a fierce, answering need. “Yes.”
“Strip. Now. And kneel by the couch.”
She didn’t hesitate. Her clothes pooled on the floor—the jeans, the soft t-shirt, the simple cotton bra and panties. She knelt on the rug, back straight, head bowed, her naked skin pebbling in the cool air. The pose was an offering, a prayer to their old gods.
He walked a slow circle around her, his gaze a physical touch. “My perfect girl. My perfect, sinful girl. Look what we made.” He crouched behind her, his hands sliding around to cup her belly, his lips against her ear. “You’re going to get round with my child. Everyone will see. And no one will ever know it’s mine.” His voice was a dark thrill. “That’s our secret to keep. That’s our power.”
His words were a perverse turn-on, twisting the terror into something illicit and potent. He bit the cord of her neck, then stood. He unbuckled his belt, not to strike her, but to pull it free. He wrapped the leather around his fist, leaving a long tail. “Hands behind your back.”
She complied. He wrapped the belt around her wrists, binding them tightly together with practiced efficiency. The leather was cold, unforgiving. He pulled her to her feet and guided her forward, bending her over the back of the couch. The position pushed her ass out, exposed her completely. He ran a palm over the slight curve of her belly, then lower, through her folds. She was already wet.
“Always so ready for me,” he growled, thrusting two fingers inside her. She cried out, clenching around him. “This cunt is mine. It grows my child. It takes my cock. It exists for me.”
He freed himself, his erection heavy and thick. He spat into his hand, slicking himself, then pressed the broad head against her. “You take everything I give you, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she panted, pushing back against him.
He drove into her with one deep, brutal stroke, seating himself to the hilt. The force knocked a sharp gasp from her lungs. He didn’t pause. He set a ruthless, pounding rhythm, each thrust jolting her forward, making the leather belt dig into her wrists. The couch scraped against the floor with the force of it.
“This is how we face it,” he grunted, his hands vise-like on her hips, his balls slapping against her clit with every drive. “Not with tears. With this. With me buried in you, claiming what’s mine. You remember this feeling. You hold onto it.”
The pleasure was intertwined with a sharp, cathartic pain—the binding, the deep, almost violent penetration, the sheer overwhelm of sensation. It burned away the hospital smell, the sound of the heartbeat, the doctor’s detached voice. There was only this friction, this heat, his guttural sounds in her ear.
“Tell me whose you are!” he demanded, his pace becoming erratic, frantic.
“Yours!” she screamed, her voice breaking. “Ronan’s! Only yours!”
“And whose child is inside you?”
“Yours! It’s yours!”
Her orgasm tore through her like a seismic event, a convulsive wave that clenched around him, pulling a ragged roar from his throat. He followed, slamming into her one last, final time, his release pumping into her with a possessive heat that felt like an answer. He collapsed over her, his body weighing her down, pinning her to the couch. Their sweat-slicked skin stuck together. The only sounds were their shattered breathing and the faint, receding echo of their violence.
He nuzzled the damp hair at her temple, his voice a wrecked whisper. “We’re going to be okay.”
It was a lie, or a wish, or a command. But in the aftermath, with him still sheathed inside her and the ghost of that heartbeat in the air, she could almost believe it.