Mine.
Let another woman even try.
I lift my chin, tighten my thighs at his hips, and roll again. Clench tighter, introducing his cock to its new mistress. I will possess this warrior under me. The man they call Gladiator taken captive by a girl half his size and a decade younger. I’m a girl he could crush, but everything in the way he looks at me says cherish. Says treasure. Says protect.
Says I’m his, too.
Mine, his eyes answer.
That look, this feeling, it’s a lasso, slithering over my shoulders, past my arms, squeezing me, keeping me in place. I’m not going anywhere.
I ride him so long, so hard the muscles of my legs and belly ache and tremble from the torque force twisting us together. And still he demands more, thrusting up hard, his hands reaching for my breasts, squeezing, pinching, rolling the nipples. His is a merciless sensual assault that I can’t withstand much longer.
“I want you to come again,” he says from beneath me. “Touch yourself.”
With his thumbs flicking my nipples to stiff peaks, I reach between us to find my clit. My head falls back, and my pussy clenches like a fist around his cock.
“That’s it,” he whispers.
I’m on the verge of tears. The pleasure is so thick, so much richer than anything I’ve known. He slips a finger between my legs, gathering the wetness and then reaching behind me.
“I’m going to put my finger in your ass,” he rasps. “Is that okay with you?”
Just the thought . . .
“Yes, please,” I gasp.
He does it. His thumb, slick with my juices, slides inside my tight hole, and it’s too much. His hand tweaking my nipple. My finger rubbing my clit. His thumb in my ass. His dick a swollen, rigid column inside me. My hips undertake a jerky, frantic rhythm, riding him like I’m being chased. My mouth opens on a silent scream.
“Fuck” he says, pounding up into me, unrelenting.
We ride it out together, the tempest that sweeps us along. I collapse onto his chest with him still inside me, a sweaty, spent, content mess. He drags his open palms over my back, caressing me, touching me, feeling me. I loop my arms around him and bury my face in his neck. He jerks away, takes my chin, and searches my face.
“You’re crying,” he says, his frown comprised of concern and self-castigation. “Baby, I am so sorry. Dammit, I wanted it to be perfect. I should have—”
“It was,” I cut in, only now aware of my tears, but it’s not what he thinks. There’s no emptiness. I’m full. There’s no bleakness. I feel joy.
“Kenan, it was perfect.”
His shoulders drop. His eyes close on a sharp exhale before he looks at me.
“I thought I hurt you,” he says, pushing his nose into my neck, cupping my head, plunging his fingers into the untamed nest of hair.
“No, you didn’t hurt me,” I promise, kissing his throat, his shoulder, his face—any part of him I can reach. “You healed me.”
I know it was the support group. It was taking a break from sex—dismantling my emotional detachment. It was Marsha and the counsel she gave me every step of the way. It was all those things that brought me to this place, to this point when I was ready to receive the man I’ve come to love.
But it was Kenan, too. His patience. His kindness. His trust. He fed me my first taste of true intimacy between a man and a woman, not just for the last few minutes, but for the last few months. It was first with our hearts, with our souls, with our minds, in the words we exchanged and the notes he sent and the time we shared. This came slowly for us, at the pace of melting ice. What we just did in this bed was a sacrament—an outward sign of a promise we’ve negotiated, drafted, pledged since our very first kiss. It was spiritual, this act, and the implication of it hums between us like a sacred tune.
He sits up, still inside me, the muscles in his stomach flexing beneath the taut, bronze skin. He repositions me on his lap, shifting my bottom on his powerful thighs. My warrior wearing no armor. Guard gone. Vulnerable to me. The look in his eyes is like nothing I’ve seen before. It’s a balm over every rejection—a shelter from every storm that’s ever chased me. A defender from the demons haunting me.
He swallows deeply, staring at me in silence for long seconds and brushing away my tears with his thumbs. And when he speaks, the words he says are as perfect as every moment has been since our bodies joined. The words are from the Song of Solomon, but the truth of them, it’s his. It’s mine, too.
“I have found the one whom my soul loves,” he quotes.
More tears rain over my cheeks; a release years overdue. I weep for every time I’ve felt unloved, unwanted, unnecessary, and imperfect. It’s all there in the look he settles on me. To him, I’m more than enough. I’m all that he wants.
“Kenan,” I hiccup through tears and bracket his high cheekbones with trembling hands, pressing our foreheads together. “I said I didn’t belong to you.”