Page 93 of Rocky Top

He shifted back, entering me and he finished me off.

“You okay?” he asked, stroking my cheek.

“There’s something happening inside me. I can feel you. Like… even now. In my chest.”

He smiled, crooked and wrecked. “That’s the bond.”

I blinked fast, feeling it consuming me whole.

“We’re connected now. Soul deep. Psychic, instinctive. I’ll always feel you. You’ll always feel me.”

“That why I was screaming your name when you were in danger?”

And in that moment, I heard him.

Not with my ears.

With something else.

Mine.

It was fire and lightning and forever, etched into my skin. The word echoed in my bones, branded into my soul.

And Lord help me, I said it back.

Yours.

We made love like the world was ending and maybe for us, it was. The end of the before, the start of something wilder, deeper, more dangerous. Every touch lit me up. Every whisper made my soul ache in the best way.

Afterward, I lay on his chest, breathing in thesalt and sweat of him.

“I was always yours,” I murmured.

Outside the homestead was quiet, an invitation to sleep, but we weren’t finished.

Chapter 24

Birdie

I woke up wrapped in heat.

Rocky was hot, temperature wise. His chest was under my cheek, steady and solid. His arm draped across my waist, anchoring me there. My body ached in places that hadn’t been touched in far too long, and others that had never been touched at all, not like that.

Every inch of me felt branded, and it wasn’t just from the slow burn of what we’d done last night.

It was the bond.

That’s what he’d called it. It was stronger than ever. The connection now pulsing like a live wire between us, the invisible thread tied tight around my ribcage that tugged anytime he moved, breathed, thought too loud.

I sat up slowly, letting the sheet slide off my chest. Rocky stirred beneath me, lashes dark against his cheek, that chiseled jaw slack in sleep. His blond hair was mussed from my fingers. The feel of his stubble scratching along my inner thigh last night still lingered in my memory.

Lord, help me.

His hand twitched, like even asleep, he was feeling me move. I placed my palm gently over his heart, felt thethrum beneath.

He’d almost died.

And that reality, even now, sat heavy in my chest like a stone.

---