Page 46 of Hollowed

It healed.

He fucked me like he wanted to live there. Like my body was the only place he’d ever felt whole.

His hand found my jaw. Tilted it. His lips touched mine.

Not a kiss.

A binding.

And when he came, he didn’t growl.

He breathed my name like a secret.

And I knew.

He didn’t need to vow anymore.

Because now, I was the vow.

He stayed inside me long after the heat faded.

Not moving. Not speaking. Just breathing into the soft space where my neck met shoulder, like the rhythm of my pulse was the only sound he trusted not to betray him.

I didn’t know how to hold it.

The quiet. The weight of his body against mine. The feel of his cock still buried deep, not in conquest now, not even in worship—but in something I hadn’t been taught to name. Something slow. Terrible. Precious.

I turned my head into his hair. Let it tangle in my lips. He smelled like salt and sleep and fire that had burned too long. His weight crushed me in the best way—heavy, grounding, the kind of pressure that didn’t restrain but reminded.

You are here.

You are still wanted.

You are kept.

I closed my eyes and listened.

To the chapel.

To his breath.

To the silence between us that felt less like absence now and more like promise.

He shifted only when I did, when my leg twitched around his hip, when my fingers curled at his spine.

He slid out of me with a low groan that made my skin tighten, my body ache all over again. His warmth spilled down my thigh in a slow, thick slide. I felt ruined. Filled. Unmade.

And loved.

Though he would never say it.

He sat beside me, back against the altar, chest bare, robes discarded somewhere in the dark.

I pulled the blanket over me, not out of shame.

Just to stay close to the warmth of him.

He spoke without looking at me.

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