Page 186 of Buried in Blood
“Then take me,” I breathe.
And he does.
Slow at first, worshipful. Every kiss a prayer. Every touch a promise.
Then faster. Rougher. Like we’re making up for every lost moment, every time the world tried to end us.
Clothes fall away.
Moans fill the room like psalms.
And when he pushes inside me, it’s not just physical—it’s resurrection.
I clutch at his back, nails digging into muscle. He bites down on my shoulder, and we move together like we were made for this.
For each other.
For the ruin and the rebuild.
For the fire and the aftermath.
Our climax crashes over us like a breaking wave—violent, sacred,earned.
And when we’re tangled in the sheets afterward, slick with sweat and breathless, he presses his forehead to mine.
“I love you,” he says, voice wrecked.
I cup his face, brushing my thumb over his lips.
“I know,” I whisper. “I’ve always known.”
Outside, the world is quiet.
But in here?
We are whole.
55
Dante
It’s quiet now.
The kind of quiet that doesn’t demand anything from me. No alarms. No fists through drywall. No blood dripping down my wrist like a fucking baptism.
Just Evelyn, asleep in our bed.
The sheets tangled around her legs, one hand on her belly like she’s trying to protect something even in dreams.
I sit in the chair across the room, shirtless, a half-drunk whiskey sweating in my palm. The windows are open. The breeze smells like late summer and clean dirt.
Like things trying to grow again.
And for the first time in years, I don’t want to stop it.
I don’t want to burn it all down just to feel alive.
Because I am alive.
