Page 119 of Borrowed Pain
"Talk to me," he said.
"I want it," I breathed, wrapping my legs higher around him, pulling him in. "All of you. Don't hold back."
He groaned and began to move—slow at first, then harder, deeper, until the rhythm slammed heat through me in relentless waves. The slap of skin, creak of the bed, and guttural sounds tearing out of both of us built into something raw and consuming.
"Look at me," Rowan ordered, his voice ragged.
I forced my eyes open and met his gaze. The gray-green of his irises had darkened to storm clouds, pupils blown wide with desire.
"Don't look away," he commanded, each word punctuated by the relentless rhythm of his hips. "I want to watch you come apart."
My fingers dug into the sweat-slicked muscles of his back, feeling them flex and strain with each powerful thrust. The pressure built higher, a white-hot coil tightening at my core.
When it finally broke, pleasure tore through me like lightning splitting the sky. I couldn't hold back the broken cry that ripped from my throat, my entire body arching up against his. Rowan's eyes never left mine, drinking in every tremor and gasp.
"That's it," he growled, "give me everything."
His rhythm faltered, hips stuttering as he buried himself even deeper. I felt the exact moment he lost control—his arms shaking, jaw clenched tight before moaning my name against my neck. The hot pulse of him inside me triggered another wave of pleasure that left me gasping.
We clung to each other, shuddering through the aftershocks, skin fused together with sweat and heat. Time stretched andwarped around us as we lay tangled, catching our ragged breaths, neither willing to break the connection that bound us together.
"What now?" I whispered.
He kissed the corner of my mouth, still panting. "Now we live. Not as symbols. Not as survivors. Just us."
I closed my eyes and pressed my face against his shoulder.
"I love you," I said, the words spilling out with nothing left to hold them back.
"I love you too."
Chapter twenty-four
Epilogue - Rowan
Miles balanced three glass containers against his chest while wrestling our shared calendar off the refrigerator door, his reading glasses sliding down his nose. "Did we commit to bringing dessert or only contributing something edible?"
I watched him from the kitchen island, my hands busy wrapping the lavender shortbread I'd stress-baked the night before. Six months of cohabitation had taught me to read his multitasking moods—this particular brand of organized chaos meant he was excited about something but trying not to show it.
"Ma said bring whatever you feel like making," I said, securing the paper with baker's twine. "Which translates to bring something homemade, or she'll spend the entire meal asking if we're eating properly."
"We are eating properly." Miles set the containers down and adjusted his glasses. "These prove it." He gestured at the stack of Ma's returned Tupperware—evidence of her ongoing campaign to keep us fed.
Our warehouse loft had transformed since Miles moved in. He let his apartment go just after Christmas, and we were celebrating our first spring together.
My sterile efficiency had given way to comfortable clutter. His medical journals sprouted bookmarks and sticky notes, stacked beside my investigative files on the dining table we bought together.
"Ready?" Miles asked, already reaching for his jacket.
I nodded, tucking the shortbread into my messenger bag alongside the bottle of wine we'd debated over at Pike Place Market the day before. The conversation had lasted twenty minutes and involved Miles explaining why a Chianti would complement Ma's Sunday sauce better than the Pinot Noir I'd initially grabbed.
The drive to Queen Anne took fifteen minutes through neighborhoods that had become familiar territory. Miles handled the conversation while I navigated Sunday traffic, his voice animated as he described Mrs. Akemi's breakthrough in Friday's session.
"She actually laughed," he said, adjusting the heat vent on his side of the car. "Not the bitter kind she's been using as armor, but genuine humor."
"Medical trauma survivor?"
"Yes, complications of a car accident. Surgeon botched the follow-up, hospital administration covered it up, and she spent three years believing her chronic pain was psychosomatic." Miles pulled down the visor mirror to check his hair.
