Hands gripped my chin, forcing it up to meet those dark, familiar eyes. Eyes that held a flicker of something fierce, something desperate. He was searching me, those shadows swimming with longing and need.
His grip tightened, holding my captive before those lips crashed down on mine, and with a single, relentless thrust, he claimed me utterly.
I gasped against his mouth, caught off guard by the suddenness, the urgency. His desperation.
But I couldn't stop myself.
I could feel my legs opening wider, wrapping around his hips as he moved, pushing deeper, stretching me in ways that both burned and thrilled. Every inch of him inside me sending a delicious ache through my body.
I craved this like an addict. This raw, aching connection. I wanted to lose myself beneath him, stay tangled in this primal, desperate dance forever. Forever and ever.
"Give me your answer, Elena," he said, quieter now, the roughness in his voice betraying what he would not otherwise show. "You are not something I can set aside...nor something I would lose."
I shook my head, breath unsteady as he moved torturously slow. My fingers tightening against his shoulders as everything inside me warred at once.
"You know my answer, Marcus," I said, the words breaking as tears slipped free, blurring the look on his face. The fracture, the disbelief. "I can't. I can't leave my parents. My life—everything I am is here—"
His forehead pressed briefly against mine, halting me as he sank fully inside me. Not with force, but with a quiet, relentless finality that stole my breath away.
Oh, fuck.
"You speak of a life that was never meant to hold you," he said, his voice low and rough, fraying at the edges beneath its tight control. "A place that was never yours to begin with."
My chest clenched painfully, each word sinking deep, twisting inside me like a raw wound.
He took my hand, careful to avoid my injured one on his shoulder, and pressed his lips tenderly to the back of my palm.
"I could give you more than this," he whispered, softer now, but with a fierce, unshakable certainty. Then thrust. "More than these walls." Thrust. "More than this small, fragile world—" Thrust. "—that asks you to break yourself—" Thrust. "—to remain in it."
His gaze lifted, locking onto mine, searching. No, demanding.
"The world I come from would rise to meet you," he said, his rhythm quickening, urgency bleeding into every word.
I couldn't hold back a series of gasps and moans, each one raw and ragged, like he was trying to carve these promises deep inside me, to make them impossible to forget. To haunt me. "You would not have to fight for your place within it. It would already be yours."
"You would not know this pain," he murmured as he moved, his pace quickening, jagged and urgent, like he was fighting to hold himself together.
My breath hitched, trembling under the weight of everything between us.
"It is not what I want," I gasped out, voice breaking. "Please, Marcus."
The words hung fragile in the thick air.
His movements stuttered, then stopped.
For a moment, silence.
Then, unable to hold back any longer, Marcus grabbed my hips with fierce desperation, pulling me closer, deeper. His thrusts came hard and fast, raw and relentless, as if he needed to bury every doubt, every fear inside me. All while my body trembled, breaking apart under him, spiraling toward release.
He pressed his hand firmly over my lips as I cried out, silencing my scream.
But he didn't stop.
He kept thrusting, his movements more urgent and desperate, until my body finally surrendered, trembling and shuddering beneath him.
Darkness edged at my vision, pulling me under.
"You will change your mind," I heard him whisper against my ear, his voice threaded with warm conviction before his warm release flooded deep inside me.
Ebbing out slowly, like a final, intimate connection before I slipped away.
The moment I woke the next morning, sunlight spilled through the window, warm against my eyelids. I stirred slowly, blinking against the brightness as I tried to adjust, squeezing my eyes shut before opening them again.
For a second, everything felt still. Quiet in that fragile way morning sometimes were, like the world hadn't quite caught up yet.
Then I felt it.
Cool air brushing over my skin, raising goosebumps along my arms.
I pushed myself up slightly. The movement was slow, cautious but pain flared through my shoulder anyway. I let out a groan before gently leaning my back against the headboard.
My gaze was still fixed on the window, the curtains shifting faintly with the breeze.
God, I must've forgotten to close it last night.
But even as the thought formed, something in me rejected it.
Then it came back, all at once.
The soft tap of pebbles against the glass. The quiet, impossible sight of him standing below, like something pulled from a dream. The way he climbed in without hesitation, as though distance meant nothing to him.
My breath caught, my fingers curling into the sheets as the rest followed. The desperate hunger in his touch when he devoured me, so fiercely I thought I might see stars. How he stripped me bare after, gently and carefully, before claiming me completely, leaving those words and marks across my skin, despite me resisting it with everything I had.
My chest tightened.
What have I done?
I swallowed, my gaze drifting back to the opened window as the morning light poured through it like nothing had changed. Like the night hadn't rewritten something inside me.
But it had.
He had been here.
A knock sounded at my door, sharp enough to make me jump but only for me to wince immediately after, pain flaring through my side.
"Elena?"
The door opened before I could answer, my mother stepping in like she always did without waiting.
I exhaled slowly, forcing myself to relax.
Thankfully, I was still wrapped in my robe. Enough to cover what it needed to. Whatever had happened last night, however real it had felt, left no visible trace she could see, at the very least.
"For heaven's sake," she muttered, already making her way toward the window. "I was sure we closed this last night." She pushed it further shut, testing the latch with a small frown. "Must be the wind. Or this old thing finally giving up. I'll have your father take a look at it."
"Mom, what's wrong?" I asked, trying to sound normal. Casual. Like my world hadn't been turned upside down last night. While they were asleep, downstairs.
"I was checking if you were awake," she said, turning back to me, hands settling on her hips. "And you are." A small nod, satisfied. "Pippa's downstairs, by the way. I told her she could come up. I'll have her bring your breakfast to save me the trouble."
I blinked. "Pippa's here?"
"Mhm." She gave me a look, one that lingered just a second too long, like she was piecing something together but not quite saying it out loud. "You two can catch up."
Before I could respond, she was already heading for the door, closing it behind her.
Silence returned just as quickly, as I let out a slow breath. My gaze drifting, inevitably, back to the window.
It was closed now. Like nothing had happened.
But my body still felt it. The weight of it. The soreness between my legs. The memory of him, too vivid to dismiss as imagination.
The way he spoke of another life like it was mine to return to.
I simply leaned my head back against the headboard again, letting my head fall against it with a quiet thud.
"For God's sake," I muttered under my breath.
How the hell had things managed to get even more complicated?