I’m still human, if being human is being a bundle of raw nerve endings that light up with intensity every time Gio draws his tongue along my skin. I feel him above me, in the air, all around me, his muscles tensed and tight, ready to fuck. And those eyes—those dark wells of wanting—call to me. I could fall in, right now, and never resurface.

I beg him to fuck me.

Of course I do.

I’ve been waiting years for this, lifetimes, and both of us hover together over the surface of now. One leap, and we’ll be crashing through to forever. I will be his wife. Our marriage will be sealed with blood and sighs, deeper than vows.

He presses a kiss to my lips and I sigh into his mouth, the thick head of him pressing against my entrance. I’m slick—slicker than I need to be, surely, surely he’ll fit, there’s no reason to think he wouldn’t—

His breath is against my near, his teeth nipping at my earlobe. “Relax, sweet thing.”

Of course.

I suck in a deep, sweet breath and let the tension out of my muscles. How can I say no to him? I don’t want to. In fact, I want him to be inside of me. I want him to be one with me. I want to leave the past behind.

He kisses me again, softer, and tilts his hips so that even as the first inch of him begins to impale me, his hips are rocking against my clit. It’s a throb of pleasure, every move he makes, and it covers the pain like a blanket.

“God,” he groans. “You’re so tight.” I tense again. Too tight? “No, no,” he whispers, dragging hot lips over my collarbone. “Let me in.”

I spread my legs wider to let my husband inside and he rocks forward another inch. A firework of pleasure blooms away from my clit, and oh, god, I like it, I love it, I love this sensation of being stretched, of being taken.

It frees me.

All my fear slips away, all my nerves ignite, and I thrust my hips up toward Gio with a growl. “Please. Please,” I say into his ear, and he shoves away from me, his hand on my hair, and looks down into my eyes. He seems more animal than man.

“Is that what you want?” He thrusts forward, another inch, and I gasp. “If you want to slow down, tell me right now. Tell me right now, Sia, because—” He grits his teeth. “I won’t be able to stop. Do you understand?” His hand curls around my chin, holding tight. “I won’t be able to stop.”

“I want it. Please.”

I am begging, almost a whine, because this is agony, this pleasure, this pain. He’s halfway in and I want him all the way in. I want to be taken. I want to be claimed. I want the past to fall away and become nothing, I want my blood to be the sacrifice that carries us into our new life. I want to feel his power between my hands, between my legs.

It’s not the gauzy, white scenario I painted in my mind when I first learned about sex. It’s not stopping to kiss me gently, murmur sweet nothings into my ear, back off when I feel that first pain.

No.

No.

Unleashed, Gio thrusts forward with a deep growl, taking me all at once.

It’s a shock of pain that tears a cry from my mouth. He swallows it with his lips, with kisses that devour me and my pain all at once.

He’s right—he’s not stopping.

He draws himself out so that only his crown is left inside and thrusts back in. It’s a vicious movement and I feel all of it, all of it, raw and open, but something happens in the moment before he makes contact with the very base of me—the pain turns inside out.

It changes form, a scream to a song, and becomes pleasure.

“Fuck,” I say into his ear. “Fuck.”

He’s filling me to the limit. He’s not small man and I have to stretch and stretch again to accommodate him. He is pure energy, pure raw sexuality, and the pleasure heightens with every roll of his hips.

I’m climbing, soaring, flying, dizzy with the pleasure, disconnected from the part of me that would be embarrassed at my moans, at the frenzied scrape of my fingernails against his back. I am not embarrassed. I am nothing but pleasure embodied, and I am being fucked by my husband.

I am being fucked by my husband.

The thought sends me over the edge, spiraling and clenching and crying out so that Gio claps his hand over my mouth. We’re in a hotel, not our home, and it’s early yet, so he catches my screams in his palms and holds on tight.

His balls tighten and pull up, still slapping against the place where he’s thrusting in, but his eyes are black with the impending release. Black. “Sia—”

“Do it,” I hiss into his hand. “Do it.”

He comes hard, with abandon, his eyes locked on mine, muscles tensing with a grunt.

It’s a beautiful fucking sight.

When he’s spent, when the last has spurted out of him, he rolls over, taking me into his arms, gathering me against his chest. He dips his hand beneath my legs and rolls his fingers idly over my clit, bringing me to another orgasm. I shudder against him, his heart beating fast in my ear, and when he lifts his fingers they’re bloody.

The sight of it doesn’t make me flinch away.

That blood—that is the old me.

“Shower?” He says, pressing a kiss to my temple.

“Yes.”

We step under the hot stream together, my body aching from being so well fucked, and I am made new.

No matter what happens now, I belong to him. And he is mine.

Til death do us part.