Page 217 of What We Bury

That’s all it takes.

I’m across the room before I register moving. My hands find her waist and I lift her, her legs wrapping around me on instinct, and her mouth crashes into mine. The kiss is violent. Teeth, tongue, weeks of starvation compressed into a single point of contact.

Contact. The one thing I never let myself take.

Weeks ago I watched Micah take her apart with my own hands fisted at my sides and called it discipline. Days ago I watched her come on a screen because she sent the feed and I let a lens do what I wouldn’t let my hands—because a camera was a wall, because looking has never once been the same as having.

As long as I only looked, the line held.

There’s no camera now. No screen. No Micah. Nothing between her skin and my hands, and the line doesn’t hold.

It was never going to.

“Little savage.”

She tastes like coffee and defiance and everything I’ve been starving for, and the sound she makes when I grip her—too hard—is the sound of a lock breaking open.

I drop her onto the chaise. She bounces once, hair fanning out, eyes blazing up at me—wild and triumphant and so fucking beautiful I can’t breathe.

“Eli.” My name in her mouth is gasoline on a fire that’s been burning since the beach.

I pull my shirt over my head. She watches, her lips parting, her breath coming fast. Her eyes track down my chest, my stomach, the ink snaking up my ribs, the old scar below my shoulder from a job that went sideways three years ago, and when they come back up they’re dark with something thatmirrors exactly what I feel—hunger edged with desperation edged with the terrifying suspicion that this is going to change everything and there’s no going back.

I lower myself over her. One hand braced on the chaise, the other sliding up her thigh, her hip, her ribs. Her skin is hot under my palm and she arches into the touch.

“Is this what you wanted?” I growl, my mouth hovering over hers, close enough to feel her breath but not touching. My hand moves higher, fingers grazing the underside of her breast, thumb brushing her nipple until it hardens under my touch. She gasps and bucks against me. I pin her hip down, keeping her still. “You keep pushing me, Sage. Keep daring me to lose control. Is that it? You want the thing I keep locked up?”

“Yes,” she whispers, breathless and defiant. “Show me, Eli. Lose it. I can take it.”

The words snap something inside me—the last frayed thread of restraint. I crush my mouth to hers, devouring her, my tongue claiming every inch as my hand fists in her hair, yanking her head back to expose her throat. She moans, the sound vibrating against my lips as I bite down on her pulse point, hard enough to leave a mark but not break skin. Yet.

“You have no idea what you’re giving me permission to do,” I mutter against her neck, my free hand sliding down to grip her thigh, spreading her legs wider as I settle between them.

“Then tell me. Show me.”

She’s already wet—I can feel the heat through her panties—and it makes my cock throb painfully against my jeans. But this isn’t about me. Not yet. This is about showing her exactly what happens when I let go.

I sit back on my heels, grabbing her wrists and pinning them above her head with one hand. She writhes under me, testing the hold, but I don’t let go. With my other hand, I reach for my belt, yanking it free from the loops with a sharp snap that echoesin the room. Her eyes widen, but there’s no fear—only heat, anticipation, that same wild spark that’s been driving me insane for weeks.

“I should spank your ass for pushing me,” I say, voice low and rough as I loop the belt around her wrists, cinching it tight, wanting her to hurt. “That what you want? To be punished for making me snap?”

She nods, biting her lip, her chest rising and falling in quick breaths. “Yes. Punish me, Eli. If you need it. Make it hurt. I won’t break. I’ll tell you if it’s too much.”

Fuck. The words go straight to my dick, but I force myself to stay in control. I flip her over onto her stomach, her bound wrists stretched out above her, and yank her hips up so she’s on her knees, ass in the air. The black panties are a flimsy barrier, and I hook my fingers in the waistband, dragging them down her thighs slowly, deliberately, exposing her inch by inch.

“Beautiful,” I murmur, running my hand over the curve of her ass, squeezing hard enough to make her gasp. “But you don’t get to decide how this goes, Sage. You pushed me. Now you take what I give.”

My palm comes down on her right cheek—sharp, stinging, the crack echoing off the walls. She jolts, a cry escaping her lips, but she pushes back into my hand, begging for more. “Is this enough for you?” I ask, spanking the left cheek harder, watching her skin bloom red under my touch. “Me losing control? Me marking you like the defiant little thing you are?”

“Yes—fuck, Eli, more—” Her voice is muffled against the chaise, but the plea is clear, her body trembling as I alternate strikes, each one building the heat, the pain, until her ass is glowing pink and she’s writhing under me, bound wrists straining against the belt.

Her body shudders under my hand and she’s saying my name like it’s the only word she has left, and the thing inside me—the thing I have spent almost five years building walls around—breaks open and floods the room.

I love her.

I’m fucked.

I lean down, pressing my chest to her back, my mouth at her ear as my hand soothes the stinging skin, fingers dipping between her thighs to find her dripping. “You love the pain, don’t you? Love knowing you can make me lose control like this.” I slide two fingers inside her, curling them as I spank her again, the mix of pleasure and sting making her moan louder, her hips bucking back against my hand.