Page 57 of Wicked Brutal

I reach up and cup his face, thumb brushing the corner of his mouth. “I’m counting on it.”

He turns his head and presses a kiss to my palm, then starts moving again—still slow, still deep, still so careful with me it makes my chest ache. Every thrust is deliberate. Every kiss is soft. And the entire time he keeps talking, low and steady, telling me how much he loves me, how beautiful I am, how this is the only place he ever wants to be.

Ryan’s rhythm stays steady, but something in him shifts—something quieter and sharper at the same time. His hand tightens around mine against the pillow. The other slides down to grip my hip, holding me exactly where he wants me while he keeps driving into me slow and deep.

He kisses me hard, almost desperate, while his hips keep that same unhurried, devastating pace. “Nobody else gets this. Nobody else ever will. I’ve been careful with you for months—careful at school, careful in public, careful every single time someone looks at you too long—and I’m so fucking tired of being careful. In here I don’t have to be. In here you’re just mine.”

The possessiveness in his voice does something to me. It sinks under my skin and wraps around the heat already building low in my belly until the two things become the same.

“There she is,” he murmurs. “I can feel you getting tighter. You’re close again, aren’t you?”

“Yes—please—”

“I’ve got you. Come for me, baby. Let me feel it. I want to feel you come around me while I’m inside you.”

He shifts the angle just slightly, grinding against that perfect spot on every slow thrust, and the pressure snaps.

I come with a soft, shattered cry, face pressed into the side of his neck, legs locked around him as the orgasm rolls through me in deep, pulsing waves. He works me through every second of it, murmuring praise against my hair—that’s it, that’s my girl, so beautiful when you come for me—until I’m trembling and oversensitive and still holding onto him like I might float away.

Only then does he let himself go.

His rhythm stutters. His forehead drops to mine. “Ally—fuck, Ally—”

He comes with a low, broken groan, burying himself as deep as he can go, hips jerking through every pulse while he holds me like he’s afraid I’ll disappear. I feel the heat of him spilling inside me and something in my chest cracks open all over again.

For a long time neither of us moves.

Ryan stays braced over me, still inside me, both of us breathing hard. His hand finds its way back to my stomach almost automatically, resting there warm and protective. I run my fingers through his hair and feel the last of the tension finally leave his shoulders.

Eventually he presses a soft kiss to my temple, then another to my mouth, then carefully eases out of me and rolls to the side. He pulls me straight into his chest, tucking my head under his chin, one arm around my back and the other still splayed over the small curve of our baby.

The room is quiet. Late-afternoon light has gone soft and gray through the blinds. Somewhere downstairs the house settles.

“You okay?” he asks after a while, voice low and rough.

“Yeah.” I press closer. “Better than okay.”

He kisses the top of my head. “Good. Because I meant every word. You’re stuck with me.”

I smile against his chest. “I know.”

We stay like that for a long time—tangled up, warm, safe—while the rest of the world waits outside the locked door. For now, it’s just us. And for the first time in weeks, that feels like enough.

My mother texts me halfway through last period.

Mom: Tobias is at the house. Everything is fine. Don’t panic.

Naturally, I panic. My phone is under the desk before the teacher finishes turning back toward the board.

why is tobias at our house

Mom: Jane called me. Something came up and she needed someone to take him for about an hour until Ally gets out of school.

I stare at the screen. Jane called my mother. Jane O’Toole, who barely speaks to anyone unless Roman is standing beside her. Jane, who has spent years perfecting the art of being invisible inside her own life.

she called YOU?

Mom: Yes.