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“More,” I encourage.

He turns his face away, but I see him breathe out and feel the lower half of his body sink farther into the bed as he tries to loosen the muscles he has clamped so tightly.

I drive forward until I’m all the way in, and his back arches unwillingly.

“That hurts,” he says between soft sobs.

“It won’t.”

The problem is that I’m dry. That’s why he’s so uncomfortable, but after debating for a second whether I should get the oil I have downstairs, I decide I don’t care before withdrawing and driving forward again.

The sounds that leave his throat are delightful after years of silence and solitude. It feels so unbelievably good that I know I won’t last long. Then I remind myself that he’s not going anywhere. That there’s tomorrow and the next day, and I give in to the feeling and fuck him hard.

Each cry, each gasp of pain, only spurs me on, wrapping around me with a warmth that coils low in my stomach and sinks even lower.

“Fuck,” I groan.

“Ow, please!”

He’s not enjoying this at all. I could make him. I could force his body to comply, to do exactly what I want it to. Bodies eventually break down under enough pressure. The thought of making him orgasm sends me right over the edge.

I come so hard that my vision whites out, years of denial and repression come roaring to the surface all at once as my fingers tighten around his wrists and my hips lose their rhythm until I stop moving altogether.

The only sounds are the crackling fire and his heavy, uneven breathing, broken by the occasional sniff as he tries to reel his emotions in. I push myself up and pull out of his body. The sound he makes isn’t one of relief, but devastation and defeat. Both of which are laced with pain.

There’s blood on my cock.

I stare at it for a moment before lifting my gaze to him. He rolls over slowly, his shoulders shaking as he tries to sit up, wincing when he finally manages to swing his legs over the edge of the bed. Then he buries his face in his hands and breaks down completely.

11

Boone

I’ve been in pain before, enough times that I thought I understood how much of it my body could take. I’ve broken bones, had deep cuts sutured without anything to numb them because we couldn’t afford the medicine, fallen off horses hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs, and stepped barefoot on broken glass. But none of those memories come close to what I’m feeling now, when even the smallest shift of my body sends another wave of pain through me.

Humiliation should be there somewhere, but I can’t find it under everything else. My hands won’t stop shaking, my breathing keeps catching when I try to draw in a full breath, and every part of me feels stripped down to something fragile I don’t recognize. I’m broken, and I’m scared.

I drag a palm over my face and stare at the door, trying to imagine myself crossing the room, reaching it, opening it, and somehow making it through the castle before he catches me, but the thought dies almost as quickly as it forms. I’ll never make it. And I don’t want to be punished for an attempt that’ll get me nowhere.

“Can I…” I swallow, struggling to get the rest out. “Can I get dressed?”

He doesn’t answer. After several seconds of silence, I finally manage to turn enough to look at him. His attention is fixed on the sheet, his fingers tracing the bloodstain left behind, and something in my stomach lurches when I realize what he’s touching. When he finally notices me watching him, he rises abruptly.

“Get dressed,” he growls.

Everything hurts. I wrap both hands around the headboard and use it to drag myself upright, my arms taking as much of my weight as I can manage while pain works through the rest of me.

Behind me, fabric rustles as he puts his clothes back on. I stare at my pants lying at the foot of the bed. They seem much farther away than a few feet. Walking feels like a foreign concept, something my body has forgotten how to do. When I feel something wet drip from my ass, my stomach turns because I don’t know whether it’s blood, semen, or both.

I realize that getting dressed is beyond my scope of capabilities, so I lower myself back onto the mattress, draw my legs beneath the blankets, and turn my back to him. If he’s going to do that again, I know a thin barrier of cotton and wool won’t be enough to stop him.

He circles the bed and crouches in front of me, close enough that I can make out the thin scar cutting through his eyebrow and the individual flecks of color in his eyes. When I squeeze my eyes shut to avoid looking at him, the effort only forces another wave of tears to spill over and slide down my cheeks.

“You’re bleeding,” he says softly.

No shit.

I roll onto my back to avoid his penetrating stare, but he slides his arms beneath my shoulders and behind my knees, lifting me like a doll.