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“I thank God for every second you give me this. So much of my life has been ugly, but when you trust me enough to let me inside you, I feel like the luckiest man in the fucking world, and every part of that feeling belongs to you. Pussy can be just pussy, Charm. I learned that long before you, but no woman has ever given me this. No woman ever could, because this is you and me.”

“Mírame mientras te tomo.” She does, and it’s there she finds hunger, anger, love, and every other truth I have failed to bury. Disgust, pity, and hesitation have no place inside the way I am looking at her. Every part of me is fixed on Charm.

I begin moving her, setting a slow, deep rhythm while fucking up into her. My hands travel everywhere as I guide her body over mine. I cup her breasts, weigh them, and roll her nipples between my fingers. One hand moves down her stomach, slips between her spread thighs, and finds her clit again.

“See how sexy you are?” I grind out as my control begins to fray. “Look at the way your tits move, how your thighs spread for me, and how perfectly your ass fills my hands.”

I squeeze it and drive deeper into her on the next thrust. Her cry tears through the room while her body tightens around me.

“How can you look at yourself like this and believe this body isn’t worth loving?”

She cannot answer through the sobs and moans breaking from her. Her head moves against my shoulder while her eyes travel between my face and the graphic joining of our bodies.

“You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen.” The truth tears out of a place inside me I have spent fifteen months protecting. “This body is alive, mamacita. You fought for every fucking inch of it, and I want you to look at how strong it is. Look at everything you survived long enough to feel.”

Her chin trembles as another tear spills over.

“Yeah, I’m fucking you, but don’t mistake this for something empty. This is what our love looks like when it is stripped of the bullshit—angry, broken, and still the realest fucking thing in my life. Whatever happened before we entered this room and whatever happens when we leave it, right now—fuck, Charm—I need this every bit as much as you need it.”

I tighten my arm around her stomach while continuing to move inside her. “I’m not saving you, and you’re not fixing me. This is the only place we have ever known how to meet without lying, and right now I’m letting myself have you without pretending it fixes a fucking thing.”

I bring my mouth against her ear. “Mírate, mamacita. Sigue mirando.”

Her breath catches, though her eyes remain open. They lock onto her reflection while she watches the flush spreading across her skin, the movement of her breasts, the softness of her stomach beneath my hand, and the way her thighs remain open around mine. She sees my cock disappearing inside her and the naked, reverent obsession written across my face while I watch her take me.

The disbelief begins to fade for one crystalline second. Charm sees the woman in the mirror without immediately searching for something to punish, and pleasure becomes louder than every lie her illness taught her.

Watching that fragile surrender unfold hits harder than any climax could. My rhythm stutters, and a broken sound escapes before I can contain it.

“Charm, stay right here with me.”

Her eyes find mine in the mirror. “I see her.”

The words break something open inside my chest.

My hands tighten around her and urge her faster while I kiss her neck and drive up into her. Hunger keeps every thrust rough, but my arms hold her with an awareness of how much courage it costs her to remain inside this body and in front of this mirror.

“Keep looking at her,” I plead against her skin. “Let me watch you believe it for as long as you can.”

“I’m trying.”

“I know you are, and you’re doing so fucking good.”

My mouth closes over the side of her neck while my hand works her clit faster. She rides me harder, keeping her eyes on the woman in the mirror while I lose myself inside the body she fights to love. Her trust wraps around me as tightly as her cunt, giving me the closeness I needed tonight in a form neither of us knows how to survive without damage.

“Come with me,” I beg as my voice fractures beside her ear. “Please, mi preciosa. Let me feel you come while you’re watching.”

Her orgasm breaks over her suddenly, tightening every muscle in her body before she convulses around me. I hold her through it, one arm locked around her stomach while my other hand grips her hip. Her face comes apart in pure, unguarded pleasure, and she watches herself through every second.

The sight destroys the final pieces of my control.

I pull her down hard and spill myself deep inside her, my climax tearing through me with enough force to leave my entire body shaking behind hers. I bury my face against her neck and hold her while both of us struggle to breathe.

Her eyes stay fixed on the mirror as my come spills from where our bodies are still joined and streaks over her skin. The sight is vulgar in the rawest way, yet so intensely beautiful that it catches somewhere beneath my ribs.

We collapse sideways across the bed, still tangled together. The mirror catches only our legs now, her back pressed against my chest and my arms wrapped tightly around her. Sweat cools between our bodies while salt from her tears remains against my lips.

The silence returns without feeling punishing but my trust remains broken. Tomorrow waits beyond this room with every question I refuse to answer, and nothing we did in front of that mirror erases my anger any more than it erases everything she confessed.