and her need. He shuddered through his own. He wanted to take her again, wanted to feel her panting beneath him, but he stopped right then. Breathing heavy, he dropped his head between her neck and shoulder and waited for the urge to pass.
She’d witnessed his grief as he came undone before her, and he couldn’t bear to be so exposed again. Sliding off her, he brought her back to his side and held her tightly.
Right now, he just wanted to sleep. He didn’t want to think. The day had been long, and everything was so different now. In prison, he’d been assigned to a rehabilitation class. It was meant for prisoners nearing the end of their prison term. They said adjusting was going to be tough. The world was going to look different, and not in a technological or dogmatic way, but overall, with the feel of everything.
He didn’t understand it entirely at the time. After all, he’d never been locked up for so long at a time. He’d never anticipated spending such a huge chunk of his life frozen in time. How did he fill his time before incarceration? He’d forgotten the small things, like what food he enjoyed eating the most. Why did rebuilding vehicles give him so much pleasure? What music had he listened to? Because the only beat he heard was his heart, and it’d felt dead for a while.
The questions mounted over top of one another. He had to shut off, the way he learned to in his cell. But this didn’t feel like his cell, and he sort of didn’t understand why he missed his fucking cell, either.
No, to be truthful, he did.
He didn’t want to confront all this head-on.
Because he was terrified, so fucking terrified of how he’d react to it all. He wanted to believe he would never make the same mistakes again. While he knew in himself that violence wasn’t the way, being out meant he would be forced to examine just how much stronger he was than he used to be.
Freedom was the ultimate trial.
Thames couldn’t afford to fail again.
Sometime in the night, while she lay half-asleep in his arms, he found he couldn’t hold back. The urges were too great. The need to touch her hit him suddenly, and he felt like a runaway train, all control absent as he sought to claim her.
The room was flooded in darkness as he climbed back over her again and slid between her legs, groaning the second his cock found her centre. Soft and tight and warm and just fucking perfect. To feel the heat of his woman again, to hear her breaths quicken – it was paradise and bliss and all good things.
Words spilled from his mouth.
“You waited for me. You actually waited.”
And,
“I thought you’d move on. I thought you’d find happiness.”
And,
“It would have been selfish to ask you to wait. Don’t you understand? It would have been asking too much to sacrifice such a big part of your life for garbage like me.”
And,
“But I’m glad. I’m glad you waited, dove.”
Her legs immediately curled around his hips as he fucked her. Stroke after stroke, more punishing than the last. She couldn’t see his eyes drooping from pleasure, from pain. She couldn’t see how much it hurt him to feel good because he didn’t feel deserving of it.
Then she had to whisper, “Stay with me.”
And he knew she’d sensed his peril.
Her hands slid down his back, over the pained bruises, over his tight muscles. She dug her nails into him, holding onto him as he ruthlessly fucked her. He felt possessed. He felt like he ought to slow down, but he couldn’t. His demons were all around him and he needed to mute them, and he needed to do that by feeling every inch of this good woman.
This woman that had waited for him.
His eyes squeezed shut. She waited for him.
Her breaths came out quicker, her moans fell all around them as the muscles inside her tensed, squeezing him.
He came hard straight after, utterly consumed by her.
“Charlotte,” he whispered, feeling his heart battering inside his chest. “Charlotte, Charlotte.”
She held him tightly as he dropped his head to her chest and felt her own heart beating against his ear.
She ran her fingers through his hair and he closed his eyes again, relaxed.
He fell asleep quickly, unable to handle the weight of her love for him after so many years feeling nothing but the void in his chest.
“He pleaded to play a different