Page 127 of Hell and High Water

And somehow, he increases his speed, pounds me harder.

I can’t do a damn thing other than lie there and shatter beneath him. Heat rushes out to my fingers, my toes, just before the onslaught of my ecstasy crashes into my brain, rippling through my body like an atomic bomb, lights exploding behind my eyes.

My scream tears through the room, harmonizing with Evan’s.

“YES!”

He erupts at the same time, surging another rush of delicious heat into my core. I feel him fill me, spill over. His rhythm never ceases throughout our unwinding.

Evan just keeps going, slowing gradually, but dragging out our joining.

I could stay like this forever.

The aftershocks send my legs quaking again and again as he grinds to a halt, gasping and eventually dropping down on top of me, the two of us a disastrous heap.

24

HELLENA

We lie there for as long as we can, wrapped in each other's arms, clinging to each other for dear life. Everything hurts in the best way possible.

But not my heart.

That ache, that deep-seated pain and agony that I felt is fading, dulling to a distant thrum in the background.

It's not gone. The scars still remain, and I still hurt.

But he took some of my pain. He helped me exorcise some of the demons I’ve been harboring in my soul for the past few weeks. It’s not completely gone, but it’s a start.

“Evan?” I mumble, lost in the haze of the afterglow.

“Hmm?”

“That was spectacular.”

“Obviously.”

“Dick.”

“Whatever it takes to get you off, Hell.” He laughs, deep and throaty, a sound I’ve never heard before from him. “I needed that.”

Giggling lightly, I prop myself up on my elbow, looking down at him. “You just wake up every day and resort to violence, don't you?”

“I may be intractable, impossible, and an asshole, but ultimately, I’m a pacifist. Make love, not war.”

“I think we just did both.”

“Agreed. I’ll try to avoid letting things escalate to a fight before we do that again. Deal?’

“No way, mister. The last deal I made with you ended up with me getting shot!”

That laugh again, and he’s lunging up to embrace me, pulling me into his arms, laying me across his lap. There’s a softness to his gaze, a faint sadness. “No more deals, then. Just this.”

His lips are fire as they brand my neck, sending jolts of shimmering light through my frame, along my skin. When they find my mouth, it’s all over, my brain melting into him as much as my body.

But we can’t stay like this. We both know it.

“We really should?—”

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