“You don’t play fair, freckles,” I grumbled breathlessly.

A smirk tugged at his lips. “Never said I did.”

Bash’s eyes swirled almost violently as he looked down at me, drinking me in as his chest heaved. Pressing my foot into the hard lines of his abdominals, I pushed him away with the point of my toes. He sat back on his heels, his gaze predatory as I moved onto my hands and knees. Arching my back, I bared myself to him. One of his hands gripped my hip a second later, the other one fisting himself.

“Tell me you need me, hellion.”

I whined in the back of my throat as he rubbed the head of his cock up and down my wetness, my inner muscles clenching around nothing.

“I need you. I always need?—”

Bash slipped inside me with one hard thrust, burying himself so deeply I gasped. Robbing me of every thought except him.

He pulled back teasingly, leaving me teetering on the edge of desperation. I moved back onto his cock, taking him back inside of me. It was his turn to gasp, groaning as I squeezed around him.

“Fuck.”

“That’s the idea,” I said dryly.

His hand came down on my ass, and I let out a sound between a yelp and a moan. “I’ll never get tired of that mouth of yours.”

“More,” I breathed, my gaze half-lidded as I looked over my shoulder at him. “I need more.”

I whimpered as his hand came down again, riding that exquisite line between pleasure and pain. His fingers dug into my waist as he pushed into me again and again. When his shadows found my clit just as his cock pressed against something inside me that made my eyes roll back in my head, I wondered fleetingly if we were testing the limits of the soundproofing before my release tore through me again.

I was still quivering when Bash flipped me over, pushing back inside me as his thumb circled my still sensitive clit.

“Bash…”

“You can give me one more.”

His mouth closed around my nipple. I moaned as his tongue lavished it in maddening whorls. That perfect pressure was already building inside me, and I rocked my hips, our movements deliciously in sync. Joined so deeply, I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began.

Bash’s hand gripped my chin, and my eyes opened to a swirling storm.

“Touch yourself,” he ordered, his voice a little ragged. “And let me tell you how this is going to be, since it seems that you’ve somehow forgotten.” His shadows wrapped lightly around my wrist, tugging it between us. His growl was downright feral as he watched me follow his command. “This is forever, Eva. I need you to remember that, even if things start looking bleak. That we can win this if we don’t give up.” He thrust into me slowly, every sensation almost excruciatingly magnified. “And as long as you don’t give up onus.”

“I won’t,” I promised.

He buried himself to the hilt before he unleashed himself. My legs were already shaking as our eyes met. Then that pressure broke, his length twitching as my climax clenched around it.

“Good girl,” he breathed. A smile curved my lips, my body too blissful to even open my eyes.

Bash moved us onto our sides, and I relaxed into the safety of him surrounding me. I didn’t want to ever leave this moment together, as if doing so would tempt fate to break us apart once again.

“I don’t want to ever leave you, Bash,” I whispered.

“Tell me you aren’t about to sacrifice yourself if something goes wrong,” Bash whispered, touching our foreheads together. “That you know we can stop him.”

“I already told you?—”

“I need to hear it one more time, hellion.”

“I promise this won’t happen again,” I whispered. “That we’ll fight him, together.”

Unless there’s no other way, I silently added. I would give myself a fighting chance. Even if I couldn’t shake that sense of looming inevitability.

But it was impossible to forget that glimmer of hope in his eyes. The one that promised a future I hadn’t let myself dream about anymore.