Page 118 of Moth to a Flame

He bites my shoulder, his teeth sinking until he’s drawing blood. The pain sends a bolt of electricity down to my toes and I stop breathing, thinking, or living.

I come. My body spasms. My heart expands in a million directions.

I’m trembling and shaking while Landon carries me through this orgasm and into a second one.

“Fuck, Regan. Baby.” His thrusts are less controlled, yet every bit as harsh and deep. “I’m going to come inside you. Going to mark you everywhere.”

Landon finishes, filling me with so much of his cum that I feel it spilling out of me.

Strange emptiness comes over me after that.

Why?

I got what I was asking for and I got to experience it with the person I love. A person I trust with my body and soul.

No one knows me better than him.

So why does the hole in my chest hurt so badly?

Why am I struggling to breathe? Why is it impossible to stay upright?

You know.

“You witnessed my rape.” I don’t mean it like in the park. Like he could see into my soul. All the damaged parts. All the broken pieces. Where no one’s ever been before. “You…”

I try to finish the sentence, but my tongue is too heavy in my mouth.

“Regan?” There’s a sound of wet fabric moving on skin. His sweatpants? Maybe. I’m being hauled in the air the next moment, hugged into a broad, firm chest. “Talk to me, Regan.”

The beach disappears in a blur. Landon walks fast. I stare at his face, my eyes wide and brimming with tears.

“Do I disgust you?”

“The fuck?” His eyebrows are so high, they’re about to reach his hairline. “No. No, love. You were strong then. You were just as strong now.”

Thump, thump, thump.

We’re over the deck and inside the house. The door slams shut. I can’t stop the tears.

“I let you do what you wanted, just like…Just like…”

Landon puts me down in the shower, turning the hot water on. Steam billows around us and I’m not shivering as hard as before. Not from the cold, anyway.

Now my body shakes from the inside.

“You did what you had to. You survived.” I’m being held up with one of his arms around me. The other hand, he uses to squirt shampoo on my hair and massage it into my head down to the strands. “I admire you more for it. Love you more for what and who you are. I don’t know how that’s possible, since I’ve been crazy about you since day one. Don’t care. You’re so special. So beautiful. Mine.”

I close my eyes and tilt my head up, then remove his arm from around me. I move both his hands to my hair. Down my body. Maybe it’ll change the way I feel. Maybe if he’s everywhere, I won’t panic that he might run away.

Without a single word, he understands. He helps me shower. Shampoo, conditioner, soap. Landon doesn’t miss a thing.

When I’m all cleaned up, he lets me wash his body while he does his hair.

“How are you?” We’re done cleaning him up. I can only communicate how overwhelmed and lost I feel through my eyes. “Okay. Okay. I’m going to do something and you’re going to have to trust me.”

“I always trust you,” I breathe out.

He traces the line of my jaw with his knuckles. His lungs expand. “On your knees.”

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