Page 50 of Hunting Harbor

"Look at me," he commands, and I force my heavy eyelids open to meet his gaze.

What I see there catches my breath more effectively than any physical sensation—desire, yes, but also something deeper, more permanent. Possession. Care. Something that might even be love, though twisted into a shape I never expected to recognize.

His eyes darken with satisfaction, and he captures my mouth in another bruising kiss as his movements become more erratic, more urgent. When he comes, he groans my name against my lips, and something in my chest cracks open at the sound of it.

Afterward, he lays me down on sheets that now smell of sweat and sex and us. My body feels wonderfully used, aching in places I didn't know could ache, marked inside and out as his.

Kairo disappears briefly, returning with a warm washcloth to clean me with gentle strokes. Then he rummages around in the drawer beside the bed and squirts some lotion onto the welts making my ass cheeks ache. The care he takes with this simple act brings unexpected tears to my eyes. He notices, wiping them away with his thumb before pressing a kiss to my forehead.

"Rest now," he murmurs, pulling the covers over us both and tucking me against him, my head on his chest where I can hear the steady beat of his heart.

As sleep begins to pull me under, I feel his fingers stroking through my hair, his lips pressed to the top of my head. In thismoment, I feel not just desired but cherished, not just possessed but protected. It's a feeling I never want to end.

"My girl," I hear him whisper just before consciousness slips away, and I smile in the darkness, content in a way I've never been before.

Chapter Nineteen

Kairo

ThechangeinHarboris fucking beautiful. Three days since I tied her to my bed and broke down her last defenses, and now she moves through my cabin like she was born to be here. The morning light catches in her auburn hair as she drifts from room to room, no longer checking corners for escape routes or flinching when I step too close. My little bird is settling into her cage, finally understanding that the bars I've built around her aren't prison walls—they're protection. They're home.

Well, temporary home. The cabin is done, got the confirmation from Creed this morning.

I lean against the kitchen doorframe, coffee mug warming my palm as I watch her scribble frantically in her notebook. Her hand moves so fast it's almost a blur. She’s finally finishing that cowboy romance, words pouring out of her after months of drought. I did that. I broke the dam inside her, releasedthe flood. She looks up, catches me watching, and doesn't immediately look away. Progress.

"Coffee's getting cold," I say, just to hear her voice in response.

"I know. I just—" She gestures at the notebook, green eyes bright with that creative fire I've carefully stoked. "The words are finally coming."

"Because of me." Not a question.

A flush creeps up her neck, but she doesn't deny it. Another piece of her resistance crumbles away, and I pocket it like a trophy.

This morning started with her singing in the shower. Fucking singing. The sound drifted through the cabin, some pop song with too many feelings, and I stood outside the bathroom door, pressing my palm against the wood, letting her voice wash over me. The same voice that had screamed my name three nights ago when I made her come so hard she cried.

We’ve fucked everyday since then, but I tanned her ass so good she asked for a mulligan on the BDSM until it was healed.

Fair enough. My girl asks, she gets. Simple.

Now she's cooking. Harbor Elliot, once trying to run from me, is standing in my kitchen making us breakfast like we're some normal fucking couple. The plainness of it should bore me, but instead it's intoxicating. Each egg she cracks, each slice ofbread she butters, it's all evidence of her surrender. Of her commitment to me.

"I used to cook all the time," she says, sliding scrambled eggs onto plates. "Before the writer's block. Before everything felt..."

"Dead," I finish for her. Because that's what she was when I found her—a walking corpse, hollowed out and desperate. And look at her now. Vibrant. Alive. Mine.

She nods, setting the plates on the small wooden table by the window.

I take a bite, watching her over the rim of my coffee mug. She's wearing one of my shirts, the hem hitting mid-thigh, exposing the bruises I left on her legs. Some from my hands, some from the rope, some from running through the woods and tripping. She doesn't try to hide them anymore.

"The food's good," I tell her, though it doesn't fucking matter if it's good or not. What matters is that she made it for me. For us.

"Thanks." Her smile is small but genuine. "I'm feeling... better. More like me."

I don't correct her fundamental misunderstanding. This version… the one cooking breakfast in my cabin, writing feverishly in her notebook, showering in my bathroom… this is her real self. The one I've excavated from beneath layers of societal bullshit and professional disappointment. The realHarbor was always meant to be mine. She just didn't know it until now.

"I have something to show you soon," I say, thinking of the cabin waiting for us deeper in the woods. "A surprise."

"I'm not sure I like your surprises," she says, but there's a teasing lilt to her voice that makes my cock twitch. She does like them. Her body doesn't lie, even when her mind tries to.

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