Page 59 of Hellfire to Come
Fingers glided up my ribs, over my back, mapping every inch of me with maddening patience, learning me all over again. His kisses traveled to my jaw, to my throat, leaving fire in their wake. My head tilted to give him more space, and he took it, his mouth finding the sensitive hollow below my ear and making me gasp.
The air thickened, the room forgotten, and even time itself stood suspended.
He drew back just enough to look at me, his eyes almost black, the green swallowed by his pupils with want, but beneath it… fear. Not of me. But the fear of hurting me. Of pushing too far, too soon.
“You sure?” he asked, his voice barely holding together. “I can stop. Say the word and I will.”
Gods, I loved him for that.
And it made me want him even more.
I cupped his face in both hands, thumbs grazing the stubble along his jaw. “I’m not made of glass, Dominic. Iwantthis. I wantyou.”
A flicker of relief. A flare of something deeper.
His breath still ghosted over my lips, warm and steady, each exhale a tether holding me to the present. The storm inside me, the grief, the rage, the fear, began to unravel thread by thread, tugged loose by the gentle weight of his touch. Every part of me that had curled into a defensive ball softened against him now. Not because I was suddenly safe. Not because the danger had passed.
But because he was here. And that was all that mattered. That was enough.
Dominic didn’t move, not at first. He simply watched me with eyes that had seen too much violence, too much loss, and yet still held a reverence for softness, especially mine. When his fingers brushed a lock of hair from my temple, the fire red strand sliding tenderly between his fingers, I felt my whole-body sigh beneath his touch. I hadn’t even known I was holding my breath until that very moment.
“I thought I lost you today,” he murmured, voice rough with everything he hadn’t said.
I closed my eyes, pressing my cheek against his palm. “I think I almost lost myself.”
“Don’t say that.” His thumb swept gently along my jaw. “You’re still here. Stillyou.Even when the world tries to take pieces.”
I opened my eyes to meet his, the ache in my chest blooming into something warmer, heavier. “That’s only true because you’re here to remind me of what I have to lose.”
He leaned in then, slow and certain, giving me time to stop him but I didn’t want him to stop. His lips met mine, not with urgency, but with barely contained passion. A kiss meant not to claim, but to ask. To assure.
Every other time we had come so close to death or unknown terrors loomed over our heads that our lovemaking was always hot, explosive, a single-minded purpose of claiming as if thatwould remind us we were still alive. This time he was taking his time. That was telling how strong the fear of losing me was inside him. This time he was reassuring himself I am still here.
And I answered with the same gentleness, with the same quiet hunger.
His hand slid to the small of my back, drawing me closer. The heat of his body seeped into mine like sunlight through a storm. When our foreheads touched again, our breathing found a shared rhythm. One heartbeat, split between two bodies. I felt the quiet restraint in him, the tension barely leashed beneath his skin, like he was holding back a wildfire out of respect for the scorched earth I had become.
But I didn’t want restraint.
I wanted him.
“Touch me,” I whispered, the words caught on a breath I couldn’t quite release.
His hands trembled slightly as they obeyed, one splaying across the curve of my back, the other cupping the side of my neck. He kissed me again, deeper this time, a groan slipping from his throat and humming into mine. The sound pulled something low and desperate from my core.
Dominic kissed like someone who worshipped storms. Like someone who knew what it meant to survive them.
And I kissed back like someone trying to find home.
We didn’t speak after that. Words became obsolete. The brush of skin against skin, the slide of breath between parted mouths, the way our bodies curved instinctively to meet one another.Thatwas the language now.
His jacket fell from his shoulders first, landing with a soft thud on the floor. My fingertips chased the warmth of his skin beneath his shirt, marveling at how alive he felt. How aliveIfelt. Every sigh he gave sent a tremor down my spine. Every quietgasp, every low growl deep in his chest, etched itself into my bones.
And I clung to him, not like holding a lifeline, but like something fierce, like someone who had already walked through fire and wasn’t afraid to burn again, as long as it was with him.
He kissed down the line of my throat, slow and reverent, his breath feathering across the sensitive skin as he murmured my name like a promise. My hands threaded through his hair, desperate to anchor myself in the moment before it slipped away and became nothing.
“Brooklyn,” he said, the syllables a graveled prayer.
