Page 61 of Brawler
“Yeah,” he rasped, voice rougher than he meant. “She’s something else.”
Emily nodded, still trembling. “No…she’s everything.”
Her hand fisted in the front of his vest, tugging once like she couldn’t hold herself upright without him. Then she turned into him, pressing herself against his chest, clutching hard as if the only way to keep from flying apart was to hold on.
He wrapped his arms around her without thinking, pulling her tight, her small body trembling against his, her breath hot against his throat. He dropped his chin to the crown of her damp hair, eyes closing as he breathed her in. In one long, searing heartbeat, the jungle, the mission, the danger, all of it fell away. There was only her.
For the first time since he had confiscated her research, he felt the fragile ember of hope that Emily could forgive him. The thought cut sharp, raw, leaving his chest aching with a need he couldn’t hide anymore.
Then she tipped her face up, eyes glinting through the veil of tears, and it hit him like a blow, her grief, her fury, the wild, defiant hope tangled in her heart. It all poured into him as if her body had opened a vein straight into his. His own regret roared back, amplified, his chest burning with the force of what she felt. Forgiveness wasn’t spoken, not yet, but he could taste the possibility of it on her breath.
Her hand fisted tighter in his vest, grounding him, anchoring him, as though she knew exactly what he was absorbing. God help him, he clung back, terrified that if she never forgave him, he would come apart in her arms.
Her whisper broke against his skin, “You carry it all. Everything. God, Christian, this is hard, so unfair. You’ll carry me, won’t you? My body can’t lie, my emotions are in freefall, and I don’t know how to process it all. You are a man I didn’t expect. Damn the circumstances.”
Her words lanced through him, equal parts plea and confession, leaving the answer suspended between them, unresolved.
Her voice wavered, softer now, threaded with gratitude. “I’m so glad you were with me when I saw her for the first time.”
Before he could respond, she rose on her toes, her mouth brushing his, light, tentative, aching. Not demand, not possession. A kiss that soothed even as it cut, offering comfort while admitting pain.
Brawler froze for half a heartbeat, then bent into her, absorbing the tremor in her body, the plea in her lips. She was giving him more than a kiss. She was giving him recognition, a shard of forgiveness, proof that she saw his torment as clearly as he felt hers.
It broke something open in him. In that breathless, fleeting moment, he let it.
Then she lifted her face, kissed him, soft, aching, a brush of lips that carried gratitude and grief in equal measure. Brawler groaned low, deep in his chest, as if the sound had been torn from him.
She deepened the kiss with a hungry sigh, pulling him off the path into the shadowed jungle, and suddenly she was tugging at his waistband, pressing herself against him with a desperatestrength. Her eyes caught his, blazing through tears, her breath hot between them.
“Christian…please.”
The timbre of her voice made him instantly hard. He saw it, felt it, every flicker of arousal laced with grief, every desperate spark of her need to be touched by someone strong enough to carry it all for her. His aching skin burned with it, her emotions pouring into him until he could hardly tell where she ended and he began.
Fuck, it undid him. Emily was sharing this moment with him in a way that was physical, yes, but so much more. He could hardly breathe around the waves of her awe and joy. She was asking him to take it, to hold it, to claim it all.
She dropped her shorts, stepped out of them, just as he freed his hard dick. He lifted her against the tree as she wrapped her legs around him.
When he pushed into her, her gaze never wavered. She looked right into him as her body accepted him, exquisitely clenched around his. Her lips parted, tears streaking her cheeks even as her back arched. She didn’t hide the storm inside her. She let him feel all of it, the need, the want, the wild, terrifying joy of being alive in that one impossible moment.
Fuck, he gave it back, every thrust a vow that she wasn’t alone, that her grief was his, her joy was his, and whatever future they carved out of this brutal jungle, it would be theirs.
It was quick. It had to be—the danger was pressing in, the emotions tearing through him like lightning. He slammed into her, every thrust desperate, every breath ragged. She clung to him, trembling, her nails biting into his nape as if she could anchor herself in his flesh.
Fuck, she filled him. Inside and out. Her body clenched tight around his cock, but it was more than that. She filled the hollow places in him he hadn’t known how to patch. She gave him herbrave, stubborn heart, all that untamed pixie fire, and he did claim it, driving into her with the fierce certainty that she was his.
When the release broke, it was brutal, white-hot. His head dropped against her damp hair, teeth gritted as he emptied into her, taking her cries, her surrender, her whole goddamn essence into himself. It was more than a climax. It was possession. Communion. A vow sealed in sweat and breath and the desperate pounding of their hearts.
He held her against the tree as the tremors faded, their bodies still locked, sweat cooling in the damp heat of the jungle. Her breath shuddered against his throat, every exhale a jagged reminder of how close he’d come to losing her, how much she already owned him.
He pressed his mouth to her hair, voice rough and unsteady. “Emily, you take your time with what you need. But I know real when I see it, feel it. This…” His hand splayed against her nape, pulling her tighter. “…between us, may be fractured, but you are doing something to me I won’t recover from. Hurting you this way is breaking me. But you have the right to your pain.”
Her fingers clutched his vest harder, her forehead pressed to his jaw as if his words had landed deep. For a long moment, neither of them moved, the jungle closing in with the slow drone of insects, the world holding still around the storm they’d just unleashed.
Her fingers loosened against his vest, trembling as she lifted her face, her legs dropping from around his hips as he steadied her. Her eyes shimmered, streaked with tears, but steady on his.
“You broke something in me, too,” she whispered, her voice uneven but fierce. “I don’t know how to put it back together yet. I can’t pretend it doesn’t hurt. It does.”
Her breath hitched, chest rising hard against his. “But don’t think for a second that this isn’t real. I feel it, too, every pull, every ache. This is all so crazy.”
