Page 55 of Breaking His Exile

“Later.” He caught her wrist and brought her palm to his mouth. Pressed his lips to the center of it, warm and rough, and the look in his eyes when he met hers over her hand was enough to make her breath catch. “Please, Songbird. Later. I need you now. I need you so fucking much, it hurts more than anything that bastard did.”

She couldn’t deny him anything when he said sweet things like that, and caught his mouth with hers again.

He shoved her jeans down. She was bare underneath, having given up on her underwear days ago. He lifted her, and her legs wrapped his waist. The wall was cold against her back. He was hot everywhere, and hard between her legs, grinding against her despite the layer of fabric still separating them.

He broke away long enough to free his cock from his pants, and a tremble raced through her as he swiped the broad, flared head of it through her wetness.

“I’ve wanted this so fucking much,” he growled against her ear. “From the moment you opened your mouth and sang at that bar, I wanted you impaled on my cock.”

He surged inside. Her head knocked the wall and her breath left in a sharp rush. His forehead dropped to her shoulder, a groan tearing from his chest that sounded like it cost him everything.

“Rainey,” he whispered her name against her collarbone. “Fuck. You’re⁠—”

She tightened her legs around his waist and rolled her hips to meet his next thrust. The friction sent sparks up her spine. He felt enormous, stretching her in a way that bordered on too much, but her body adjusted, welcomed, demanded more.

He drove into her again in one long, fierce stroke, and the world shrank to the point where their bodies met.

Rainey’s head smacked the log wall again so hard her vision sparked, but the jolt only made her cinch her legs around his hips tighter, holding him in with everything she had.

There was nothing gentle about it. He braced her between the wood and his battered torso, fucking her with an urgency that bordered on violence. His breath came in ragged gasps at her ear.

Pain laced through the pleasure—her ribs, her shoulder, the dull throb where the wall met her skull—but it was nothing compared to the tidal rush that flooded her nerves. She rode it gladly, welcomed what his hunger demanded, because it chased out the fear and the cold and the memory of every hand that had ever hurt her.

He pushed deeper, nearly lifting her off the ground, and her body opened to him, desperate for every inch. The sounds she made were wild, high and helpless, and she barely recognized them as her own.

His lips found her jaw, her neck, and he bit down hard enough to leave a mark just as he slammed into her again. For a second, she thought she might black out from the overload.

“Evander—”

“I’ve got you.” His mouth found hers, sloppy and desperate. “I’ve got you, songbird. Come with me. Please.”

The please undid her. She came apart against the wall, her cry lost in his mouth, her body clenching around him in waves that seemed to go on and on.

His control started to fracture. His thrusts grew shorter, deeper, his grip on her hips tightening to the edge of pain. And then he followed, burying himself deep with a sound that was almost a sob, his whole body shuddering against hers as he spent himself inside her.

They stayed there, breathing hard, her back pressed to cold stone, his weight leaning into her for support now rather than possession. His heart hammered against her chest, gradually slowing. His skin was slick with sweat beneath her palms, sticky with blood where she’d touched his temple.

“You’re bleeding on me,” she murmured against his ear.

He set her down slowly and staggered.

All of the fuzzy afterglow drained away in an instant.

“Shit! Evander!” She caught him with a shoulder under his arm and dragged him to the cot.

He collapsed onto it and went still.

“Evander?”

No answer. His chest rose and fell, but the rhythm was wrong—too shallow, too slow. The bruise across his ribs had darkened to a deep purple-black, swelling at the edges, and when she laid her palm against his skin she felt the heat coming off it. Fever, or inflammation, or both.

The cut on his temple had reopened. Fresh blood seeped from the split skin, tracking down into his hairline. His right knuckles were split, the skin ragged and raw.

She shook his shoulder. “Evander. Wake up.”

He stirred. His eyes opened, unfocused, and fixed on the ceiling. “M’awake.”

“No, you’re not.” She ran across the cabin for the first-aid kit and pulled out gauze, antiseptic, and a roll of medical tape. “Sit up. Now.”