“You? Never.” Ransom shook his head, moving closer to graze a slow, wet kiss on my mouth. “No one this sweet, with a heart this big could be a sinner.” I licked my lips, loving how Ransom watched the movement. “Besides,” he said, his eyes moving up, “saints love sinners the most. They’re a hell of a lot more fun to try to save.”

Ransom was everywhere just then, filling up all the spots left gaping, those worn, aching vacancies in my heart that loneliness and neglect had cut into me. No, I couldn’t be what he’d lost. And he couldn’t be the person to make me whole, but right then, on my Target sheets in that tiny loft apartment, we would take what we needed from each other; the first step in the long trek across the trench of loss and grief.

“I don’t care about the saints, Ransom.” My legs felt heavy when I moved them so that I spread open to him, loving how his eyebrows dipped together at the brush of skin on skin. “And I’ll never ask for forgiveness for wanting you.”

He moved his forehead against mine and his arms shook as he hovered above me. When he spoke, his gaze was serious, focused. “Please don’t ask me for things I can’t give you.” There was a little regret, a hint of fear in his tone.

“I won’t,” I said, wishing my fingertips would clear away those worried lines in his forehead.

“Please don’t think…” Ransom took a breath, grabbing my chin before he brushed his lips over mine, “If I could, if I was able, God, Aly, I’d give you everything.”

A single look from Ransom could make my stomach tighten and my chest constrict. Those words from him, the look on his face telling me he meant them, made me fall deeper, had me lost further in what I felt for him. But he didn’t need me saying that. He asked for one moment when I wanted all of them. I’d take it.

“Today, I just want this.”

His arms did not stop shaking and the worry, the quick breath from his mouth only grew heavier as he watched me. “I haven’t done this in a while and then only with…”

I put one finger to his lips, and shushed him in a low exhale, stopping him from mentioning her name. “Just so you know, since I can barely manage to keep myself fed, I’m on the pill. No chance of an unintentional family. And there’s only ever been one other person, so I’m clean. You don’t have to be covered. And you don’t have to be careful.”

That laugh was quick, a little anxious, but he still managed a smile. “Aly, I have to be so careful with you.”

He didn’t, but how would Ransom know? I was made of solid stuff, harder mettle than he’d ever understand. But I didn’t want him worried that touching me, loving me once would somehow push me away.

This time when I touched him, Ransom didn’t flinch. This time, he seemed to enjoy the sensation.

“I’m not going to break,” I said, wishing I didn’t mean it so much.

“I might.”

If he did, I’d put him back together.

Ransom didn’t offer another excuse or lay down anymore caveats. With one look back at me, he took my leg, his hand under my knee and he held his breath, like he was jumping into a shark tank with no illusions of coming back up for air. He took his dick in his other hand and found his way to my warm entry. I felt him, poised there, ready. For a split second, time stopped. Then, with a groan, he pushed into me, and with just the twist of his hips, my entire world changed.

“Oh…”

It was the only coherent word I could utter.

He moved like water over glass, rolling into me over and over, filling me, melding to me as if my body, my pussy was exactly where he belonged.

Like he owned it.

I was greedy for everything Ransom gave me—the loud, feral grunts slipping into my mouth as he took it, the penetrating pinch of his fingers digging into my hips, I wanted it all. And always, always, his dick sliding so deeply into me, then pulling out only to push into me yet again, and again as I raised up to meet his thrusts.

“Fuck,” he said, as our grinding together became more frantic, and he moved his hips faster, as that grip on my hips pinched tighter and then Ransom pushed my leg up with his knee, leaning on one palm while he fisted my hair. “Aly, fuck you’re so…you’re so… you’re so damn everything…”

I hadn’t spun this hard, felt this full ever in my life. It was Ransom, that big, looming body, the lull of his loud moans, all the sensation I’d thought would be delicious was wholly different, far more satisfying than I’d ever imagined.

He moved his hand from my hair, pushing on the inside of my thigh to open me wider and my hands came up to his chest, scratching, gripping as I felt him deep inside, pushing me closer and closer to the edge. I was no longer thrusting against him, all I could do was open fully to him, let him take me, possess me, utterly, completely.

“More,” I managed never wanting this to end, thinking I’d die if it did and yet feeling the building release and then Ransom moved his arm under my waist and twisted us around so that he sat up with me on top of him. “Deep, so deep.”

And it was, so deep I felt him in my womb, and his panting breath tickled against my cheek as he took my mouth again. It wasn’t a kiss, it was an attack, brutal but so damn satisfying I thought I couldn’t take it another second. I tasted him everywhere, the sweat from his skin, that airy, sweet flavor of his breath on my mouth made me insatiable and I knew, just then, I’d never be fuller.

“Arch, baby,” he said, pushing at the small of my back, urging me on, to let his dick push up and into me. Ransom moved my back and hips, guiding and his mouth to cover one nipple, sucking harder and harder the faster I moved on top of him and with four long, even strokes, with his dick hitting perfectly, deep inside, I came in a white hot explosion that felt as if I didn’t exist, as if all I was, was what his cock and his hands and his mouth had made me, and it went beyond something as trivial as bliss.

As I slowly came back to myself his warm breaths sounded further away and his grip on me loosened as Ransom leaned me back against the mattress, still rocking his hips oh, so slowly, so gently, yet still touching me like he could not, would not, be free of my skin.

The weight of him on top of me as he moved his knees between mine, the eager building of his own excitement, the growing power of his hard thrusts into me was another whole kind of bliss, a privilege and strength I had never felt before. Above me, Ransom struggled with the sensations my body had worked in him. I saw it plainly on his face, in the pinched squint of his eyes as he worked his hips faster and faster.

“Aly…God…oh God...” He sounded so scared then, out of his element, unfamiliar with the sensation of a stranger’s body and yet so caught up in being dragged to the edge, so I touched his face again, making him relax his features and open his eyes.

“You’re not breaking, sugar. I won’t let you.”

That seemed to calm him, or perhaps give him permission to let go of any remnants of inhibition. His hips moved even faster, desperately, and his fingers threaded through mine over my head. His breath came in frantic pants as his climax rose, and I squeezed and wrapped around him fully urging him on. Then, with a strangled roar, he buried his head on my shoulder and his body shuddered against mine, over and over, as he came hard, deeply, so deeply into me. I could feel his dick convulse at my core, spilling deep into my body, and my huge, beautiful, strong Ransom fell apart, raw, real, exposed as he came.

He didn’t let go. He rolled to his side, still clinging to me, still inside of me, the slick brush of our bodies like a balm neither of us wanted to clean away, and I let him keep me close, I craved his continued closeness. I cradled him in my arms, and let him bury his face in my chest and hold his arm around my waist like I was his, like he was mine even if it was only make believe. Even if in the morning, the fairy tale would end.