His tears continued to fall, trickling into my mouth and lacing his taste with salty pain. I imprisoned his cheeks, rubbing my thumbs in the dampness, hoping he understood how much I loved him.

That I was there for him.

Forever.

His breathing turned ragged, each exhale releasing soul-burning agony he’d carried all his life. With an arm around my shoulders, he reached down and clutched my hip, holding me firm.

He thrust harder, slipping past the final barrier and filling me completely. We sighed as that heavenly link slotted perfectly into place.

My body quivered around his. There was no warning. No anticipation. The moment he’d filled me, his rocking turned from questing to vicious.

Without his arm around my shoulders, I would’ve shifted upward with every brutal thrust. But he held me for his pleasure.

He used me.

We used each other.

We used passion to defeat pain. Wielded need to combat despair.

It would either heal us or break us, but there was no stopping the tsunami we rode.

“I’m sorry. So fucking sorry,” he mumbled into my hair. His tears had stopped, but his voice remained shaky.

His hips never stopped thrusting, driving us higher.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Sorry for making life so hard for you.”

He groaned, rocking faster.

Our minds switched from words to releases. We gave ourselves over to pleasure. Somewhere deep inside me, I let go. I floated upward, acknowledging that fate stole me from a life I thought I wanted, but that was never my true destiny.

He was.

Something slotted into place—bigger than a puzzle piece, more poignant than scripture or knowing.

It was the accumulation of fighting for something and finally earning it.

It was home.

Jethro pulled back, his jaw locked. His eyes burned as he rocked headfirst into a devouring tempo. I couldn’t look away. His body inside my body. His soul inside my soul.

I couldn’t contain the magic we sparked. “I need to tell you—how I feel…what this means.”

He shook his head, his lips grazing mine. “I know. I feel it, too.”

Tears leaked from my eyes as his mouth sealed tight. The wet heat of him and the scorching power of his cock splintered me in two.

There was no break or reprieve. Jethro fucked me, made love to me, and consumed me with no thought to us being watched or catalogued. Long, deep, dominating strokes dragged echoing moans.

Arching my hips, I rubbed my clit on the base of his cock. “More,” I begged. “Harder.”

He obeyed.

I couldn’t breathe, straining for an orgasm that would shatter me.

“Faster, deeper.”

He grunted, following my every command.

I’d never lived through something so intense.

It broke me.

It fixed me.

It stole. It gifted.

Devastating.

Rewarding.

Destroying.

Renewing.

“I’m going to fill you. I need to fill you,” Jethro groaned.

His voice whispered through my blood, setting fire to the gunpowder between my legs.

I came.

Spindles and shooting stars and spectacular bliss.

He swallowed my pleasure, his tongue diving in time with his erection.

“God, Nila.” Every emotion he’d kept hidden lashed around my name like a vow. “I love you.”

Wetness spurted inside me as he let go.

He let go of everything.

For a split second, my heart hardened remembering what he’d done. How he’d stolen my right to carry his baby for the foreseeable future, but then I gathered him closer. There was time for that. Time for us to grow together with no more games or traps.

This was us.

This was freedom.

He’d conquered whatever demons had ridden him. He’d given them to me to share the weight.

When his body relaxed and the last wave of his orgasm filled me, he pulled away.

His eyes locked on mine; he traced his thumb over my mouth. “No more winners or losers. No more hiding or pretending or lies.

“I’m ready to tell you. I’m ready to face something new.”

I settled back into bed, never taking my eyes off Jethro.

He placed the tray he’d brought from the kitchen between us, tucking his long legs under the sheets, giving me a fearful smile.

For the past hour, he’d prepared himself.

We’d showered silently.

We’d dressed wordlessly.

Then he’d disappeared to the kitchen to grab some freshly made baguettes, pâté, cheese, and grapes. He’d also fetched some painkillers for his hangover but didn’t make a move to swallow any of the drugs he’d popped like candy.

All he wore was a pair of black-boxer briefs and a dark grey t-shirt. I’d slipped into an oversized jumper and a pair of white knickers. Together we’d made camp in my bedroom. I never wanted to leave.

His tinsel hair was still damp from the shower and his eyes kept flickering away from mine. He focused on preparing a cracker with smoked cheddar and mushroom pâté before passing it to me.

I took it, brushing my fingers with his.

He winced but smiled softly.

I didn’t rush him.

I couldn’t. Not after seeing him crack so deeply.

We ate in silence for a time.

Jethro was the one to start—as I’d planned—as he needed to be.

“Remember that text I sent you?” His head tilted, watching me closely.

I swallowed a grape and sat back, ready to talk with no distractions. I knew the one he meant. The one he sent after I saw the graves of my ancestors. “Yes. You said you felt what I felt. That my emotions were your affliction.”

He nodded. “Exactly. I told you the truth right there. I’d hoped you’d guess, but I suppose it’s hard to understand. There was no trick in those words. No lies. It was God’s honest truth.”

I waited for him to continue. I had so many questions, but I needed patience. I believed Jethro would answer them when he could.

Jethro sighed. “The reason why I don’t like anyone calling me insane or crazy is because I’ve been told I was throughout my entire childhood. My father never understood me. Kes didn’t. Jaz didn’t. Shit, even I didn’t know what was wrong with me.” His eyes glazed over, thinking of the past. “Some days I was fine. Hyper like a boy should be. Happy to play with my siblings. Confident in my place within my family. But other days, I’d cry for hours. I’d claw at myself, trying to rid the overwhelming intensity from my blood. My mind would seize with darkness and sadness and anger—such, such anger.

“I wanted to kill. I craved violence.” He smiled wryly. “That doesn’t sound so unique, but it was when I was barely eight years old. I had fantasies of tearing men apart. I stressed over money and business—things I had no right to worry about as a kid. It got so bad, I was admitted to a local hospital. I’d stopped eating or drinking; I attacked Jasmine whenever she got too close. I couldn’t handle the thoughts inside my head. I fully believed what people said—that I was crazy.”

I shifted closer, looping my fingers through his. He didn’t pause, almost as if now he’d started, he had to finish as fast as possible.

“The hospital was even worse. There, I worried about dying. I fretted over a child down the hall dying of terminal cancer. I cried all the fucking time, devoured by grief and feeling the keen absence of someone I loved dearly—only thing was, I didn’t know any of the other patients.

“A nurse found me one night trying to hang myself after watching a movie of a man who couldn’t survive life anymore.”

His lips twisted into a smile that held both annoyance and appreciation. “If she hadn’t have found me, I would’ve been free. Free from living a life no one could understand. But she did…and she both condemned and saved me.”

“How?” I breathed.

“She was a psych major. After a few days of me screaming and self-harming due to a busload of students slowly dying in the ward next to me, she gained permission to check me out and take me to a psychiatric facility instead.”

He laughed. “I know this isn’t helping my case when I said I wasn’t insane.”

I shook my head, willing him to continue.

Jethro looked off into the distance, seeing things I wasn’t privy to. “Once there, I was even worse. I started having seizures and developed heart arrhythmia. I screamed for no reason, spoke in tongues no one could understand. I self-harmed to the point of disfigurement—all to get the fucking intensity out.”

With every glimpse into his past, his present made so much more sense.

“Did—did they diagnose you?”

Jethro nodded. “It took a year of being shuttled between my home and that mental hospital. A year of working with the young nurse who took it upon herself to rescue me from myself.”

I held my breath, waiting for a final answer.

But Jethro stayed silent.

I squeezed his fingers. “What was wrong with you?”

He snorted. “Wrong?” Shaking his head, he said condescendingly, “Everything. Everything was wrong.”