I feel his cock where I’m still throbbing, and the need for him floods back. I don’t want to rush any of this, but my body has a mind of its own and pushes against him.

He slides into me, stretching and filling, so deep he jams against my depths. It hurts enough to move him out, but I want it again enough to sit on him with my whole weight. I shift and lift, fucking him while he caresses my breasts, eyes locked together as if the power of our connection can hold me up.

We quicken. He puts his thumb between us and circles my clit, which is ready all over again. I don’t think I can stay quiet. I’m going to scream his name, and when I do, everything will spill out after. For the sake of his freedom, I have to hold it until he comes inside me. His eyes crunch closed. He sucks in a breath, then forces his eyes open to look at me. He’s ready.

I am in control. I feel like a bomb ready to wake the neighborhood, but I can do this.

I can’t. I’m on the edge of a disappearing cliff. It crumbles under my feet. I fall, coming so hard I lose my sense of place and time. I float in dark ecstasy, but I don’t make a sound.

He jerks and pumps, chest muscles tightening as he finishes coming inside me. I drop onto him, and he wraps his arms around me, kissing my shoulder and neck.

“Are you all right?” he whispers.

I am in control. I don’t have to say anything that will hurt him.

“I am,” I say, then pause. Nothing else comes out. No secrets or revelations. Nothing dangerous or destructive. “I’m very, very all right.”

It’s the most honest thing I’ve ever said.

Chapter 22

CHAPTER 22

DARIO

Sarah’s been gone for hours. There was a knock on the other side of the door. She kissed me, pressed a finger to her lips, lingering until another, more demanding knock, then she left.

I can’t get that look on her face out of my head. Right then, I knew I’d wasted time fucking her, when I could have taken control and made her talk to me.

She assured me she was all right. She may have believed it, but as the walls close in and an undecipherable amount of time passes, I become less sure that her belief isn’t more like faith.

I can’t see what’s happening on the other side of these walls, but it brought her here in a nightgown. She had an agenda. From a ten-foot-wide cell, I could see that a mile away. But was it her agenda? Or was she carrying water for someone else?