***Dru's POV***
I teased the zipper with my teeth, the cold metal stark against the warmth of his skin. He arched his back, hips lifting in silent invitation, and I dragged his jeans down with a slow, deliberate tug. The fabric hissed against his thighs, revealing the outline of his arousal straining against his boxers—a promise of hunger barely contained.
"Turnabout's fair play, outlaw," I murmured, tongue darting out to wet my lips.
I hooked my fingers into the waistband of his boxers, inching them down as I mapped every new inch of exposed skin with my mouth. His breath hitched when I swirled my tongue over the dip of his hip, salt and musk bursting on my taste buds. Our eyes locked, his pupils blown wide with restraint. I scraped my teeth along the sharp ridge of his hip bone, and he jerked like I'd branded him.
"Joder…" His curse tangled with a groan, fingers twisting in the sheets.
I freed him fully, jeans and boxers hitting the floor with a thud—sound swallowed by the creak of the bedsprings and the wet, hungry slide of our mouths. The zipper's cold bite lingered on my tongue, a metallic counterpoint to the salt of his skin. When my teeth scraped his hip, he tasted of motor oil and recklessness—a flavor I'd crave like nicotine long after tonight.
My nails raked up his inner thigh, leaving faint crimson trails. He hissed, muscles quivering under my touch.
"Like that, do you?" I murmured, kissing the marks I'd made.
His hand fisted in my hair, trembling. "Coqueta, (Minx)" he warned, voice fraying.
I smirked against his skin. *Now he knows.*
He lifted his hips, meeting the back of my throat. Feeling the thickness between my lips, I could feel myself getting wetter. I began bobbing my head up and down at a dangerously slow pace. Massaging his shaft with my tongue, I keep his eyes locked with mine. Watching him arch his back in such pleasure, made the pressure build inside of me again. I find a perfectly paced rhythm.
Taking his hands out of my hair, I pinned them to his sides. His cock twitches in my mouth. Picking up my rhythm a bit, I watch as he arches his back with every up and down motion I make. I picked up my pace a bit more. He twitches even harder as he hits the back of my throat, again and again. I felt it begin to throb right before I push him over the edge.
With a few more curses, he breathes out my name before he spills everything into my mouth. I take it all. Continuing the rhythm, I drew out his release. I feel him twitch again on my tongue. I lick it clean before retracing my path up his body with my tongue. I kissed his inner thigh, then began trailing my tongue back up his abdomen to his chest.
By the time I made it back to his lips, I could feel him hardening against me again. I giggled into the heat of his mouth, the sound swallowed by his kiss—a collision of teeth and tongue that left me breathless. His hands cradled my face like I was something sacred, calloused thumbs brushing my cheeks as if memorizing the curve of them. When I pulled back to gasp for air, the press of him against my thigh was insistent, undeniable.
"Round four?" I teased, arching an eyebrow, my voice dripping with mischief.
In one fluid motion, he wrapped his arms around me and flipped me beneath him, the mattress groaning in protest. "No, mami," he murmured, lips grazing the shell of my ear. "Round 3 isn't over yet. It's just getting started."
His mouth crashed into mine again, a clash of possession and promise. When he finally broke away, his breath was ragged, his voice raw as gravel. "Are you sure, mi amor?" His thumb traced my lower lip, a silent plea. "Once I… once we… I can't undo this after. You'll be in my veins."
As Dragon's hands roamed, a flicker of movement caught my eye—a shadow darting past the window. My breath hitched. Louise's laughter slithered through the cracks, phantom-cigarette smoke curling under the door.
But Dragon's growl anchored me: "She's not here, guerrera. This room is ours." His teeth sank into my shoulder, a claiming bite that drowned her voice in static.*
His hands trembled as he cradled my face—not from restraint, but from fear. I'd seen those calloused fingers rebuild engines and disarm men twice his size, but here, with me, they faltered. "I don't want to be another ghost in your scars," he murmured, his voice raw. The admission hung between us, a confession. He'd spent years outrunning his own demons; now, he feared becoming mine.
I dragged my teeth over his pulse, relishing the way it jumped under my tongue. "Still think I'm fragile, Dragon?" My whisper was a blade, sharp and deliberate. "Or are you just scared I'll ruin you worse than that bullet scar on your shoulder?"
He pinned my wrists above my head, his smirk a flicker of danger in the moonlight. "Ruina me*? You barely survived the beginning of this round." His stubble scraped my neck as he growled, low and primal, "But go ahead—try."
I wrenched my hands free, fingers tangling in his hair as I yanked his face to mine. "Oh, I don't try—" My teeth sank into his lower lip, drawing a groan that vibrated through both of us. "—I succeed."
He laughed, dark and throaty, his breath hot against my skin. "Coqueta (Minx). You've got claws." His teeth found my collarbone, biting just hard enough to make me gasp. "But you forget—" His voice dropped to a whisper, lips trailing lower. "—I'm the one who taught you how to bite."
I arched into him, my laughter razor-edged. "And you're the one who taught me how to break things."
His hips ground against mine, friction and heat igniting a fresh ache. "Fuck, Dru…" His voice frayed, a warning and a prayer. "Don't start wars you can't finish."
I tilted my head, lips grazing his jaw. "Who says I'm the one who'll surrender?"
The numbers on our wrists pulsed—603 days—but tonight, they flickered like dying embers. For the first time, their glow felt less like a death sentence and more like a dare.
*Let their curse try to claim us now,* I thought, as Dragon's teeth grazed my pulse. *We've already stolen eternity.*
Intertwining his fingers with mine, he positioned himself at my entrance. Keeping my gaze, he slowly inches his way in. I felt a sharp pain as he breached me, my virginity giving way. The pain made me gasp, but it wasn't the physical sting that stole my breath—it was the sudden, suffocating memory of Louise's voice hissing, "No one will ever want you broken."
A small tear escapes from the corner of my eye. He stills his movements, giving me time to adjust to his intrusion and kisses away the single tear. Unaware my jaw had been clenched, he nibbled at my lower lip trying to gain entrance.
For a heartbeat, I was back in that attic, her shadow looming. But Dragon's lips found mine, his kiss a silent counterargument: *You are whole. You are mine.* I clung to him, my nails digging into his shoulders, as if his touch could rewrite the scars she'd carved.
I finally surrendered to another deep kiss as he began to move his hips—deliberate and slow. My body starts to tremble with his every movement. I moaned as he picked up his pace. Hard but slow, he rocked into me. I could feel the pressure within me building higher and higher. Lips still locked, I moaned again directly into his mouth. He pumped a little bit faster. I could feel my pussy clenching around him with every thrust from the sheer ecstasy. He bucked into me even harder with every clamp. I felt like I was about to come undone right underneath him. I could feel the heat pulsing from him as he pumped hard into me, again and again.
The air hung thick with the scent of sweat and vanilla, moonlight pooling on the tangled sheets like liquid silver. As I bit down on his lower lip, stars detonated behind my eyelids—supernovas in the dark. An orgasm tore through me, fiercer than the Gulf storms that battered Mobile's shores—a wildfire devouring every nerve. He twitched beneath me, still spasming from his own release, his hips jerking helplessly as I clenched around him. Heat spilled into me, branding bone and soul. Our ragged breaths tangled, my name a broken prayer on his lips as we unraveled, two fractured souls fused in the aftermath.
He pulled me into the storm of his heartbeat, each thud a war cry against the silence Louise left behind. His arms trembled, muscles taut from holding back, yet his fingers traced idle circles on my spine—reverent, almost disbelieving. The salt of my tears mingled with the sweat on his collarbone as he pressed a kiss to my forehead.
His voice rough velvet. "Now you've ruined me," he murmured, lips grazing my temple. "How do I go back to breathing air after tasting heaven?"
A laugh hiccupped out of me, fragile as blown glass. "I didn't know…" My voice cracked, the admission raw. "It felt like… every wall I ever built just dissolved." I fisted my hand in his shirt, anchoring myself to the rise and fall of his chest. *Don't vanish. Don't be another ghost.* "Don't let go yet," I whispered, the plea slipping out before I could cage it. My fingers twisted in his hair, ink-black strands softer than they looked. "Promise me this isn't just tonight. Promise we're still 'us' when the sun comes up."
He cradled my face, calloused thumbs smudging tear tracks. "You're not just my first," he said, the Spanish rolling off his tongue like a vow. "You're my siempre (always). I'll spend lifetimes learning the map of you." His gaze locked onto mine, a black void edged with a brilliant blue where the moonlight caught it. "*Eres mi hogar ahora, mi vida. (You're my home now, my life.)" The words settled in my ribs, a balm and a brand.
My hands framed his face—the scar bisecting his eyebrow, the shadow of stubble, the way his lips quirked even in stillness. I memorized it all, etching this version of him into my bones: Dragon unguarded, Dragon 'mine'. When I kissed him, it was a confession, a surrender, a revolution. What walls remained crumbled to dust.
"I don't care what anyone says," I whispered against his mouth, the edge in my voice sharp enough to draw blood. "If they try to cheapen this—us—I'll burn their world to ash."
He pulled me tighter, my ear pressed to the steady thunder of his heart. "Let them try," he said, fingers weaving through my hair. "They'll learn what happens when you play with fire."
I breathed him in—motor oil and moonlight, a cocktail of rebellion and sanctuary—and let the rhythm of his pulse lull me. Somewhere beyond the window, the bayou whispered its secrets, but here, in this fragile cocoon of sweat and shared breath, I dared to hope. *Let this be real. Let us be real.*
After, we lay tangled in the wreckage of sheets, the moon now a shy observer behind gauzy clouds. Dragon's thumb traced idle circles on my hip, his arm slung possessively across my waist. My heartbeat slowed, syncing with the drip of the leaky faucet in the corner. Somewhere beyond the window, a night heron cried—a lonely, beautiful sound. I pressed closer, my ear over his heart, its rhythm a steady drumbeat: Mine. Safe. Stay.
The countdowns glimmered, fireflies stitching our futures into the bayou's dark tapestry—no longer curses, but conspirators.
His fingers absently traced the star-shaped scar on my thigh—Louise's cigarette, her laughter sharp.
"I'll kill her," Dragon muttered, voice low as a vow.
I pressed closer, my lips brushing a ridged scar on his shoulder. "You already saved me."
He stiffened, then exhaled, pulling me tighter. The bayou hummed, but here, we were a fortress.
******