And he kept his word. A moment later, he was slipping back into the bed beside her, his body warm from the shower and tension humming just beneath his skin. He rolled toward her, closing the distance between them. Their foreheads touched, breaths mingling in the intimate space between. He reached up and ran his fingers through her damp hair, slowly, rhythmically, letting the movement anchor them both.
"You're gonna be fine, Eva," he whispered. "You survived. That's who you are."
"Make love to me," she said.
Alex's entire body stiffened.
His mind blanked, then flooded with conflicting signals. Her words echoed, bouncing off the walls of his heart and crashing into the hard walls he'd built over the years. Love. The word didn't belong in his world. He could dominate. He could possess. He could fuck. But make love?
He didn't know how to do that anymore.
He wasn't sure he ever had.
