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Tears welled on her impossibly long lashes, her arms dropping around his shoulders. “I love you.”

A brush of his lips on her cheeks, her chin, one hand skimming down her spine. “Again.”

Her breath hitched, that word usually a different sort of command between them. “I love you.”

Fuck. Why did it hurt so much to hear?

He dragged his fingers across her lips and left them there, wanting to feel the words as she said them. “Again.”

Maybe they’d sink in if she spoke them into his skin. Maybe he’d figure out how to believe it. How to be worthy of it.

“I love you.”

Brand stifled a sob, trembling with the effort. He hated the ache twisting in his chest, his gut. The bittersweet tension, one half of him elated, the other tearing its hair out. The desire to hold on to her and never let go, even as he wanted her to run as fast and as far away from him as possible and never look back.

The darker half was winning. The one telling him there was nothing in this life he could ever do to make himself worthy again.

Luna cupped his face. “Look at me.”

That was supposed to be his line, but damned if he didn’t obey immediately.

“I know what you’re thinking, Demon.” She smoothed her fingers over his forehead and temples. “You’re wrong.”

“How do you know what I’m thinking?”

“Because I know you. It’s written all over your face. You’ve always been a terrible liar.” One side of her mouth quirked up. “I think it extends to your inability to rein in your expressions.”

He wondered if that was true, or if he’d been the world’s greatest liar all along. Shite, he even fooled himself all those years. A fucking lifetime.

“Whatever you need right now, it’s yours.” Her palm landed over his heart. Over the mating marks she’d left. He practically felt her asking to be let in, to feel their damaged bond—yet another thing she hadn’t pushed or prodded him about. “Anything, Brand.”

“Please, help me. I…want to forget again.”

The irony was not lost on him.

Brand slid his hands to her hips and dragged her over his length, making his request obvious—the closest he could get to admitting what it was he was actually asking. Words were starting to leave him again as he spiraled back downward.

“Just for a little while. Help me forget, Luna.”

She raised up on her knees and notched him at her entrance. “Don’t you dare hold back.”

Luna seated herself fully at the same time she surged into him, lips and tongues and teeth clashing in a frenzy.

Whether she commanded it or not, there was no such thing as holding himself back. No such thing as sweet or slow. Brand was borderline violent. Wild in his desperation.

He should’ve known that being buried in her again would ruin him. Would make him so fucking feral that he hardly knew where he was as he thrusted up into her slick core. All he wanted was more, more, more as she worked her body and did exactly as he asked.

As she helped him forget.

Hours later, Brand wasn’t near satiated. Would never be done.

The lingering whispers and shadows were blessedly silent as long as he was inside Luna, focused wholly on the tight squeeze of her body up and down his length, over and over and over and…

Bit by bit, her body was his cleansing. Her moans and filthy words. Her laughter and coy smiles. Every time he brought her to shattering, every time he endured the breathtaking vise of her coming undone, was its own apology. Its own plea for forgiveness.

Brand simply had to keep going until he was absolved. Until he was more himself.

On his knees behind her, he ran his splayed hand up the curve of her spine. Eyes on her dripping cunt as it took his cock for the millionth time, contracting around him. On the flex and bounce of her voluptuous, immaculate arse as it slapped against his thighs.