The light in the room had gone fully soft and gray by the time Marcus entered her again.

Elena was on her back in the middle of the wrecked sheets, thighs open, the cumulative heat of the marathon still heavy and slick inside her. She had stopped trying to track how many times he had filled her since the previous afternoon. The number no longer mattered. What mattered was the unbroken stretch of hours, the locked doors, and the way the words they had both spoken weeks earlier kept rising to the surface every time he pushed into her.

Marcus settled over her, weight braced on his forearms, and pushed...