Chapter 16: In the Grip of the Rut

Adrian's grip on Emily was iron-strong, both possessive and urgent, as he laid her against the mattress with a single, precise movement. The world around them blurred the soft glow of candles, the distant rumble of thunder, the staccato pulse of rain against the windows but inside, only the pulse of his desperation mattered.

He hovered over her, heat radiating off his bare skin. Every inhale was a ragged gasp, as though he were half-drowning in need. The Crimson Tide roared beneath his bones, flames licking at his senses, demanding release.

Emily's breath caught in her throat the moment he pressed himself into her small frame. His proximity sent a bolt of raw electricity through her. He smelled of sweat and rain, wood smoke and something deeper prime, animal. It made her blood hum in her veins.

He didn't pause. His hands roamed her body with needy urgency fingers trembling and resolute tearing buttons, pulling fabric, unraveling the barrier of clothes between them. He needed skin. He needed her against him.

A low growl escaped his throat when Emily reached up to his face, her touch meant to soothe but instead it ignited him further. His mouth covered hers with desperate force, teeth grazing her lip, tongue pressing deep. The kiss was no longer a question it was a claim.

He rolled onto the bed with a force that was almost feral, driven by a hunger too long suppressed. The air between them crackled hot, charged, and unrelenting. Emily's head hit the pillow, disoriented but not afraid. The urgency in his body told her more than words ever could: this was no longer a man pacing the edge. He was falling diving headfirst into the deep.

His hands gripped her thighs, fingers bruising as he pulled her beneath him, aligning their bodies with desperate precision. Then,

A single, forceful thrust.

It wasn't gentle. It wasn't slow. It was a storm breaking loose, an instinct too strong to cage. Emily's breath caught violently, her body arching into him in an involuntary answer. His name fell from her lips half-gasp, half-moan and that sound shattered the last of his restraint.

With another thrust, he lost himself.

Adrian's movements became rhythm incarnate relentless, powerful, primal. Each thrust slammed through the silence like a drumbeat, syncing with the pounding of the rain against the windows and the distant growl of thunder above. His hips moved with ruthless purpose, raw strength translating into motion again and again, until the room felt like it was swaying with them.

His hands locked around her waist like steel, anchoring her to him, to this moment, to the storm raging inside his body. He thrust harder, deeper, as if trying to bury his torment into her warmth trying to burn away the ache with motion and contact.

There was no softness. No pretense. Only need.

Emily clung to him, fingers curled into his damp shoulders, feeling the tremble in his muscles—the tightrope tension of a man losing the fight with himself. His thrusts came faster, each one shaking the bed frame, echoing off the walls with a rhythm that bordered on frantic.

But even in the ferocity, she could feel the war within him.

Each movement was not just about release it was restraint barely holding back the edge of ruin. His jaw was clenched so tightly it trembled. His breaths came in hot gusts against her neck, ragged and strained. His body was fire but his soul was flailing, clawing for control as instinct threatened to tear him apart.

Thunder cracked again, low and rolling like a beast growling in the distance.

The rain became a roar now pounding the windows in time with his thrusts. Sweat glistened on his back, dripping down his spine, slicking their skin where they touched. His eyes dark, wild, almost glowing in the candlelight flickered with something more than lust. Fear. Shame. Desire. All twisted together.

Still, he drove into her again, and again, and again.

A groan broke from deep in his throat, guttural and aching. He was unraveling. She could feel it in the way his grip faltered, in how his forehead dropped to her shoulder, in the way his next thrust stuttered off rhythm, strained.

And then, with a sharp curse swallowed into her skin, he froze.

Body shaking.

Chest heaving.

Drenched in sweat and lightning.

His arms caged around her like walls about to collapse.

Emily held him, heart pounding, the silence that followed louder than the storm outside. Her fingers wove into his hair, grounding him. She didn't say anything there were no words for what had just passed between them. Only breath. Only heartbeat. Only the echo of the storm that still rumbled inside him.

Emily reached out, her fingers trembling as they slid up the slick heat of his neck. The muscles beneath her palm were corded tight, like steel wrapped in fire, trembling with tension he could no longer restrain.

"Adrian…" she whispered, voice cracked from shock and sensation. "Come back."

But he didn't hear her not really.

His breath caught, a jagged intake that sounded more like a snarl than a sob. His body trembled over her, and for the briefest moment, his eyes flicked to hers wild, red-lit, far away. Not from her. From himself.

And then he moved.

Not gentler; harder.

A new thrust drove into her, deep, commanding, without hesitation. His body had answered something far older than reason. The tide hadn't broken it had risen higher, crashing over them both.

Emily gasped, not in protest, but in surrender.

This wasn't over.

His hands gripped her harder, dragging her beneath him as though anchoring her to the only real thing in a world that had gone feral. She felt it in his every movement he was no longer man alone. He was a storm made flesh, a creature of heat and hunger ruled by instinct, bound to her now in body and something deeper, darker.

And it wouldn't stop.

It didn't stop.

Minutes blurred into hours as his body moved against hers with relentless purpose. Every thrust was a command. Every snap of his hips a cry for grounding he couldn't find. He held her like a lifeline but moved like a force unchained. There was no space left for speech, only gasps, groans, skin against skin, soaked in sweat and heat.

Emily clung to him, at first out of shock, then necessity, and finally because something in her answered this. Matched it. Grew into it.

Her body adapted to his rhythm, her mind blurred with the pulse of it. She stopped thinking and started feeling raw and stripped down to instinct herself. His scent salt and heat and something elemental filled her nose, driving through her like wildfire.

Rain pounded on the windows, keeping rhythm with the storm inside the room. Candles had long since guttered out, leaving them in a dim, flickering half-light. Shadows danced across the walls like whispers of all they couldn't say.

She lost track of time.

Of how many times his hands rearranged her body to fit against him just right. Of how many times he took her with that brutal, desperate intensity as if each release only deepened his hunger rather than satisfied it.

His groans grew guttural, inhuman. At one point he buried his face in her shoulder, breath hot and ragged, his teeth grazing skin not to hurt, but to claim.

There was no end. Only waves.

And Emily, instead of recoiling, opened to him. Her limbs ached, her lungs burned, but she met every thrust, every storm surge, with quiet defiance. She had asked him to come back—but now, she realized, this was where he was. Somewhere between madness and need, and she could either fight it or meet him in the fire.

So she did.

Even as her body cried for rest, her heart held steady. Her hands stayed tangled in his hair, her lips brushed his neck, his jaw, his temple quiet touches in the eye of the hurricane. He didn't speak, only moved, deeper, harder, again.

Until near dawn, when his body finally began to slow. When his weight collapsed over her in a shuddering, breathless tremor. Sweat-slicked and spent, his breath came in short, uneven bursts, still haunted by whatever monster had hunted him through the night.

Still haunted by whatever monster had hunted him through the night, Adrian's body trembled against hers, his heart pounding like a wild drum pressed close to her own.

Emily curled her arms around his sweat-slicked form, drawing him in as if holding him together. For a long while, there was nothing but silence save the soft tap of rain against the window and the creak of the bed beneath their tangled limbs.

Slowly, exhaustion claimed them both.

His breath evened, warm and steady against her skin. Her fingers traced absent patterns across his back, soothing, grounding them both.

The storm outside softened to a whisper, the world outside slipping away.

And finally, without words or promises, they surrendered to the quiet pull of sleep safe, tangled, and still together in the fragile calm after the storm.