Lily Lang by The Last Time We Met

against her own. He breathed heavily as he pressed his face against her shoulder.
    “Are you sure, Miranda?” he asked. She stroked his hair and it must have been her voice that said yes and yes and yes .
    Then he lifted her hips between his large hands, he settled himself on his knees between her legs. She felt the hard length of him against her thighs, and though in the small part of her brain still functioning she thought she ought to be afraid, or hesitant, or nervous, she felt nothing but desire.
    He held himself at the opening of her body for a moment. Then he leaned down and kissed her, a kiss she could sink into, a kiss she could drown in, and then slowly, his gaze never leaving hers, he thrust himself inside her.
    She could not quite muffle a sound of pain. He cursed. His face was flushed, his eyes half closed as he held himself rigid above her. A trickle of sweat ran down his forehead, and she reached up and brushed back a damp lock of his hair.
    “It’s all right,” she whispered. “It’s all right.”
    He said her name and thrusted, his hips pounding heavily against hers. She held him close, stroked his back, whispered soothing, meaningless words to him. She was beyond pain, beyond fear, beyond even desire. All she wanted was for him to make her whole again, to fill the empty places in her heart that marked all the losses she had ever known.
    After awhile, the pain receded, and when it had gone the desire returned, a hot, luscious thing suffusing her entire body. He moved more quickly now, his breath hissing out rapidly from between his clenched teeth.
    Thrust for thrust, breath for breath, she matched him, until her head tossed on the pillow and she said his name on breathless pants. He bent his head and kissed her, and was still kissing her when she arched and cried out her release.
    Above her, he made a hoarse sound deep in his throat and went very still, holding her so tightly she could not breathe. She cradled his head against her shoulder and stroked him gently, trying to tell him with her touch what she could not say aloud.
    She loved him. She had never stopped loving him.
    She held him close as his breathing finally slowed and the sweat dried on his back. They did not speak. After a while he rolled off of her and got to his feet, leaving her feeling bereft and alone. But he merely went to his washstand and wet a handkerchief to bring back to her. He cleaned her tenderly, then he climbed in beside her and drew her once again into his arms, his large biceps bulging as he wrapped them closely around her.
    For a long while they were silent. Miranda, resting her head against his chest, listened to the slow, steady beat of his heart and felt a bone-deep contentment she had not known since childhood. She had no wish to sleep, needing only to savor this moment. He had made her his, and for this one perfect, evanescent space in time, he was hers as well.
    Not wishing to destroy the peace of the moment, but needing to know, she asked in a low tone, “How did you escape the hulks?”
    Behind her, he tensed, while his arms loosened around her. For a moment she thought he would not respond.
    “I had been in the hulks for two years,” he said at last. “It was two years of hell I shall never forget.”
    “Tell me.”
    “It isn’t fit for your ears.”
    “If you could live through it, I can stand to hear about it.”
    “You can’t imagine what it was like,” he said after another moment. “The darkness, the filth, the stench, the God awful everlasting gnawing of the rats. There were constant outbreaks of typhus and cholera. During the day we were put to hard labor on the docks; at night we were chained to our bunks to prevent escape. We were constantly being flogged or placed in heavy irons for the most trivial offenses. There was never anything to eat or drink.”
    She made a small sound and pressed a kiss to the biceps that encircled her. She felt his arms tighten around her.
    “Then, one night,