Soap pushes inside her.
The thick head of his cock breaches her, and it’s a fight. Her body is impossibly tight, a fierce, clenching heat that resists him even after his fingers had worked her open. He has to use a steady, deliberate force, his hips driving forward just enough to seat himself fully within that first ring of muscle.
He stops there, buried only an inch deep.
A sharp, bitten-off sound escapes Sam’s throat. Her eyes, wide and green, fly open. Her hands, which had been gripping his shoulders, go rigid. Her whole body locks around him, a vise of sudden, shocking pain.
“Breathe, Sam,” Soap murmurs, his voice a low, strained rasp against her temple. His own muscles are corded with the effort of holding perfectly still. Sweat beads along his spine. “Just breathe through it, lass. I’ve got ye.”
She sucks in a ragged gasp, her chest shuddering against his. The pain is a bright, white line drawn through the center of her. It’s more than she’d braced for. It’s a claiming.
He waits, his breath hot on her skin, until he feels the terrible tension in her thighs begin to ease by a fraction. Her grip on his shoulders loosens from a death-hold to something merely desperate.
“Alright?” he asks, the word gravel.
She gives a tiny, jerky nod against the cot. Her eyes are squeezed shut again.
He moves then, a slow, relentless press forward. Another inch. The stretch is brutal, exquisite. She whimpers, the sound small and broken in the concrete room.
He freezes instantly. “Sam.”
“It’s… a lot,” she manages, her voice thin.
“I know.” He kisses her shoulder, a damp press of lips. He waits again, counting her breaths, feeling the frantic flutter of her pulse under his mouth. The heat of her is overwhelming. She’s so tight he can feel every ridge, every vein of his own cock screaming for relief.
He pushes again. Another inch. Another sharp gasp from her, this one edged with a sob. He stops, his own control fraying. This piecemeal invasion is its own kind of torture for them both—a drawn-out series of shocks.
Soap lifts his head, catching her gaze. Her eyes are glazed, swimming with pain and a dazed trust that cuts him deeper than any bullet. “Sam,” he says, his brogue softening. “Listen. This… goin’ slow like this. It’s just makin’ it harder for ye. Draggin’ it out.”
She stares up at him, uncomprehending.
“If I do it once,” he continues, holding her eyes, his voice utterly serious now. “One hard push. It’ll be faster. The pain… it’ll be over quicker. Ye can get past it. But I need ye to say yes. I willnae move another inch without it.”
Her breath hitches. She searches his face, looking for the tease, the joke. She finds none. Only a stark, focused intensity. The soldier assessing the most efficient path through hostile terrain.
She gives a small, uncertain nod.
“Say it,” he insists, his thumb brushing her cheekbone.
“Yes,” she whispers.
He doesn’t hesitate. He drives forward in one solid, powerful thrust, burying himself to the hilt inside her.
The sound she makes is punched out of her—a choked cry that echoes off the concrete. Her body arches, a bowstring pulled taut, and for a second he thinks she might shatter. He is everywhere, a fullness so complete it borders on violation. He is lodged deep within her, a foreign, burning pressure that reshapes her from the inside.
He goes utterly still, his whole world narrowed to the feel of her clamped around him, to the ragged sobs of air she’s dragging into her lungs. He doesn’t move. He just lets her feel it—the sheer, shocking reality of him.
Slowly, her gaze drops from his face, down the length of their joined bodies. She looks at her own stomach, flat and taut. There, just below her navel, is a slight, distinct bulge. The shape of him, inside her.
Her breath stops. Her eyes widen, not with pain now, but with a stunned, visceral understanding. That’s him. That’s Soap. That thick, hard length stretching her is right there, under her skin.
“Christ,” she breathes, the word full of awe and agony.
“Look at me,” Soap says, his voice rough. She drags her eyes back to his. “Just breathe, Sam. Let it settle. I’m not movin’.”
He stays like that, buried to the root, for what feels like years. He watches the pain etch lines beside her mouth, then slowly, slowly, begin to smooth. He feels the iron grip of her inner muscles start to relax, not release, but accept. The burning stretch mellows into a deep, pervasive ache.
Her hands creep back up to his shoulders. Her fingers curl into his skin, not to push him away, but to hold on.
Finally, a long, trembling sigh leaves her lips. Her body sinks back into the thin cot, yielding. The worst of it is over.
Soap presses his forehead to hers, his own exhale shuddering. “Good lass,” he murmurs. “Now… we breathe together.”