Daphne’s POV
I should push him away. Should slap him, scream at him, maintain the anger that's been my armor for weeks. The anger that's kept me safe, kept me from falling apart completely, kept me from having to face the impossibility of loving and hating the same person with equal intensity.
Instead, I kiss him back.
My hands fist in his shirt, crumpling the expensive fabric, pulling him closer even as part of my brain screams that this doesn't fix anything. This doesn't erase the choice he made. Doesn't give me back the trust he destroyed. Doesn't change the fact that every time I look at Hope, I see the daughter he was willing to let die.
But God, I've missed this. Missed him. Missed the feeling of his mouth on mine, the way his hands know exactly where to touch, the solid warmth of his body against mine. Missed being allowed to want him without guilt or grief or the terrible distance we've been maintaining.
His kiss is desperate, almost violent in its intensity. Not the careful, tentative touches he's been giving me for weeks—those soft attempts at connection that I've been rejecting.
This is raw and hungry and full of weeks of frustration and longing. His tongue sweeps into my mouth, and I respond with equal desperation, my fingers tangling in his hair, pulling hard enough that he groans against my lips.
Without breaking the kiss, Xander lifts me. I wrap my legs around his waist instinctively, the emerald gown riding up my thighs, and he carries me back toward the car.
The few steps feel like miles, every second an eternity where I might come to my senses and stop this before we cross a line we can't uncross.
But I don't want to stop. Don't want to think. Don't want to be the careful, measured woman who's been protecting herself by keeping him at arm's length.
He lowers me onto the hood of the car, and the metal is cool through the thin silk of my dress, shocking against my overheated skin. His body is warm and solid above me, blocking out the streetlights, the empty road, everything except this moment and this need.
His mouth moves from my lips to my jaw, trailing kisses along the line of bone, then down to my throat. I arch into him, my head falling back, exposing the vulnerable column of my neck. His teeth graze my pulse point, and I gasp, my hands clutching at his shoulders for purchase.
All the walls I've built over the past weeks crumble like they were made of sand. The careful distance, the protective anger, the fortress I constructed around my heart—it all dissolves under the heat of his mouth, the weight of his body, the desperate need consuming us both.
"Daphne," he breathes against my skin, my name a prayer or a plea or maybe just confirmation that this is real, that I'm letting him touch me again.
I don't answer. Can't form words. Just pull him closer, my hands sliding under his jacket, pushing it off his shoulders. He helps, shrugging out of it without lifting his mouth from my throat, and the jacket falls forgotten to the asphalt.
There's no one here. No twins asking why Daddy's sleeping in a different room. No Hope needing to be fed every two hours. No Margaret and Robert tiptoeing around the tension. No impossible choices hanging in the air between us. Just us and the dark and the desperate need to remember what we were before everything broke.
Xander's hands slide up my thighs, pushing the dress higher. The silk whispers against my skin, bunching at my waist. His fingers trace patterns on my inner thighs, teasing, making me squirm against the cool metal of the hood.
"Please," I hear myself say, the word escaping before I can stop it.
His eyes meet mine, dark and intense in the orange glow of the streetlight. "Are you sure?"
Instead of answering, I reach for his belt. My fingers fumble with the buckle, clumsy with need and the awkward angle. He helps, his hands covering mine, and together we get it undone.
I should care that we're on the side of the road, that anyone could drive past, that the dress probably costs more than some people's monthly salary and I'm about to ruin it. But I don't. Can't think beyond the feeling of his hands on my skin, the way my body responds to his touch like no time has passed at all.
When his fingers hook into the waistband of my underwear, I lift my hips without being asked. He slides them down and off, the lace disappearing into his pocket, and I'm already trembling before he's even touched me properly.
"I love you," he says roughly, his forehead pressing against mine. "God, Daphne, I love you so much."
The words should anger me. Should remind me of all the reasons I've been holding him at distance. Instead they break something loose in my chest, and I pull him down for another kiss that tastes like tears—mine or his, I can't tell anymore.
When he enters me, we both gasp. The sensation is overwhelming—fullness and friction and connection so intense it borders on painful. He stills for a moment, giving me time to adjust, but I don't want gentle or careful. Don't want time to think about what this means or whether we should be doing this.
I wrap my legs tighter around his waist, urging him deeper, and he gets the message. Starts to move with a rhythm that's raw and passionate and nothing gentle about it. The car hood squeaks beneath us. My dress is definitely ruined. I don't care.
This is anger and grief and love all tangled together, too intense to separate. Every thrust carries weeks of frustration, months of fear, years of devotion. He's holding me like I might disappear if he lets go, and I'm clinging to him like he's the only solid thing in a world that won't stop tilting.
For the first time in weeks, I let myself feel everything. The love I've been trying to suppress. The anger I've been using as armor. The grief that has nowhere to go. The desperate need for this connection that I've been denying us both.
"Yes," I gasp when he hits a spot that makes stars burst behind my eyelids. "God, yes…"
His mouth finds mine again, swallowing my sounds, and I don't hold back. Don't try to be quiet or controlled or anything except exactly what I am in this moment—a woman falling apart in her husband's arms, breaking and being held together simultaneously.
When I come, it's intense and shattering, pleasure mixed with something that feels almost like grief. I cry out against his mouth, and he follows moments later, my name on his lips, his whole body shuddering with release.
After, we stay pressed together, breathing hard, neither of us speaking. His forehead rests against mine, our breath mingling in the small space between us. My legs are still wrapped around his waist, his hands still gripping my hips, both of us unwilling to separate even as reality starts creeping back in.
Because talking means facing what this means. Means acknowledging that we just had desperate sex on the hood of a car like teenagers instead of the adults with three children and a fractured marriage we actually are. Means deciding if this changes anything or if it was just a moment of weakness that we'll both regret in the morning.
Neither of us is ready for that conversation.
So we just stay like this—pressed together under streetlights on an empty road, breathing each other's air, pretending we have a few more moments before we have to face what comes next.