“That’s it,” he growls, “fuck me like you mean it.”
My pussy clenches, the heat overwhelming, and I lose it, another orgasm ripping through me, my walls wrapping around him as I cry out. I collapse against his chest, panting, my body trembling with bliss.
He flips us gently back into that perfect position of his body covering mine, always careful of his wound.
“I love you,” he whispers, thrusting slow and deep, his cock filling me as his eyes hold mine. I wrap my arms around him, legs locked around his waist, pulling him closer.
“I love you too,” I say, voice breaking with emotion. We move together, tender but raw, his shaft dragging against my walls, building that final, perfect pressure.
“Come with me,” he murmurs. We climb together, his thrusts quickening, my pussy tightening around him. We shatter as one, his release hot inside me, my orgasm pulsing through every nerve, our cries mingling as we cling to each other.
He collapses beside me and pulls me into his arms, my head on his chest, his heartbeat steady under my cheek. I’m boneless and sated, exhaustion creeping in, surprising me.
“I’m ready for a nap,” I laugh softly, tracing the edge of his bandage.
“Then sleep, angel. I’m not going anywhere.”
As sleep pulls at me, I think of Clara downstairs, healing and safe, though there are still dangers lurking beyond these walls.
Damien’s love is a fortress, his body a shield, but even he can’t stop every threat. I’ll rest now, wrapped in his warmth, but tomorrow, I’ll sharpen my own edges—for our baby, for Clara, for the life we’re building.
EPILOGUE I
DAMIEN
Eight months later…
Our private hospital suite is perfect—dim lighting, the autumn sun shining through the window, monitors humming. Fresh flowers making the place smell more like a home than it has any right to.
Cassandra sleeps but not deeply—drifting, surfacing, drifting again. Her hair sticks to her temples, her skin damp and flushed, and she’s never looked more alive to me. I’ve seen her scared, furious, and stubborn. I’ve seen her laughing and joyous. I’ve seen her break and remake herself in the span of an hour.
This is different. This is a fire banked to embers, throwing steady heat.
I’m standing with a bundle in my arms I don’t deserve. Our daughter, Sasha, is small and fierce, loud when she decides to be. Now she’s quiet, eyes closed, mouth making the tiniest pouty face. She’s wearing a hat with ties that make her look like a very serious elf.
The nurse showed me how to hold her—support the head, keep the blanket tight. My hands are steady. The rest of me is not.
“Look at me,” I tell her. She doesn’t, of course, because she is one hour old and right now her job is to sleep. The world narrows to her breathing, to the warm weight of her against my forearms, to the small fist that opens and closes, catching the edge of the blanket.
I keep thinking about everything that should have stopped us. The contract. The war. Ivan and his vengeance, being shot. Then I think about Cassandra giving birth, and the tide goes back out. The noise in my head stops. This child rewrites it all.
We are here. We won.
With Ivan gone, the old men who fed his fire remembered their places—and their mortality. Half fled New York before the ink dried on his autopsy. The other half sent tributes in neat stacks—cash, favors, shares—apologies folded into numbers.
They want absolution and a seat at whatever table I build as I turn this thing legal.
I haven’t decided yet what to do with them. If I’m going to be legitimate, I’ll have to play nice—draft truces, shake hands I’d rather break. Maybe I’ll make them sweat first, send a little message that the only reason they exist is because, as a new father, I have temporarily lost the taste for war.
Then, when I’m ready, I’ll choose who gets a chair and who has more work to do.
But those are decisions for another time.
Cassandra stirs and opens her eyes, finding me with a smile so certain it lands in my chest like a key. I walk to her and leandown, kissing her forehead. She lifts a hand to my cheek and keeps it there for a second, as if checking that I’m real.
“How do you feel?” I ask.
“Like a train ran me over and then backed up and did it again,” she says. Her voice is thin but happy. “How do you feel?”
