I hold her gaze, let her see everything I feel, and sink forward, slow, relentless, watching her eyes flutter and her lips part on a shattered gasp as I breach her, inch by scorching inch.
She’s molten, velvet-tight, fluttering around every ridge of my cock until I’m seated to the hilt and we’re both shaking. Her head falls back, throat exposed, and I can’t resist—I drag my tongue up the column of her neck, tasting salt and want, then bite down on the spot that makes her clench hard around me.
I start to move.
Slow, deep strokes at first, dragging almost all the way out until only the head kisses her entrance, then sinking back in until my pelvis grinds against her clit. Every thrust draws a broken sound from her throat—soft at first, then louder, filthier, until she’s moaning my name like a chant. The mattress squeaks beneath us, raw and honest, the sound of two people finally claiming the life they fought for.
Her nails rake down my back, scoring skin, and I hiss, snapping my hips harder. The new angle drags the head of my cock over that spot inside her and she screams—short, sharp, desperate—legs locking tighter around my waist.
“Look at me,” I growl, because I need to see it when she falls apart in the place she chose, the place we’re making ours.
Her eyes flutter open, glassy and dark with pleasure, and lock on mine. I drive into her with everything I have—slow, filthy rolls of my hips that grind her clit on every downstroke, then hard, punishing thrusts that punch the air from her lungs. Sweat beads between her breasts; I lick it off, tasting us both.
“Jax—I’m—” The words fracture as her body goes rigid beneath me, pussy clamping down in long, milking waves. She comes with my name torn from her lips, back arched so high only her shoulders and hips touch the mattress, and the sight of her—head pressed into the mattress, mouth open in a silent scream, golden light painting every trembling curve—rips my own orgasm from me like a riptide.
I bury myself deep and let go, pulsing inside her in thick, endless jets, groaning her name against her throat as pleasure whites out everything else. We stay locked together, shaking, hearts hammering against each other, until the aftershocks fade and the only sound is our ragged breathing and the soft creak of the mattress beneath us.
I press my forehead to hers, still inside her, still home.
“I love you, Lana” I whisper against her swollen lips.
She smiles—slow, sated, radiant—and kisses me soft and deep.
“Love you back. Now let’s break this mattress in properly… all night long.”
For a long moment we just exist together—hearts pounding in matched time, bodies still joined, the world narrowed down to skin and sweat and shared breathing. Then I roll us onto our sides, keep her close, and she curls into me like she belongs there.
"Welcome home," I whisper against her hair.
She laughs, the sound carrying relief and joy and something that feels like hope. "Our home."
"Our home," I agree.
Outside, the sun is setting over Miramont, painting her windows in shades of amber and rose. Inside, we're building something that's entirely ours—messy and complicated and worth every risk we took to get here.
We lie there until the light fades, until the room fills with the purple-blue of dusk, until our breathing returns to normal and the sweat cools on our skin. Eventually she shifts against me, runs her fingers through my hair with lazy affection.
"We should probably unpack at some point," she says, voice still rough from exertion. "Or at least find the box with the sheets."
"Sheets are overrated." I pull her closer, pressing a kiss to her temple. "This works fine."
"Says the man who isn't going to wake up with mattress imprints on his face." But she's smiling, I can hear it in her voice. "Though I suppose we could just stay here forever. Order takeout, ignore the boxes, pretend the outside world doesn't exist."
"Tempting." I trace patterns on her bare shoulder, feeling her relax further into my touch. "But tomorrow we have to call Agent Reeves. Start the process of actually eliminating The Glasshouse instead of just surviving their attempts."
Her body tenses slightly at the reminder. "I know. I want to. But right now, I just want to be here with you. In this apartment. Building something meaningful."
"Then that's what we do." I shift so I can see her face. "Tonight is ours. Tomorrow we deal with federal investigations and protective custody and dismantling criminal organizations. But tonight, we're just two people unpacking boxes in an empty apartment."
She kisses me, soft and lingering.
We eventually drag ourselves out of bed when hunger becomes impossible to ignore. I find my jeans while she pulls on my discarded shirt, and we navigate through boxes to the kitchen where we discover we have exactly zero food and no dishes to eat it on anyway.
"Pizza?" she suggests, already pulling out her phone.
"Pizza works."
We order from a place that delivers to her new building, then spend the next forty minutes locating the box with plates and silverware while wearing minimal clothing and stealing kisses between unpacking attempts. It's domestic in ways I've never experienced—this comfortable chaos of building a home together, this easy intimacy that comes from choosing each other without crisis forcing our hand.
