One second I’m blinking at the sudden movement, the next her lips are stretched around me, taking me deep in a single slick glide. My hands fist in her hair as she hollows her cheeks and sucks—hard, perfect, filthy.
She looks up at me through her lashes, eyes dark with lust, and hums around my cock. The vibration shoots straight to my balls. She works me with her mouth and hand in tandem, tongue swirling the underside, lips sliding down until I hit the back of her throat and she swallows around me.
I’m already dangerously close when she pulls off with a wet pop, lips swollen and shiny, and whispers, “Take me on the counter. Now.”
I scoop her up immediately, one arm under her knees, the other cradling her back, and she laughs, breathless and delighted, arms looping around my neck. Two steps and I set her on the cold granite edge. She hisses at the shock of it against her bare ass, then spreads her thighs wide and drags me between them.
I fist myself, drag the head through her soaked folds, coating myself in her. She whimpers every time I nudge her clit, hips rolling greedily. I notch at her entrance and pause, just long enough for her to feel the stretch of the head breaching her, then sink into the hilt in one slow, relentless thrust.
We both groan.
She’s molten heat wrapped around me, so impossibly tight every inch of her pulses and grips like she was forged for my cock alone. I drag myself out slowly, savoring the wet drag of her walls trying to keep me inside, then slam back in, hard and deep.
The impact rips a sharp cry from her throat and sends white-hot pleasure streaking up my spine, flooding every nerve until my vision blurs at the edges. Again, and again, I set a relentless rhythm, each thrust driving us higher, the slick sound of our bodies colliding echoing through the sunlit kitchen like the only music we’ll ever need.
Her legs lock around my hips, heels digging into my ass, urging me deeper. I shove the shirt up to her neck, mouth closing over one nipple, sucking hard while my thumb finds her clit and circles in tight, ruthless strokes.
“Jax—fuck—right there—”
Her nails rake down my back as she gets close again, pussy fluttering around my cock. I angle my hips to hit that spot inside her that makes her scream, and she shatters—comingwith a sharp cry, body arching off the counter, inner walls milking me in long, greedy pulses.
I follow her over a heartbeat later, slamming deep and spilling inside her with a guttural groan, hips jerking through every wave of release until we’re both shaking and breathless.
I stay buried inside her, forehead pressed to hers, our ragged breathing the only sound in the sunlit kitchen.
She smiles against my lips, lazy and sated.
I laugh, low and wrecked, and kiss her slow and deep.
“Best Tuesday ever.”
We stay connected, embracing each other for a long moment, hearts racing in matched time, her legs still wrapped around my hips while we both come down from the high. Then I ease out of her carefully, help her down from the counter, and we stand there in our kitchen, half naked, sweaty, thoroughly satisfied, like two people who've earned the right to be exactly this comfortable with each other.
We clean up with the kind of easy intimacy that comes from knowing each other's bodies, from choosing vulnerability repeatedly until it becomes second nature. She pulls my shirt back on while I retrieve our discarded clothes, and we migrate back to our respective work stations like the interruption was just another part of a normal Tuesday morning.
Because it is. This is what normal looks like for us now, foundation work and security proposals punctuated by spontaneous sex, domestic routines layered with the kind of intimacy that can only exist when you've confessed your worst sins and been forgiven anyway.
By noon, we're both hungry for actual food. I make sandwiches, and we eat standing at the same counter we just christened, stealing kisses between bites and discussing thefoundation event next week like the well-adjusted couple we're working on becoming.
"The keynote speech is mostly written," she says, wiping mustard from the corner of her mouth. "I'm going to talk about the expansion, announce the new programs, and then share some statistics about how many women we've helped in the first eight months. Solange thinks I should also tell part of my story—not all the details, but enough that people understand why this work matters personally."
"Will you mention Gabriel?" I ask, because that's always the question with public appearances. How much of her dead husband's legacy does she acknowledge, and how much does she let fade into the background of a narrative that's become about her survival rather than his control.
"I have to mention him. The foundation bears his name, uses his money. But I'm framing it as transformation—how his death freed resources that are now helping other women escape similar situations. People don't need to know he was abusive. They just need to know that something good came from something tragic."
It's a careful balance she's been walking since the foundation launched—honoring Gabriel's memory enough to maintain credibility with donors who knew him, while also establishing her own identity as someone who's building something meaningful with the inheritance she received. The truth of their marriage stays mostly private, shared only with people like me and Solange and Dr. Cross who need to understand the full context.
"You'll be magnificent," I tell her, meaning it. "You've been practicing that balance for months now. The speech will just be another performance, except this time you're performing the strength you actually feel instead of pretending."
She reaches for my hand, laces our fingers together. "Will you help me practice? Later this week? I want to run through the speech in front of someone who knows the whole truth, who can tell me if I'm revealing too much or not enough."
"Of course." I squeeze her hand gently. "Whenever you're ready."
We finish lunch, clean up the kitchen with the kind of choreographed efficiency that comes from living together long enough to establish routines, and then return to our work. The afternoon passes in comfortable parallel activity—me finalizing the security proposal, her reviewing more foundation applications and coordinating with Solange about next week's event plans.
This is triumph. This is what winning looks like when you survive long enough to claim it.
EPILOGUE: LANA
