I push inside her in one smooth thrust.
We move together in the early morning light, and the sounds of our bodies slapping against each other fill the studio.She matches my rhythm, meeting each thrust with a roll of her hips, her moans echoing off the walls.
“More,” she demands, looking over her shoulder at me.“Harder.”
I give her what she asks for.What she needs.What I need too.
“Shelby!”she screams as her body trembles beneath mine.
“Serena,” I growl in response, my cock pulsing deep inside her.
We crest together, her inner walls clenching around me, pulling me deeper as we ride out the waves together.Afterward, we lie tangled together on the leather couch, slick with sweat and satisfaction.Her head rests on my chest, her fingers tracing the tattoos on my ribs.My hand strokes down the length of her spine, marveling at the softness of her skin.
The portrait watches us from across the room—unfinished, imperfect, but somehow more real for its incompleteness.
“I’m terrified of this.”The words slip out before I can stop them.“I’m falling for you too hard and too fast.I don’t know how to stop it.I’m not sure I want to.”
Serena stills against me, quiet for a long moment.When she speaks, her voice is soft but steady.“So am I.”She lifts her head to look at me, her eyes reflecting the golden morning light.“Terrified, I mean.This wasn’t supposed to happen.And now...”
“And now?”
She takes a deep breath.“And now I think I want to be terrified with you.I don’t want to do this alone anymore, Shelby.Whatever this is, I want to face it together.”
Her words pierce something in my chest.Something I thought I’d buried in Syria, along with all my other hopes and dreams.
This is what happiness feels like.
The realization crashes over me like a wave.For so long, I convinced myself that happiness wasn’t meant for men like me.That the darkness inside me was too bleak, and the failures too catastrophic.I believed that everyone I cared about would end up hurt or dead.
But looking at Serena now, with the morning light gilding her features and her heart laid bare before me, I understand that I could build a life with her.
Not despite who we are, but because of it.She understands the darkness.She’s lived in shadows her whole life, trapped between a manipulative father and a world that wanted to use her for her bloodline.She knows what it means to fight for survival, to make impossible choices, to carry the weight of family obligations that threaten to crush you.
I pull her close and kiss her forehead.
“Whatever comes next,” I say against her hair, “we’re together.You and me.”
She smiles against my chest.“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Outside the skylights, the sun climbs higher.Soon, we’ll return to the war, to the trafficking ring we’ve sworn to destroy.The darkness will come for us again, as it always does.
But right now, in this studio that I’d abandoned for years, surrounded by paintings and the lingering scent of lovemaking, I allow myself to hope.
Hope that the ghosts don’t have to win.
Hope that this woman, who understands the darkness, keeps choosing me.
Maybe that’s all I need to ask for.
21
Serena
The private jet lifts off from Boston’s Hanscom Field just as the sun begins its descent, painting the sky in streaks of amber and rose.I sink into the cream leather seat and watch the city shrink beneath us, feeling something in my chest loosen with each mile we put between ourselves and everything waiting for us on the ground.
My father’s trafficking ring.The investigation that consumes our waking hours.The Syndicate’s rules that loom over my family’s future.
