"In your nightstand drawer."
I laughed—slightly hysterical but genuine. "You hoped this would happen."
"I hoped to be prepared if it did." He watched me retrieve one, roll it on him with hands that shook only slightly. "Still good?"
"Still terrified." I positioned myself again. "But the good kind. I think."
"Take your time."
I sank down slowly, inch by careful inch, cataloguing how different it felt when I chose the angle, the speed, the everything. Nathan's hands clenched on my hips but didn't guide, didn't rush, didn't take control.
"Oh," I breathed when he was fully inside. "This is—"
"Tell me."
"Mine." I rolled my hips experimentally. "This is mine. My choice, my pace, my—oh god."
"That's it." His voice had gone rough, but his hands stayed gentle. "Take what you need."
I found a rhythm that belonged to no training, no performance, no purpose except pleasure. Nathan watched me with something like awe, letting me use his body for my own discovery.
"You're in control," he said when I faltered. "This is yours. You're in control now."
The words broke something else in me, some last wall Gabriel had built. I moved faster, chasing a feeling that was entirely mine, tears streaming down my face from the terrible freedom of it.
"I'm—again—Nathan—"
"Yes." His thumb found where we joined, adding sensation that made me keen. "Come for me. Because you want to. Because you choose to."
I shattered, the orgasm different from the first—deeper, fuller, earned through my own agency. Nathan followed, my name on his lips like a prayer instead of ownership.
I collapsed against his chest, shaking. He held me, still inside me, stroking my back as I pieced myself back together in a new configuration.
"I did that," I whispered.
"You did."
"I chose that."
"You did."
"It was mine."
"It was." He pressed a kiss to my temple. "How are you feeling?"
"Like a person." The words came out wondering. "Like a real person who gets to want things and have them. Is this what normal people feel?"
"I don't know about normal. But it's what you deserve to feel."
I pulled back to see his face. "We have to kill people in three hours."
"We do." He smiled slightly. "But that doesn't negate this. You get to be both—the weapon and the woman. The killer and the person who deserves gentle mornings."
"Gabriel would hate this."
"Good." He traced my spine. "What do you need now?"
"A shower. Food. Maybe more crying." I considered. "And to lie here for just a few more minutes, feeling like I own my own body."
