I start to move.
Slow at first. Rolling my hips in a rhythm I control, watching his face, cataloging every reaction. The way his breath stutters when I clench around him. The way his fingers spasm against my skin when I rise up and sink back down. The way he's looking at me like I'm the only thing in the world that matters.
"I love you," I say. "I need you to hear it again. I need you to believe it."
"Fleur—" His voice is wrecked.
"I do." I keep moving. Keep riding him, slow and deliberate. "I love you. And I'm not going anywhere. No matter what happens tomorrow." I lean in, press my forehead to his. "You're stuck with me."
"Good." The word tears out of him. His hips buck up to meet mine, and I gasp. "I love you. Fucking terrifies me, but I do."
I kiss him, swallowing the words, and start moving faster.
He matches my rhythm. His hands slide from my hips to my ass, gripping hard, helping me rise and fall. The angle shifts and suddenly he's hitting a spot inside me that makes sparks shoot up my spine.
"There," I gasp. "There, don't stop?—"
"Never." He thrusts up harder, and I cry out. "Never stopping. You're mine. Say it."
"Yours." It comes out broken. "I'm yours."
"And I'm yours." Another thrust. Deeper. "First thing that's been mine in fifteen years. First thing that matters. Only thing."
The pressure builds. Different than last night—less frantic, more inevitable. Like a tide coming in. I can feel it gathering at the base of my spine, spreading through my limbs, winding tighter with every roll of my hips.
"I'm close," I breathe.
"I know. I can feel it." His hand slides between us, thumb finding my clit. "Let go. I want to watch you. Want to feel you fall apart on me."
His thumb circles once. Twice.
I shatter.
The orgasm tears through me—my back arching, my fingers digging into his shoulders, his name spilling from my lips. And he watches all of it. Takes all of it. Keeps thrusting through my release until his own hits him, until he's groaning into my neck and spilling inside me and holding me so tight I can't tell where I end and he begins.
We stay like that for a long time.
Tangled together. Still connected. His face buried in my hair, my cheek pressed to his shoulder, both of us shaking with aftershocks and something bigger than either of us knows how to name.
After, we lie in his bed, my head on his chest, his fingers tracing absent patterns on my back.
"Come back to me," I say quietly. "Whatever you have to do tomorrow. Just come back."
His arms tighten around me.
"I will," he says. And the way he says it—certain, absolute—I believe him.
For the first time since I ran from that wedding, I let myself imagine a future.
CHAPTER 6
GRIM
Fix calls at 7 AM.
I'm already awake—haven't slept, actually, just spent the night with Fleur curled against me, her breath warm on my chest, while I stared at the ceiling and ran through scenarios. None of them good. All of them ending in blood.
I ease out of bed without waking her. Step into the hallway. Answer on the third ring.
