That snapped the last thread.
I shattered.
The orgasm hit me like a physical blow, arching my back off the mattress. My inner muscles clamped down around his cock, milking him, spasming in waves of pleasure so intense they bordered on pain. I cried out his name, over and over, clawing at his back, leaving marks I knew would bruise.
Xavier roared.
The control he’d been holding onto with white-knuckled grip evaporated. He drove into me. Hard, fast, frantic. Chasing his own release. Head fell back, the cords of his neck standing out starkly against the shadows.
He thrust one. Twice. Three times, brutal and deep.
Then he stiffened, his whole body turning to granite against me.
“Clare.” The word tore its way out of him, clear and loud.
And then, as he poured himself into me, shaking with the force of it, he spoke again.
“Need... you.”
I held him tight, tears streaming down my face, something breaking and healing all at once.
“Love... you.”
The words hit me harder than the orgasm had.
He collapsed against me, his weight crushing me into the mattress, but he didn’t stop. He pressed his face into the erratic pulse at my neck, heaving, body trembling with aftershocks.
“Promise,” he gasped into my skin. “Promise.”
To come back. To survive. To be mine.
I wrapped my arms around his head, burying my fingers in his sweat-damp hair. I held him as tight as I could, silently daring the universe to try and rip him away from me.
“I love you,” I whispered, the confession tasting like salt and iron. “I love you, Xavier.”
We lay there as the sweat dried on our skin, turning cold in the drafty room. Xavier shifted only enough to pull the duvet up over us, creating a warm, dark cocoon against the world.
He rolled to his side, pulling me back against his torso. Draped his arm over my waist, heavy and solid. An anchor. His legs tangled with mine.
The silence returned, but it wasn’t empty this time. It was filled with the steady, reassuring thump of his pulse against my back.
I prioritized that sound. I focused on it. I let it be the only thing in the universe.
“Tomorrow...” I whispered, the dread trying to creep back in now that the endorphins were fading.
Xavier’s arm tightened across my stomach. He pressed a kiss to the bare skin of my shoulder.
“Tomorrow,” he rasped, the word vibrating through my spine. “But... tonight... yours.”
Mine.
Just for tonight, he was mine. The mission didn’t exist. Oblivion didn’t exist. The two-week deadline was a problem for future Clare. Present Clare had this warmth. This weight. This man.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Okay.”
His breathing evened out slowly, shifting into the deep, rhythmic pattern of sleep. His palm stayed splayed possessively across my stomach.
I stared into the darkness, listening to the old school groan as the wind hit the roof. Dawn was coming. I could feel it, a subtle shift in the quality of the darkness, a graying at the edges of the window frame.
