"Touch me," she demands. "Make me—"
I don't need to be told twice. My hand slides between us, finding where she's swollen and sensitive, and I circle her with my thumb in time with her movements. She cries out, movements stuttering, getting desperate.
"That's it," I coax, watching her face. "Take it. Fucking take it, love."
"Oh God—Finn—"
"Not God," I rasp. "Just me. Just your husband. Just the man who'd kill anyone who tries to touch what's mine."
That does it. That mixture of possession and violence and love—it's always been our language. She comes apart with a shout, whole body going taut, and Christ, the way she looks—head thrown back, throat exposed, tits heaving, completely lost in it—it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
When she comes again, it's with her hands braced on my chest and my name torn from her throat. When I follow, it's with my fingers bruising her hips and the knowledge that this—this violent, beautiful, blood-soaked love—is what we've been fighting for all along.
The fire burns low. The night stretches long. And we take back everything—with teeth and hands and the kind of hunger that doesn't apologize. By the time dawn threatens the windows, we're exhausted. Marked. Claimed. Hers. Mine. Ours.
She collapses beside me, breathing hard, and I pull her against my chest. My hand slides down to rest on her hip, thumb tracing lazy circles over a fresh mark.
"You're staying right here," I murmur into her hair.
"Wasn't planning on going anywhere," she says, voice rough and satisfied.
"Good." I kiss her temple. Her cheek. The corner of her mouth. "Because I'm not done with you yet."
She laughs—soft and wicked—and I feel it all the way through me.
"Good," she echoes. "Neither am I."
We lie there a long while after, the city breathing around us. Belfast never really sleeps—it just changes tempo. Sirens in the distance. Wind off the Lagan. Old stone settling into itself like it always has. This place made me. Broke me. Sharpened me. And tonight, it finally feels like it’s stopped demanding blood as payment for belonging.
“What happens now?” she asks quietly.
It’s not fear in her voice. It’s calculation. The kind that survives wars.
I shift onto my side, propping myself up so I can see her properly. The woman who ended a dynasty with a violin string. The woman who stood in the ruins of a chapel and didn’t flinch. “Now,” I say, “we make it clear.”
“Clear how?”
“That Belfast doesn’t belong to ghosts anymore. That power doesn’t pass through back rooms and broken promises. That anyone who thinks they can cut us apart to carve themselves a throne is already dead.”
She studies me, eyes sharp, unreadable for a beat—and then she smiles. Not soft. Not sweet. Real. Dangerous. “You’re talking like a king.”
“No,” I correct. “I’m talking like someone who’s done letting men decide what you’re worth.”
Silence settles again, heavier this time. Sacred. She reaches for my hand, lacing her fingers through mine like it’s already been decided. Like it always was.
“Together,” she says. Not a question.
I bring her knuckles to my mouth and press a kiss there—slow, deliberate. A vow without witnesses. “Together,” I echo. “Or not at all.”
Outside, Belfast holds its breath. Inside, the war finally ends. And for the first time in my life, the future doesn’t feel like something I have to take by force. It feels like something we rule.Together.
Chapter seventeen
Epilogue
THE BELFAST ACCORD
(Three Months Later)
