"I know." His thumb circled faster, his hips driving up to meet mine. "Let go, Charlie. I've got you."
I broke.
The second orgasm was different from the first — slower, deeper, a rolling wave instead of a crash. It started low in my belly and spread, growing, expanding, until my whole body was trembling with it. I buried my face in his neck and shattered, his name the only word I had left.
He followed seconds later — his hips jerking, his grip tightening on my waist, a low, rough groan that vibrated through his chest and into mine. I felt him pulse inside me and held on, held on, rode it out with him until we were both spent and gasping and utterly, completely wrecked.
We stayed like that for a long time.
Tangled together in the back seat, pulse still hammering, neither of us moving. His arms were around me, my face was pressed against his chest, and I could hear his heartbeat — still fast, gradually slowing. His hand moved up my back in long, absent strokes. Soothing. Gentle in a way I hadn't expected.
"Color?" he murmured against my hair.
I laughed — small, breathless. "You're still checking in."
"Always going to check in."
I pulled back enough to look at him. His tux was destroyed — tie gone, shirt unbuttoned, hair a wreck. He looked thoroughly, comprehensively ruined. By me. Some primal part of my brain lit up at the sight.
"Green," I said. "Really, really green."
He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. The dark wig had shifted but somehow stayed on — a miracle of bobby pins and determination. His fingers lingered at my temple.
"We're going to have to talk about this," he said.
"I know."
"There are implications —"
"Yeah."
"For the assignment. For my professional —"
"Dominic." I pressed my finger to his lips. "I know. And we will. But can we just... have this? For a minute? Before it gets complicated?"
He studied me. Then his arms tightened, pulling me back against his chest.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "We can have this."
I closed my eyes and let myself rest against him. His heartbeat under my ear. His warmth surrounding me. His hand still moving slowly up and down my back.
I didn't want to think about tomorrow. About what this meant for his assignment, for my safety, for the carefully constructed walls I'd spent twenty-eight years building. I didn't want to think about the threats, or the sleeping photo, or the fact that someone wanted me dead and the man whose job it was to keep me alive had just crossed every professional line that existed.
All I wanted was this. His arms around me. The silence. The impossible, terrifying, undeniable feeling that I'd just let someone past every wall I had — and I didn't want to take it back.
Tonight was ours.
Tomorrow could wait.
