"Whatever happens," I tell her, "I'm not leaving. You asked me to stay, and that's my mission now. Staying."
She tightens her arms around me. "Good. Because I'm keeping you, tactical banana. You're mine now."
The possessiveness in her voice makes my cock twitch inside her, trying to harden again. She feels it and laughs.
"Already? You're insatiable."
"Only for you," I admit, starting to harden properly now, still buried inside her. "Only ever for you."
"Then I guess your pull-ups will have to wait a bit longer," she says, rolling her hips experimentally. "Four hundred will become five hundred at this rate."
"Worth it," I groan as she clenches around me deliberately. "So fucking worth it."
The sun climbs higher, painting everything banana, and I stop counting anything except the sounds she makes as I start moving inside her again. Slow and deep, gentle but thorough, showing her with my body what my words can barely express.
That she owns me completely. That I'll burn down the world to keep her safe. That love might be the most dangerous weapon I've ever wielded, but I'm choosing to arm myself anyway.
Because Marisol Delgado asked me to stay, and there's no mission more important than that.
18 - Marisol
Nico Rosetti is in my kitchen making eggs.
The sound of a pan against the stove makes my chest do something dangerous. Men don't stay. They slip out while I'm unconscious, leave notes about early meetings, text later with transparent excuses. But Nico Rosetti, who counts everything, who maintains tactical distance, who locked himself in bathrooms rather than come with me watching, is making breakfast in my kitchen.
This is not my life. Except apparently it is now.
I wrap myself in a silk robe, not bothering with anything underneath. Why pretend? We're past pretense now. The silk feels cool against my sensitized skin, every nerve still singing from his touch.
He's at the stove when I reach the kitchen doorway, and the sight stops me cold. Shirtless, wearing only those low-slung sweatpants, every muscle in his back defined as he moves. His Glock sits on the counter within easy reach in a diagonal ray of bright sunlight. Even making eggs, he's ready for violence. The contradiction of it, this lethal man performing something so domestic, makes my stomach flip.
"You cook," I say, and he turns at my voice.
His eyes do a slow sweep from my wild hair to my bare feet, lingering on where the robe gapes at my chest. Something in his expression shifts, softens in a way that makes my toes curl. There's something new there too. A certainty that wasn't there before.
"I keep myself alive," he says, turning back to the stove.
"A man has never made me eggs." The confession slips out before I can stop it.
"That's tragic."
"I've been dating wrong, apparently. Should have been targeting ex-marines with spatulas instead of trust fund babies with cocaine habits."
He plates the eggs, adding toast and fruit I didn't even know I had. When he sets it in front of me, I just stare at it for a moment. Real food. Made for me. By someone who stayed. By someone who is right here. Present tense, not past, not conditional.
I take a bite, and apparently I'm hungrier than I thought because I actually moan a little. His eyes darken at the sound, pupils dilating in a way that makes me press my thighs together.
"You're staring," I say between bites.
"You're eating. It's noteworthy."
"Maybe I worked up an appetite."
"Maybe you did." The heat in his voice sends a pulse straight to my clit, even after everything we've done, everything we've said.
His phone buzzes. He checks it, jaw tightening immediately. "Gunner says Cesar's people were asking about you at the club last night."
"While we were…"
