I’m twisting beneath him, dripping, eyes squeezed shut as stars explode behind my eyelids in a whitewash of light.
When I open my eyes, he’s looking up at me—pleased, awed, possessive.He presses his face into my inner thigh, then pushes up the bed, quickly ridding himself of his briefs.
I reach for him—his length hard and proud against his abdomen, skin flushed, thick and veined.My fingers wrap around him and he hisses.
I bend forward, intending to return the favor, but he pushes me back gently.“Next time.Right now I need?—”
He spreads my legs, positions himself at my entrance.His crown swipes through my wetness, back and forth, teasing us both until I’m ready to beg.Then he pushes inside—just his tip—and pauses there, straining with control.
“Adrien.”I’m falling so fast, so hard.Does he feel it?
He wraps his arms around me, braces his knees, and with a shuddering groan, fully seats himself.The stretch, the fullness—I want all of him, and here he is.
“Fuck, you are heaven.”
He lifts my wrists, pinning my hands above my head, and his mouth drops to mine.I taste myself on his tongue—salt and intimacy—as his hips find their rhythm.
The sharp sound of skin meeting skin fills the suite.Tomorrow drowns beneath it.Every withdrawal leaves me wanting.Every thrust rubs my oversensitized clit.Every hard, hammering stroke sends my blood singing.
He’s not gentle.Not careful.Not the controlled strategist.Just a man who risks everything and needs this—needs me—like oxygen.
As I let go—back arching, crying out against his mouth—his thrusts grow erratic.His muscles tremble.His mouth devours mine, claiming, until his hips jolt and he groans my name and throbs inside me, pulsing his release.
His head falls to the cradle of my shoulder, forehead damp, and his hold on my wrists loosens.Breaking free, I wrap my arms around him, holding tight.Holding on.
Later, we’re entwined beneath the bedding.The city’s hum slips to a heartbeat beneath the pale spill of dawn light through gauzy curtains.I lie with my head on his shoulder, the rhythm of his breathing steady against my ear.
“Tomorrow,” he murmurs, eyes half-closed.
“Tomorrow,” I echo.
Tomorrow feels distant, an enemy with a clock I refuse to watch.
He turns his face toward mine and presses a kiss to my forehead, a quiet benediction.
The steady rhythm of his breathing lulls me backward in time—to another dawn, another bed, another impossible goodbye, and a memory of lying perfectly still, listening to the night sounds filtering through thick glass.Intimacy often does this to me—fractures time.
Somewhere in the marina, a halyard clanged against a mast.A gull squawked.The air smelled of salt and polished teak, the faint sweetness of whatever soap he used still clinging to my skin.Normal sounds of a world outside percolated while I remained suspended in this impossible bubble of a weekend that should never have happened.
I’d thrown my phone away in a Monaco alley thirty-six hours ago.Along with it went any ability for my handler to track my location or contact me.By now, Matthews would already have flagged me as compromised.In our world, silence is betrayal.
The mission had been routine until it wasn’t.Every contingency accounted for—except him.
Adrien shifted beside me, his arm tightening around my waist in sleep.Even unconscious, his body curved protectively around mine, as if he could shield me from the world waiting beyond this safe harbor.His skin radiated a slow, human heat against the linen sheets.Moonlight washed across his face, softening him until he looked almost boyish—the cynical lines around his eyes smoothed away, his mouth relaxed, unguarded.The sight ached like a bruise.
I should have extracted myself shortly after evading the Russian.Should have activated emergency protocols, requested immediate exfiltration.Instead, I stayed—and in doing so, compromised my career.
The worst part was that I couldn’t even regret it.Lying there, I felt alive in a way I hadn’t in years—proof that some part of me still existed beneath the aliases, beneath the armor of competence and command.
But time off wasn’t compatible with the life I’d chosen.
I slipped from the bed with practiced silence, my bare feet making no sound on the polished deck.Cool air kissed my skin, smelling faintly of salt and last night’s champagne.Sophie’s dress hung in the closet, pristine now—someone had steamed out the wrinkles from when he’d torn it off me that first morning.Even his staff took care of me here.I pulled it on, the fabric whispering as it slid over my shoulders, cool where his warmth had been.
With each movement, I killed her.
The art curator who played piano in the early morning hours, who came apart in his arms, who whispered childhood stories in the dark and believed them herself.Each breath rebuilt the operative—the woman who knew how to disappear, how to leave no trace except the kind that scarred.
My shoes were on the upper deck where we’d first kissed.I climbed the narrow stairs quiet as a ghost, muscle memory guiding me through the yacht’s layout.The night air was cooler up here, sharp with sea spray and diesel and something metallic that reminded me of the blood in my veins.
