"Micah, I'm?—"
"Yeah, I feel you." His rhythm doesn't falter. "Feel you getting tight around me."
The combination of his words, his thumb, the thick slide of him inside me—it's too much. I come with tears pricking my eyes, clenching around him in rhythmic pulses. He follows moments later, teeth grazing my throat, groaning as he spills inside me, his hips jerking with each pulse.
We stay wrapped around each other afterward. He shifts to his side, pulling me with him so we're face to face in the dim light, still connected.
"I love you," I say quietly.
His palm presses against my heart. "I love you too. Have for a long time."
"Even when you were gone?"
"Especially then." His hand slides down my back. "The thought of getting back to you kept me going."
Tears spill over, and he wipes them away gently.
"This is real," I say quietly. "Even with everything coming."
"Yeah." He kisses my forehead. "It is."
"The missions won't stop. The danger won't stop. Webb won't stop."
"No." His arms tighten around me. "But we have each other. That's what we control."
I shift closer, tucking my face against his neck. "Stay with me."
"Always."
We drift into comfortable silence, tangled together. I'm nearly asleep when my tablet chimes from the nightstand—the specific tone that means encrypted message from a priority contact.
Micah reaches for it, pulling up the message while I blink sleep from my eyes.
"Cross," he says, his voice going flat in the way it does when he's processing tactical intel.
I sit up, suddenly alert. "What does it say?"
He hands me the tablet. Cross's message is brief and to the point:
Reeve broke. Committee leadership meeting in Brussels in the next few weeks. Webb consolidating power after recent losses. Multiple operations planned. Full intel follows.
Warning: Webb knows I'm feeding you information. He's putting pressure on my network. Targeting my contacts. This is retaliation.
I look at Micah. "He's going after her."
"Yeah." His jaw tightens. "The war continues."
Another message comes through. This one longer, detailed intelligence about Committee operations, leadership movements, Webb's consolidation of power—the kind of information that Cross risked everything to get.
"She's in danger," I say.
"She knows how to handle herself." But Micah's expression says he's already calculating contingencies. "We'll monitor the situation. Be ready if she needs extraction."
I set the tablet aside and look at him. "This is our life now. Intel that drops in the middle of the night. Threats that never stop. Danger around every corner."
"Yeah." He pulls me back against him. "It is."
"And we're choosing it anyway."
