She did—clenching around me with a cry that was my name and something wordless and broken, clenching so tight it bordered on pain, her release flooding out wet and hot and perfect.
I followed two thrusts later—burying myself as deep as I could go, spilling inside her in hot pulses, filling her until it leaked out around me, marking her, claiming her in the most primal way I knew how.
We collapsed together, panting, slick with sweat and release and the aftermath of something that felt less like sex and more like proving we were alive, proving we could have this.
I kissed her—slow, deep, claiming, tasting us both on her lips and not caring.
"You're mine," I whispered against her mouth, meaning it more than I'd ever meant anything in my entire life.
"I sure am," she breathed back.
And for the first time in my entire fucked-up life, I believed it.
Believed that someone could know all of me—the damage, the lies, the manufactured purpose, the government program that created me like I was a weapon instead of a person—and still choose to stay.
Believed that I could be more than what I was made to be, more than the sum of someone else's design, more than a product of Project Trueborn.
Believed that maybe I deserved this. Deserved her. Deserved happiness that wasn't contingent on being useful or effective or tactical or anything other than simply human.
Not because of what my father had engineered or what Project Trueborn had intended when they started this experiment decades ago.
But because Sophie chose me, anyway.
Because she saw what I was made from and loved what I'd become despite it. Or maybe because of it. Because all thoseexperiences, even the manufactured ones, had shaped me into someone worth loving.
Because I was more than my origin story.
And with her beside me, choosing me every day, I could believe that was enough.
That I was enough.
Just as I was.
30
SOPHIE
After, everything slowed.
Not in the way where the world snapped back into focus and reminded you of clocks and responsibilities and consequences—but in the way where time softened around the edges, like it had decided to sit down with us instead of pushing us along.
Wyatt lay on his back, one arm bent behind his head, the other draped lazily across my waist like it belonged there. I was half on top of him, my cheek resting against his chest, listening to his heartbeat finally find something like a normal rhythm. Our skin was still warm, still humming, like whatever we’d just done had rewired something fundamental.
Neither of us was in a hurry to talk.
His fingers traced slow lines along my skin. Touching because he could. Because I was there. Because it grounded him.
I let my fingertips wander, too, memorizing the shape of him in this quiet aftermath. The muscle in his chest. The way his breath changed when my hand slid just a little lower, like his body hadn’t quite figured out how to fully relax yet.
“We missed a lot, best friend,” I said eventually, my voice soft.
He hummed in agreement. “Yeah.”
“Twelve years is a long time,” I added.
His hand stilled for half a second, then resumed its slow path. “Feels longer. Feels like it was yesterday and a lifetime ago at the same time.”
I smiled faintly. “You still smell the same.”
