The words push him harder, faster. His hand finds my cock, stroking in time with his thrusts, and the dual sensation is overwhelming. I'm climbing toward the edge, pleasure coiling tighter with every movement.
"Close," I warn him.
"Me too. Come with me. Let me feel you."
I let go.
The orgasm, when it comes, rolls through me like a tide—warm and overwhelming and endless. I cry out his name, clenching around him, spilling over his hand and my own stomach. He follows moments later, burying himself deep and pulsing inside me with a sound that's almost reverent.
We lie tangled together afterward, sweaty and satisfied and utterly at peace. He's still inside me, softening slowly, and neither of us makes any move to separate.
"Stay," I whisper against his chest. "Not just tonight. Not just until it's safe. Stay forever."
"Forever is a long time."
"I know." I tilt my head up to look at him. "I'm okay with that. Are you?"
He's quiet for a moment. I watch him process, calculate, run through scenarios the way he always does.
Then he smiles. It's small and rare and entirely real.
"Yes," he says. "I'm okay with that."
I wake in the middle of the night to find him watching me.
The moon is bright through the window, painting everything silver. His eyes are luminous in the darkness, fixed on my face with an intensity that would have terrified me once.
Now it just makes me feel seen.
"Can't sleep?" I murmur.
"I was counting."
"Counting what?"
"The ways you've changed me." His voice is soft, barely a whisper. "The things I feel now that I didn't feel before. The spaces inside me that you've filled."
"That sounds like a lot of counting."
"It is." He reaches out, traces a finger down my cheek. "I'm up to four hundred and six."
I laugh, soft and sleepy. "That's very specific."
"I'm a specific person."
"I know." I catch his hand, press a kiss to his palm. "I love that about you."
We settle back into each other, my head on his chest, his arm around my shoulders. The cottage is quiet around us. The fire has burned down to embers. Outside, the world is dark and cold and full of dangers we haven't finished facing.
But in here, there's warmth. There's safety. There's something I never thought I'd have.
"Jace?"
"Mm?"
" Webb, the tribunal, Protocol Omega, all of it—we ‘re going to win, right?"
"Yes." His arm tightens around me. "We are."
