"Shut up," I breathe, slamming my hips down. "I'm trying to focus."
He chuckles and shifts slightly.
His thumb finds my clit, circles it with just enough pressure to make my rhythm falter.
"Don't stop," he orders. "Keep riding me. I want to watch you come."
I do. I move faster, grinding down on him, taking him as deep as possible. The friction is perfect. His thumb on my clit, his cock inside me, the look in his eyes?—
"Saint—" I can't keep up this pace. The lower part of my stomach is fluttering. I'm close.
"That's it. Come for me."
The orgasm hits hard, making me cry out. My body tightens around him, and I hear him curse. But I don't stop moving. I keep riding him through it, hips rolling even as pleasure sparks through me.
When I can breathe again, I lean down close to his ear. He's still hard, but I can feel him pulsing inside of me.
"Come inside me."
His eyes darken. "Gemma?—"
"I want you to." I bite his earlobe. "Fill me up. Claim me. Do it."
That breaks him. His hands tighten on my hips, and he starts thrusting up into me. Hard. Fast. Taking back some of the control but still letting me stay on top.
"Fuck," he growls. "You're going to kill me."
"Good. I'd love to be a widow."
He laughs, the sound rough and strained. "Not yet, princess. I'm not done with you."
Then he comes with a groan, hips jerking up as he spills inside me. I feel the heat of it, the pulse of him, and something about that, about choosing this, about making him lose control, sends another smaller wave of pleasure through me.
I collapse onto his chest, both of us breathing hard.
We lie there for a moment. His hand comes up to rest on my back. Not quite an embrace, but close.
"Well," he says finally. "Good morning to you too."
I laugh. Actually laugh, and it's the first time I've felt any sort of lightness in months, maybe even years. Who knew good sex and a little control could work as well as anti-depressants. "Mutual benefit, remember?"
"I'm starting to see the appeal of this partnership." He licks a bit of sweat from my neck.
I sit up, still straddling him, and reach for the nightstand. There's a journal there, one I've kept since before the wedding. I grab it, along with a pen.
"Speaking of partnership," I say, flipping it open. "Let me tell you about the gallery."
Saint's eyebrow raises. "You're going to brief me while you're naked on top of me?"
"You have a problem with that?" I ask, quirking an eyebrow. "I could put on a suit, and we could go to the office if that's how you'd like to do business."
"Not even a little." He shifts, settling back against the headboard. Still inside me, softening but not pulling out completely. "Go ahead."
I open to a page filled with diagrams and notes.
"Adrian cleans money through art," I start. "It's not just fake sales, though he does those too. He hires actual artists. Emerging ones, people who need money and exposure. Pays them in cash—dirty money. They produce the art. Then Adrian has it appraised by people on his payroll who inflate the value. Suddenly, he has legitimate asset worth millions that he can sell, insure, use as collateral."
Saint's eyes are sharp, focused entirely on me now. Not my body—my words.
