I couldn't remember ever feeling so satisfied.
And not just physically, though that component was definitely there and undeniable.
My body felt thoroughly wrung out in the best possible way. Muscles loose and exhausted. Heart rate finally slowing back toward normal. The kind of bone-deep physical exhaustion that came from complete, mutual release.
But this was something else entirely.
Something I didn't have experience with or adequate words for.
Something deeper and infinitely more dangerous than just exceptionally good sex.
That crack in my heart that had first opened watching her crouch down to Sabine's level was now spilling wider, making me feel things I'd carefully locked away years ago when I'd learned that emotion was a liability. Things I'd convinced myself I didn't need or want or deserve after everything I'd done and become.
Making me imagine things I had absolutely no business imagining.
A future.
Not getting too far down the road—I wasn't that far gone yet or that delusional.
But simple things started playing in my mind like scenes from someone else's life. Someone normal who got to have these things.
Going out to dinner together somewhere nice. Not as part of a mission or pretense, but just because we wanted to spend time together. Finding our favorite café in Paris and becoming regulars there. The barista learning to make her coffee exactly how she liked it. Waking up next to her tomorrow morning. And the morning after that. And the one after that. Making her coffee in Rose's kitchen. Listening to her talk about Sabine and watching her face light up.
Normal things.
Domestic things.
The kind of things normal people did when they cared deeply about someone.
When they were actively building something together instead of just surviving.
Then reality crashed back in like ice water over warm skin.
I remembered why I was actually in Paris in the first place.
St. Paul's rising from ashes I'd thought were cold. The organization hunting the Nine across continents with resources we didn't understand yet. The three men I'd put down in that abandoned building—two unconscious and concussed, one permanently game-overed with three bullets. The danger circling closer every single day like wolves tightening a noose. The threats multiplying faster than we could map them.
Ella wasn't safe.
Not really.
Not while I was still breathing and they were still hunting.
And being with me—being connected to me in any visible way—made her significantly, measurably less safe.
I was putting a target directly on her just by being here in her bed. By caring about her where anyone watching could see it.
The thought tightened my chest uncomfortably.
She must have sensed the shift in my body, the tension returning to muscles that had just been relaxed, because she lifted her head slightly to look at me with those perceptive eyes.
"You okay?" she asked quietly, reading me too well already for someone I'd known less than forty-eight hours.
"Yeah," I said, pulling her closer against me with deliberate intent. "I am."
It wasn't entirely a lie.
In this specific moment, with her warm and solid against me, I was genuinely okay.
