"Look at me," he says, and I do.
His eyes are dark and open and there's nothing hidden in them. No angle. No strategy. No game. Just want. Raw and real and aimed directly at me.
I come apart looking at him.
It hits me like a wave breaking. My back arches and my breath catches and I feel it everywhere, radiating out from the center of me, and he holds my gaze through all of it. Watches me with something that looks terrifyingly close to devotion.
He follows a moment later, his forehead pressed against mine, his breathing ragged, his hand gripping my hip hard enough that I'll have bruises tomorrow. I want the bruises. I want proof that this happened. That I let someone in and the world didn't end.
I try to remind myself that this changes nothing. That one night of wanting him doesn't erase the fact that this marriage was arranged, my freedom was taken, and I'm still trapped inside a world I never chose.
But his arm is around my waist and his breath is warm against my skin and he's holding me the exact same way he held me in Prague. Like I'm something precious. Something he waited years to touch and now can't bear to let go of.
"Stay," he murmurs against my neck. Not a command. A request. Like he's remembering that last time I didn't, and he needs to hear me say I will.
"I will," I say.
And for the first time, I mean it.
Aidan
I wake up before she does.
Gold light is coming through the window, soft and early, and for a moment I don't move. I don't breathe. I just lie there and feel the weight of her against my side, her head on my chest, her hair fanned across my skin in dark waves that smell like the exact scent I've been carrying in my memory for two years.
She's here.
She's here. In my bed. In my house. Her breathing slow and even against my ribs, her hand resting on my stomach, her leg tangled with mine beneath the sheets.
She stayed.
That means she chose this. She chose to close her eyes in my bed and trust that the man beside her wouldn't betray that. It's the smallest act of faith imaginable, and from Tanya, it's everything.
She stirs. A small movement. Her fingers curl against my stomach and her breathing changes, and I know she's waking up. I feel the exact second consciousness arrives, because her body tenses. Just barely. A slight tightening of every muscle, the instinctive bracing of a woman who's spent her life preparing for the worst before she opens her eyes.
I don't move. I keep my hand on her back and my breathing even and I wait.
She lifts her head.
Her eyes find mine, and for a moment, I see everything. The uncertainty. The residual softness of sleep that she hasn't managed to clear yet. The faint surprise that I'm watching her, followed by the rapid recalculation as she remembers where she is and what happened and what it means.
She holds my gaze, and her expression settles into something I haven't seen before. Unguarded in a way that's deliberate rather than accidental. Like she's choosing not to hide, even though every instinct is telling her to.
"Morning," I say.
"Morning," she says back.
And she doesn't move away.
I don’t speak. I just slide my hand up the elegant line of her spine, slow enough that she feels every callus on my palm, every intention behind the touch. She shivers and her nipples pebble where they are pressed against me.
She’s already wet for me again. I can smell it on her, that sweet, private scent that’s been haunting me for two years.
I roll us carefully until she’s straddling my hips, her knees bracketing my sides, the weight of her settling right where I’ve dreamed of her every single night since Prague. My cock is already hard, thick and aching against her slick folds, but I don’t thrust up. I want to watch what her.
“Hands on the headboard,” I murmur, voice rough with sleep and two years of restraint.
She obeys without hesitation, another crack in that ice she used to wear like armor, and grips the wood above me. The position arches her back, lifts her perfect breasts, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from groaning out loud. She’s a fucking goddess up there, flushed and bare and mine.
