The door clicked shut behind us and the rest of the world disappeared.
Lou turned. The city lights through the half-drawn curtains painted long gold stripes across the bed, across her face, across the black top that still carried the faint crease from the storage room. She looked at me—direct, unflinching, that stare that measured everything and found nothing wanting.
I didn't speak. Words would have shrunk this.
I crossed the room in two strides, caught her face between my hands, and kissed her the way I'd wanted to since the moment she'd grabbed my arm at the rail. Slow. Thorough. The kind of kiss that said I was done running and I was done pretending I hadn't been waiting for her all day. She tasted like bourbon and strawberries and the salt air that had been clinging to both of us since morning. My tongue stroked hers and she opened for me like she'd been waiting for exactly this.
Her hands slid under my shirt, palms flat against my stomach, then higher, mapping the muscle like she was memorizing terrain. I let her. For a moment. Then I broke the kiss just long enough to pull the shirt over my head and drop it on the floor.
She looked at me—really looked—the way she'd looked at the bull in the chute. Assessing. Appreciating. Hungry.
"Off," I said, voice low, nodding at her top.
She didn't tease. She reached back, peeled the black fabric over her head, and let it fall. Her nipples had already tightened under the cool air from the window. She quickly removed her bra, freeing her full, supple breasts.
I took my time.
I walked her backward until her thighs hit the edge of the bed. Then I dropped to one knee and unbuttoned her jeans with deliberate fingers. The zipper sounded loud in the quiet room. Islid the denim down her legs, taking her panties and boots with them, and she stepped out, naked.
I rose slowly, letting my hands trail up the backs of her thighs, over the curve of her ass, up her spine. When I reached her shoulders I turned her, guiding her down onto the bed on her back. She went willingly, eyes never leaving mine.
I stood at the foot of the bed and undid my belt. The Pendleton buckle clinked as I set it aside with the same care I always gave it. Jeans followed. The rest after that. I was hard—painfully so—and the way her gaze dropped and darkened told me she knew exactly what she was looking at.
I wrapped a hand around myself and stroked once, slow, letting her watch. Letting her see what she did to me.
Her knees fell open.
I climbed onto the bed between her thighs. Settled on my knees, gripped myself again, and dragged the head through her folds—slow, deliberate, watching the way her slickness coated me on every pass. Up. Down. Circling her clit once, twice, until her hips rolled up and she made that soft, broken sound I was already addicted to.
I lined myself up and pushed in—inch by inch—watching her body open for me. The stretch. The heat. The shine of her wetness as I withdrew almost to the tip, then sank back in deeper. Slow. Controlled. Every inch a claim I didn't have to say out loud.
She whimpered. Her hands fisted the sheets.
I kept the pace torturously slow. Pulling out until only the head remained, then sliding back in to the hilt, her walls fluttering around me. Over and over. Every wet sound. Every pulse of her body trying to pull me deeper.
Her back arched. "Grant?—"
"I know," I said. Low. Rough. "I've got you."
I dropped my weight onto my forearms, caging her, and started to move with more purpose. Each thrust rolled through her entire body. I watched her face, watched her eyes flutter, watched her lips part on every exhale.
I kissed her—deep, claiming, swallowing every moan while I fucked her like I had all night to do it. Because I did. Because tonight there was no mission clock, no extraction window, no reason to hold back anything except the need to make this last.
I shifted my angle until I hit the spot that made her cry out against my mouth. Held it. Ground against her clit on every downstroke. Felt her start to tighten around me in rhythmic pulses that told me she was close.
"Not yet," I rasped against her lips.
Her nails dug into my back. Her boots scraped the sheets. She was shaking.
I reached between us, found her clit with my fingers, and stroked it slow and firm.
She broke.
Her orgasm hit hard—body locking, walls clamping down around me in long, rolling waves, her cry muffled against my shoulder. I fucked her through it, slow and steady, drawing it out until she was trembling and gasping and whispering my name like something she'd found at the bottom of herself.
Only then did I let myself go.
I buried myself to the hilt, hips stuttering, and came with a groan that felt ripped from somewhere I'd forgotten existed. I stayed deep, grinding slow, pushing everything where it belonged.
