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“I’ve had practice.” I kiss her shoulder, and she shivers. “Mostly on myself. I’ve patched myself up in hotel rooms, safe houses, and in the backs of cars after jobs gone wrong.”

“I know.” She intertwines her left fingers with mine, and the right hand caresses my cheekbone. “I know some of what you’ve done to survive. I can only guess at the rest, at every wound you’ve carried alone. But I’m here now. I still choose you.”

My throat closes around my reply. “Even after today? After what you had to do? And after what I turned you into?”

“Especially after today.” She leans into me, pressing her forehead against mine. “Because I learned something about myself I didn’t know. When it comes to protecting the people I love, I’m just as dangerous as you are. I have that in me too.”

I should argue. I should tell her that violence corrupts and that she should run back to her world of healing and life, but the words forming on my tongue taste like lies before I even speak them.

Instead, I pull her toward me through the warm water until she’s straddling my lap, her knees bracketing my hips against the porcelain. I kiss her like she’s the last breath of air I’ll ever take. Her fingers thread through my hair, tugging me closer, and I groan into her mouth.

The water, cool now against my burning skin, ripples around us. We keep kissing—tongues twisting together, teeth grazing—her chest flush against mine.

“We should get out of the tub.” I break away, my forehead resting against hers. My eyes drop to the graze on her arm. The cleaned wound is raw and pink against her olive skin. “You’re hurt.”

“I’m fine.” Her fingers find my chest beneath the water and slide down my stomach. I hiss at the contact. Her fiery touch sears away the numbness that’s lived in my bones for as long as I can remember. “I need you, Marco. I need to feel alive, to remember that we’re still here and that we survived.”

That’s enough. I stand and lift her from the bath. Water streams from both of our bodies and pools across the tile floor. Neither of us cares. I carry her to our bed and lay her down, residual water darkening the sheets as I settle over her.

She lies beneath me, bare and wet and glowing in the dim light, marked only by the thin scrape on her skin.

“Magnificent.” I lower myself beside her, my lips brushing against the fluttering pulse in her throat. I kiss her collarbone, then gently bite her as I slide downward and nuzzle the swell of her breast. Her chest heaves, and her fingers tangle tighter in my hair. “Lucia, you’re so fierce. So strong. So impossibly brave.”

She gasps and arches into me as I latch on to her nipple and swirl my tongue around it.

I worship every inch of her, drifting farther down, tasting the salt of bathwater on her skin, pressing my mouth to the soft plane of her stomach, the ridge of her hip, the crease of her inner thigh. She trembles beneath my lips, her fingers raking through my hair.

“Marco.” My name comes out like a prayer. “I need you close. Not below me, not above me. Close.”

I understand what she’s asking. I lie beside her on my side of the bed, facing her. She mirrors me so we’re eye to eye, the full length of our bodies aligned on the damp sheets. I hook her knee over my hip, opening her to me, and her hand slides down my chest and stomach, closing around me. The touch buckles the air in my lungs.

“I want to see your face,” she whispers. “The whole time. I want to watch you fall apart for me.”

That shatters the last wall I’ve ever constructed.

I reach for the nightstand, find the condom, and roll it on while she stares unabashedly, her green eyes never leaving mine. Then I grip her hip, angle myself against her slickness, and push inside in one slow, unbroken thrust.

Our exhales fill the room like vows neither of us planned to make.

She’s so tight, so warm, and at this proximity, I can feel every pulse of her heartbeat, the tremors running through her muscles, and each breath that catches and releases against my lips. For a long moment, I hold still, buried deep as I learn what it feels like to be inside her for the first time since she became my wife.

“Husband.” She says the term like she’s testing its weight, and her lips curve. “My husband.”

“Wife.” My voice cracks. “My wife. My whole life.”

She rocks her hips forward, pulling me deeper, and the friction draws a groan from somewhere beneath my ribs. I match her slow, deliberate tempo, my hand spread wide across her lower back to hold her flush against me. Each stroke is unhurried, each withdrawal a loss, every return like coming home.

We move together in a cadence that belongs only to this night. Her leg locks over my hip. My hand traces the curve of her waist, the swell of her breast, the column of her throat, and she arches into every caress like her body is answering questions mine hasn’t yet learned to ask.

“You saved my life today.” My lips graze hers with each thrust. “I watched you pick up a weapon and choose me over everything you believed about yourself.”

“I would do it again.” Her nails rake down my back. “Every time. Without hesitation.”

Her honesty lights a fuse I can’t control. The rhythm quickens. Her breath comes faster, sharper, each exhale feeding the fire coiling inside me. I grip her hip more forcefully, drive deeper, and she buries her face against my neck with a cry that vibrates through my collarbone and straight into my chest.

She clenches around me, her release gathering like a wave. Our bodies are pressed so close that every movement grinds her against me, the friction and fullness stoking a pressure that ignites hard and fast.

“Let go.” I press the words into the hollow of her throat. “I have you, and I always will.”