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“I…” Her voice catches. “I want you to fuck me. I want you to take me. To dominate me. To make me yours…” A beat. “At least until this is over.”
My smile is slow, feral. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
I unzip, freeing my cock, thick and ready, and grip her hips. In one thrust, I’m inside her, and we both break—a shared cry swallowed by the confined space, raw and electric and too fucking real.
I slam up into her again and again, each thrust savage and deep. The Range Rover rocks with our rhythm, the scent of sex thick in the air, the leather creaking beneath us. Her nails rake my back. Her moans rise louder.
I fist her hair and yank her head back, my mouth brushing her ear again.
“You are not allowed to scream, Cherise,” I grit out. “Do it, and I’ll tie you down the second we’re home and edge you all night. Then I’ll let you suck me off and you’ll get nothing.”
Her body trembles at the threat. No—the promise.
She bites her lip, swallowing her cries, but I feel the pressure building in her, the urgency, the surrender.
“Nick,” she whimpers, hips moving frantically now, chasing it. “Oh, God. Nick, please…”
I speed up, relentless, pounding into her until I feel her tighten around me, body locking, her climax crashing over her with a muffled scream into my shoulder. I capture her cry with my mouth, swallowing the sound as I thrust one final time and come hard, my release spilling deep inside her.
She collapses against me, breathless and trembling, her head tucked under my chin. I hold her there for a moment, letting the world come back into focus. Letting the storm inside me settle—for now.
I ease her back into the passenger seat, buckle her in like she’s fragile—even though we both know she’s anything but. I zip myself up, adjust my seat, and glance at her—flushed, dazed, thoroughly fucked.
Then I reach between her legs, palm resting against her slick heat, thumb brushing gently over her clit. She jerks, breath hitching again.
“You’re mine for the duration of this op,” I murmur. “Don’t forget that.”
Her gaze snaps to mine, clear and defiant despite the wrecked state of her body. “I’m not yours, Nick,” she whispers. “I’m my own. And I always will be.”
I grin—dark, dangerous, knowing. “We’ll see about that.”
Then I lean in and kiss her again, slow and possessive, staking my claim.
* * *
Cerberus safe house
Just Outside the City
of Monte Carlo, Monaco
The hidden ops room below the main safe house hums with a low, electric quiet—the kind that settles after an op goes sideways but before the storm slams back in. Only it wasn’t the op that had gone sideways, but my feelings about Cherise, who is upstairs asleep.
I lean over the glowing array of monitors, fingers flying across the backlit keyboard as I sift through the raw data stream. Satellite pings. Traffic cams. Encrypted call intercepts. The sting earlier tonight yielded more than expected.
Too much, in fact.
“Logan,” I call without looking up.
Footsteps echo behind me as Radcliffe enters, his presence always sharp, always too controlled. “Please tell me we didn’t burn this safe house,” he says, looking at the screen for intruders. “Fitz will kill us if we did.”
I shake my head. “We didn’t. But look at this.”
A grainy still from a security camera on Rue Lafayette fills the main monitor. A man in a dark coat, profile barely visible—except for the ID we’ve already confirmed. Agent François Duval.
“Duval?” Logan leans in, frowns. “He’s Interpol. Upper clearance. Paris division.”
“Was Interpol,” I correct. “Until he walked straight into Vallois’ orbit and handed over the target dossier. He had the clearance level to access internal flags on the sting.”