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“I'm close,” I warned her, my fingers moving to where we were joined, finding her clit again.

“Me too,” she breathed, her movements becoming more erratic as she chased her release.

I felt it when she came—the fluttering of her inner walls around me, the way her thighs tensed against my sides, a broken, breathless cry on her lips. It was enough to send me over the edge after her, my release tearing through me like a hurricane.

I pulled her down against my chest as we both came down from our high, our hearts racing in tandem. For several minutes, we simply breathed together, her cheek pressed to my sweat-dampened chest, my fingers lazily tracing patterns on her back.

“That was...” she began, trailing off as if words failed her.

“Yeah,” I agreed, understanding perfectly.

Eventually, she shifted to lie beside me, her head pillowed on my shoulder, one leg thrown over mine. The intimacy of the moment struck me harder than I expected. This didn’t feel like just sex anymore.

“I should probably be getting you back,” I said reluctantly, though I made no move to leave the bed.

Larissa burrowed deeper into my chest. “Five more minutes,” she negotiated, pressing a soft kiss to my skin.

I chuckled, wrapping my arm tighter around her. “Five more minutes,” I conceded.

Those five minutes stretched to fifteen, then thirty, then hours as we lay tangled together in comfortable silence, dozing on and off.

My phone shattered the spell, the harsh buzz against the wooden nightstand making us both jump. Caspian's name flashed on the screen, and reality came crashing back as I gazed out the window and noticed that the sun was out in full glare. That was when I realized the boat wasn’t rocking. We’d probably been docked for hours.

“Fuck,” I muttered, reaching for the phone.

“Hello?”

“Gio,” my brother's voice was clipped. “Where the hell are you? We have something to discuss.”

“I'm on my way back,” I said, sitting up and running a hand through my disheveled hair. “Give me an hour.”

“Make it quick. I’ll meet you at yours,” he commanded before hanging up.

I stared at the phone for a moment before setting it down. “We need to go,” I told Larissa, already reaching for my discarded clothes.

She nodded, slipping from the bed to gather her own items.

On the drive back home, my mind raced ahead to what Caspian could want. Whatever it was, it wouldn't be good—it never was when he used that tone.

***

We pulled into the driveway of my home, and the sight of Caspian's black Bentley sent a chill down my spine. Something was wrong if he had come to my place as soon as he landed back from his honeymoon.

Larissa looked up at me with worry. She had figured from the silence during our drive back that something was wrong.

“Whose car is that?” she asked, softly.

“My brother, Caspian,” I explained and placed a hand on her lower back. “Come.”

On entering the house, we found my brother already waiting in the living room. He faced us with an unreadable expression.

“Caspian,” I said, my heart pounding in my chest as I thought of ways to explain Larissa’s presence. “How was the honeymoon?”

“It was fine,” he said, his eyes flickering briefly to Larissa before returning to my face. “Nice evening yesterday for a boat ride?”

There was something in his tone that put me immediately on edge. Caspian was always someone to mind, but never more so than when he was being polite.

“We went on an operation,” I explained, keeping Larissa slightly behind me as we moved into the room.