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“I’ve missed this,” I admit. “Having someone to share the planning with. Someone who understands the stakes.”

“I’ve missed everything about you.” His voice drops to that intimate register I remember from stolen nights. “Your mind. Your strength. The way you make me feel like anything is possible.”

“Hargen—”

“I know we have years to work through, Vanya. Conversations about why you let me believe you were dead, decisions about how to help Ember understand her heritage.” His breath grazes my face, warm and clean. “But tonight, I just want to be grateful that you’re alive. That we found each other again.”

The careful distance I’ve been maintaining crumbles. This close, I can see the gold flecks in his brown eyes, can smell the familiar scent of his skin, can feel the steady rhythm of his breathing.

“I dreamed about you,” I confess. “Every night. Even when I tried not to, even when I knew it was dangerous to remember, I dreamed about you.”

“What did you dream?”

“This. Standing close together, talking about normal things. Being a family.” I close my eyes. “I dreamed about the life we would have had.”

“We can still have it.”

When I look at him again, his expression is intense, focused entirely on me. Like I’m the most important thing in his universe.

“Can we?” The question sounds so small. “After everything I’ve done, everything I’ve become—can we really have that?”

“Yes.” No hesitation. No qualification. Just absolute certainty.

He leans in then, and it feels inevitable.

Like the moment I’ve been waiting for. Longing for.

The kiss begins soft, tentative, testing boundaries that have been carefully maintained since we first saw each other again.

But the moment our lips touch, the years of separation collapse into nothing.

The careful control I’ve maintained, the strategic distance, the protective walls—all of it crumbles under the weight of finally being touched by someone who knows exactly who I am.

His hands slide into my hair, and I’m drowning in sensation. The taste of him, the heat of his body against mine, the desperate hunger I’ve kept buried for so long, it’s become part of my bones.

“Vanya,” he all but groans my name.

I pull back just far enough to meet his eyes. “Take me to bed.”

The words hang between us for a heartbeat. Then he’s lifting me, carrying me down the hallway toward the bedroom. My legs wrap around his waist, my face buried against his neck, breathing in the scent of his skin.

The bedroom door closes behind us, and then we’re alone in the lamplight, years of separation and longing solidifying into this single moment.

“Are we making a mistake?” he asks, setting me down beside the bed.

Instead of answering, I reach for the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head.

“I think everything we did before this was a mistake,” I tell him, running my eyes over the hard lines of his broad chest, admiring the play of light over muscle.

His hands find the buttons of my blouse, working them open with exquisite care. Each piece of fabric that falls away feels like another layer of the Shadowhand being stripped away, leaving only Vanya—the woman who’s been buried under years of deception and strategic necessity.

When we’re both bare, he cups my face in his hands, studying my features like he’s memorizing them.

“You’re even more beautiful than I remembered.”

“I’m older. Harder.”

“You’re perfect,” he whispers.

He guides me back onto the bed, following me down, and then we’re a tangle of limbs and desperate touches. His mouth finds mine again, and this time there’s nothing tentative about it. This is hunger, pure and simple. Need that’s been denied for far too long.

His lips are firm, the slight graze of stubble against my chin leaving a trail of fire that makes my flesh tingle.

My hands explore the landscape of his body, relearning muscles and scars and sensitive spots I’d thought I’d forgotten.

He’s broader than he was before, more solid, but his skin still tastes the same under my tongue.

When his mouth trails down my throat, I arch beneath him, every nerve ending coming alive.

“I thought I’d lost you forever,” he murmurs against my collarbone.

Tears I didn’t expect burn behind my eyes. “I thought I’d lost myself.”

“Never.” His lips brush over my heart, then close around my tightening nipple before he raises his head. “You were always here. Always mine.”

He takes his time, but there’s nothing gentle in his exploration. This isn’t the hesitant worship of new lovers—it’s reclamation. His mouth traces the lines of my ribs, the slight softening of my belly, the dip of my navel, making me writhe as sensations I’d forgotten begin to coil within my core.

“Oh… fuck!” I gasp as he moves lower down my body, his breath warm against my mound.

“You’ve changed,” he murmurs against my inner thigh, his cheek rasping sensitive skin. “But your taste—” His tongue strokes upward along the seam of my pussy in one long, deliberate motion that makes my back bow off the bed. “—that’s exactly how I remembered.”

I clench my fingers in his hair, urging him closer as sensation floods through me. The skilled press of his tongue against my clit makes coherent thought impossible. There’s only the building pressure, the desperate need for release, for connection that goes beyond physical.

When I’m trembling on the edge, he pulls away.

No! Why?!

“Hargen! Please!” My protest dies as he rises above me, positioning his cock at my slick entrance. Our eyes lock, and the naked vulnerability in his gaze is more intimate than any touch.

“I want you inside me,” I demand, my voice almost unrecognizable with need. “Now.”

“Yes,” he groans. He drives forward in one powerful thrust, filling me so completely I gasp at the exquisite pressure. For one suspended moment, we’re perfectly still, joined after decades apart, our bodies remembering what our minds tried to forget.

Then he begins to move, and it all comes flooding back. Each deep stroke hits something inside me that obliterates every painful memory. His thumb finds the sensitive bundle of nerves above where we’re joined, circling with deliberate pressure as his rhythm intensifies.

“God, Hargen… I never forgot this,” I gasp as pleasure coils tighter, my nails scoring red lines down his back. “When I closed my eyes… every night—”

“I know.” His voice breaks as his control slips, his movements becoming harder, deeper, the bed rocking beneath us. “You haunted me. There was never anyone but you.”

“And there was no one but you.” The admission shatters something in me. I wrap my legs around his waist, changing the angle until he hits that perfect spot with each thrust. The pressure builds beyond bearing, muscles tensing as I hover on the precipice.

“Look at me,” he commands, one hand gripping my jaw. “See me when you come.”

Our eyes lock as the wave crests. I convulse around him, the walls of my pussy squeezing his shaft as pleasure tears through me with almost violent intensity. The sight of my release triggers his own—his features contorting, muscles straining as he drives deep one final time, pulsing inside me.

“Fuck! Vanya!” My name seems torn from him.

We collapse together, slick with sweat, hearts thundering against each other’s chests. His weight pins me to the mattress, solid and real in a way memory never was.

For long minutes, we simply hold each other in the aftermath. His fingers trace lazy patterns on my skin while I listen to his heartbeat slowly return to normal.

“Stay with me tonight,” I whisper. “Don’t go back to the other room.”

“Try to make me leave.”

I curl against his side, my head on his chest, letting myself believe for these stolen hours that this is real. That we’re a family. That tomorrow will bring escape instead of sacrifice.

Tonight, I’m not the Shadowhand or the grieving mother or the strategic mastermind.

Tonight, I’m just Vanya, held in the arms of my man, dreaming of the life we’ll never have.

His breathing evens out gradually, exhaustion finally claiming him. But I stay awake, watching the rise and fall of his chest, counting the minutes until dawn forces me to make the choice I’ve known I’d have to make since the moment I sent that message.

Tomorrow, I become the Shadowhand once more.

Tonight, I remember what it feels like to be a woman.