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With her magic down, he could read her thoughts, and he’d taught her many tricks since they started training. If she wanted to control what he saw, then she just had to focus on it…so she did.

She showed him the first time she’d seen him and how terrifyingly beautiful he was.

The moment he’d held her crying in the subway tunnels for the first time.

The trust she’d given him before their first mission.

The sight of him calling her wife in the halls of Versailles.

The knowledge that he had her back no matter what.

And then every single minute look and detail she could conjure up since they’d returned to the city. How she felt about every facet of him.

The villain he claimed.

The monster she desired.

The man he’d become.

He’d changed. While he may still be dangerous, he was not dangerous to her. Everything had shifted in their time together.

Graves lifted her by her hips and settled her on the lip of his desk where her ass dug into the edge of the gun. His mouth was open and pliant. His tongue roving. His hands mapping every inch of her body.

He didn’t interject in the middle of her parade of memories. He didn’t force any thoughts into her head. He let her feed him the knowledge that he so desired.

After he’d had his fill, she pulled back to look at him. “No counter arguments?”

“None,” he said as he lifted her shirt up and over her head, leaving her in nothing but a black, lacy bralette.

She grinned. “You’re usually so eloquent.”

“You said all that needed to be said.” Then he laid her out across the hard leather.

She wiggled against the gun. “This is in the way.”

“And here I thought weapons got you off,” he teased, slipping the gun out from underneath her. “Hold this.”

He settled the gun on her stomach. The cold steel drew a hiss from her as it touched her bare skin. Its weight against her did somehow turn her on. Fuck him for knowing it.

He smirked at her reaction and then lifted her hips to shuck her shorts onto the floor. “Something to say?”

“You’re dangerous.”

“Me? Not the gun?” He lifted her ankle onto his shoulder and began to lay kisses down her calf, sliding to his knees before her.

“We both know what the most powerful thing in the room is.”

“Oh?” His eyes were contemplative. “You believe it’s me?”

“Obviously.”

“A weapon is only as powerful as its weakness, and you are mine.”

She shivered at those words. “What does that make me, then?”

“The most powerful thing in the entire world.”

Her heart swelled. His weakness. His power. She was all of it. And he was everything to her.

He nipped at her inner thigh, and she yelped. “You’re going to leave a mark.”

“Many,” he agreed.

He slid her thong to the side and ran a finger down the center of her. She gasped and tipped her head back, body on fire.

“So wet for me,” he breathed.

“Yes,” she panted.

He slipped two fingers inside, curling them upward. She squirmed underneath him, wanting his cock and not just his fingers, but also desperately wanting everything he’d give her.

“What got you so riled up?” he asked as he circled around her swollen clit. “Was it the gun?” He reached up and took the handle in his palm, dragging the hard metal down her stomach, across her pelvis, and down over her wet pussy.

She shuddered. “Graves!”

“Or was it me?” He slid his tongue up over her exposed clit. “You choose.”

“Yes,” she gasped.

“Yes, I should fuck you with this gun?” he asked a mischievous look on his face as cold metal touched her exposed skin again.

She had to clench her entire body to keep from jumping at the touch. But she couldn’t stop her reaction. There was something heady about him touching her with it. The dangerous thing as if they couldn’t both kill her. As if she didn’t want him to keep going.

The metal pressed against her sensitive clit, and she gasped as the friction hit her in all the right places. The nerves sparking to life at the fact that he was even doing it. He curled his fingers in at the same moment he moved the gun against her most exposed spot.

“Fuck,” she cried as the orgasm hit her unexpectedly.

“Fuck,” Graves echoed as he discarded the gun and stood.

“More,” she pleaded.

He unfastened his pants and let them fall to the ground. His cock strained against the fabric of his underwear, and she sat up on one elbow to reach for him. He grasped her wrist tightly in his hand as he let his cock spring free. Then he wrapped her hand around his shaft.

“Oh, you’re so big,” she whispered at the hard feel of him. She shot him a dirty smirk. “Was it the gun?”

“The thought of killing for you,” he promised.

“Kill me instead,” she pleaded, angling his cock to line it up with her body. “Kill me like this.”

At the first touch of him against her, they both groaned. She didn’t know how they’d held out this long as it was. She had been ready to ride him the minute he’d seen into her mind. She just needed completion to consummate the match.

As he slid home, it all came together. Their bodies perfectly aligned, along with their hearts.

She looked up into his face and saw none of the danger always lurking at the edges, only desire.

His hands gripped her hips as he started a rhythm.

In and out. Her hand still lingered between them, feeling the slippery wetness as he pushed inside her body.

The tightness as he stretched her fully. Feeling him. And she wanted more.

Her finger touched her clit, circling it as he thrust into her, the movements barely restrained. Their eyes locked. She was already on the edge and wanted him to come over with her. She was going to have to stop touching herself or it’d all happen too fast.

“Don’t stop,” he said, still reading her thoughts. “Come for me.”

At his words and the hard slam of his body and their ritual joining, she unleashed.

Roaring into the stillness of his office.

With her still clenching around his cock, he hoisted her up and into his arms, kicked open the door that led into his bedroom, and then dropped her into the middle of the comforter.

After shucking off the rest of his clothes, he crawled in after her.

“Say it again.”

“What would you like me to say?” she asked as he caged her in against the pillows.

“You know.”

“I love you,” she breathed.

“Again.”

“I love you.”

His head dipped into her neck, kissing down her clavicle and to her breasts. He released them from her bra as he said, “Again.”

She said it into his mind this time: “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

His smile was the first cool dip of winter chill.

A promise of the change of seasons. A hope for hibernation and relaxation before coming out of the dark.

It was sunshine on fresh snow. The whip of a cool breeze in her hair.

He was her winter god, and she’d worship at the altar until the end of days.

He lifted her up and flipped her on top of him. “Ride me.”

She wiggled her hips against his lengthening cock and then slipped onto him, inch by delicious inch. When she was fully seated, her head fell back with a moan.

“Dear God,” she groaned. “You feel incredible.”

“I could live like this forever,” he said by way of agreement.

She leaned her hands against his chest and slowly rocked her hips forward and back.

His fingers inched higher up her thighs until they landed on her hips, taking her weight and increasing the tempo.

Panting like she’d run a race, she bounced atop him.

His cock burying deeper and deeper with each thrust. Until she once again felt so close that she might fall apart.

Sensing that, Graves flipped her over again and drove in at a quicker tempo.

Their eyes locked as his hand touched her cheek. “Let me show you.”

There was no linked connection. No magic that twined like a braided string.

But there was something more, something deeper, crashing together as their bodies joined.

As if summer and winter had met at the heart of the calendar year and colossal storms raged in the midst of their collision.

It was life and death and trust and lust and hope and sacrifice.

In all of it, it was love.

She saw what she looked like through his eyes.

The first night they had met. The night she had played the part of his pet and he’d known he was a goner.

The feeling of holding her in the subway tunnels as she cried.

Thinking he’d lost her forever not once, but twice.

And the long months of planning to make it all right.

The weeks together where he’d proven himself to her.

They finished together, riding a tidal wave down to the shore. As their breathing slowed with their hearts joined as one, the rest of the world disappeared entirely.

Graves swept her hair out of her face, placed a soft kiss on her tender lips, and said, “I love you.”

Her eyes lit up, overcome by the admission. “I love you, too.”