Page 134 of Claim

“Missed you, too.” I kissed him. “Need you. Here. Like this. With me.”

His hands travelled everywhere then. My hips. Ribs. Chest. As if he was checking I was still solid. Still his. Still here.

“Months,” he said roughly, rocking into me. “Fucking months of not being able to touch you. Not being able to hear you say my name.”

He bit my shoulder. Not to hurt, but not gently either. A reminder. “Say it,” he whispered.

“Richie.”

His whole body shuddered.

He kissed me again, slower, deeper, resting his forehead on mine between breaths, between every movement, every rise of my body into his.

“Mine,” he said quietly.

I pressed my mouth to his. “Yours.”

He broke apart at that.

So did I. And we came together, holding each other through the hit the way we were meant to.

After, he curled in close beside me as the tremors subsided, breathing into my neck, one arm heavy across my chest, our legs tangled together. And I lay smiling like an idiot, stroking his arm, not wanting anything else from the world but this. Us.

After a while, I slipped out from under him and went to the bathroom. I brought back a warm cloth, cleaned us both, set it on the bedside table because I doubted for a second that was the end of the night, then eased us under the covers.

When I settled back in beside him, I faced him and hovered my lips to his and asked the same thing that might have saved us months ago, “Stay.”

He lifted his head, eyeing me. “For how long?”

I inhaled sharply, remembering how I’d asked that to him in the back of the car as I bled out. And remembered his answer back. “Forever.”

He smiled. “And wake up to thwack, thwack, thwack?”

I wriggled closer until we were face to face. “A counteroffer. Wake up to me.”

His mouth curved as he pulled me in. “That’s more like it.”

“I mean.” I bit my lip. “I can thwack, thwack, thwack too, if that helps.”

“Can you?” He arched a brow.

“I’m not just the grunter.”

“No?”

“No. I can play all sides of the game.”

“Can you now…” Razor kissed me, sucking on my bottom lip. “Might need some evidence of that.”

I laughed, soft and breathless. Then we… looked at each other. Let the room settle. Let the future sit between us without flinching.

But after a moment, with the haze still clinging, I had to let him know that there were endings. “I’ll be moving out of here. No more thwacking or grunting to wake you up.”

He drew his eyebrows in. “How come?”

“The flat belongs to my family. It’s… transitional. Set up for my father, then my brother. It was always meant to be the same for me. A place you pass through. Eventually it’ll probably go to Amelia, or be folded back into the portfolio.” I shrugged. “It was never meant to be permanent.”

He shifted onto his side. “So where’re you gonna live? Back at your family’s mansion?”