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“Yeah,” she whispers, delirious, rolling her hips to meet me.

I grab her ass and lift her slightly. I pound into her, watching her face for every expression that crosses it. She sobs, nails scoring my shoulders as I fuck her. I’m crazy with need, half out of my mind, wanting her to scream loud enough that everyone in Cathedral knows who she belongs to.

At some point, I lose the last of my control. The scent of her fills my head, and the sound of my flesh against hers drowns out everything else in the world.

“I love you,” I rasp against her mouth. “I love you so fucking much.”

“I love you,” she sobs into my neck.

The words from her lips land like a balm on wounds I hadn’t admitted I was still carrying. My thumb finds her clit as her thighs start to shake.

“Bishop!”

Her orgasm tears through her a second ahead of mine. She sobs, her walls clenching hard around my throbbing shaft, squeezing and releasing in pulses, as I come. My thrusts turn jagged, holding her trembling body against my chest until I she’s filled with my cum.

She slumps forward onto my shoulder, breathing as ragged as mine. I hold her and say nothing for a while.

This feels right. It feels perfect. She feels perfect.

“Move in with me.”

She pushes back, eyes wide.

“I like having you in my space and waking up to you every morning. I don’t want to waste another month pretending we’re deciding.” I brush my lips over hers. “Tomorrow, we move your things out of that hotel room.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

She smiles, and it lights up her whole face. “Then I’ll move in tomorrow. Don’t come complaining to me when you find your kitchen turned into a buffet table every other day.”

“Good thing there’s a gym in this place.”

She laughs, sweet and airy, and I hold her a while longer as the day’s chaos washes off both of us.

Everything is exactly where it’s supposed to be.

Epilogue

Six Months Later

Bishop

“For fucks sake.” A hot, searing pain explodes across my forearm courtesy of the oil, and I snatch my arm back, tempted to send the pan flying across the room. Instead, I walk to the sink and run some cool water over the burn.

I turn my head like a hound scenting blood when I catch the muffled chuckle coming from the other side of the room.

Jasper is bent nearly in half, laughing, hand over mouth as his body shakes. “I’m sorry, Prez,” the kid says, his eyes practically streaming when he looks up. “But that’s the third time. You don’t just toss meat into hot oil and expect it not to splatter.”

“You know I’ve killed for much less, right?”

“You don’t have time to hide a body, Prez. Chef comes off shift in less than an hour, and we still have the meat to go.”

“Shut up and chop your vegetables. You’re a shit teacher anyway,” I say grumpily as I turn back to the steak frites I’m supposed to be making, which also happens to be my girlfriend’s favorite meal. She’s told me a dozen times how the simple version reminds her of her childhood.

“Remember, Prez, you have to sear the ribeye three to four minutes a side,” Jasper instructs, still working on the salad. “Then add butter, garlic, and the herbs I set out. It needs to rest for ten minutes before you slice it.”

“I heard you the first ten times,” I grumble. I genuinely believed I could do this. I thought I’d pull up a recipe on the internet and produce something edible. After the first attempt, I brought in the kid. I’d have thrown the skillet in the trash the first time it burned me if he hadn’t stood there and told me I couldn’t.