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I drag my palm from her throat down between her breasts, slow enough that she arches into the touch. When I close my mouth around one nipple and suck hard, the sound that leaves her is broken and open. Her fingers dig into my gray hair and hold me there.

“Don’t stop,” she breathes.

I switch to the other breast, teeth grazing just enough to make her hips shift under me. My hand slides lower, over the soft plane of her stomach, and stops at the waistband of her sleep pants. I stroke the skin just above the fabric with my thumb while I keep working her nipple with my mouth.

“Tell me if you want me to stop,” I say against her skin.

She shakes her head, already reaching for the hem of my shirt. “I don’t.”

I sit back long enough to pull it off myself, then come back down to her. Bare chest to bare chest. The first full contact of skin makes her inhale sharply. I kiss her again, harder this time, while my hand finally pushes beneath the waistband of her pants and finds the heat between her legs. She’s already wet. My fingers slide through the slick folds and settle over her clit, pressing in a slow, firm circle.

The moan that leaves her is louder than the ones before. Her hips push up into my hand.

“That’s it,” I say, watching her face. “Just like that.”

I keep the pressure steady, circling, learning exactly how much she needs. My mouth returns to her throat, then lower again, sucking marks into the skin above her breast while my fingers work her. She pants now, small, broken sounds leaving her every time I change the angle or the speed.

“Artem—please⁠—”

I ease her pants and underwear down together. She lifts her hips to help. Once they’re gone, I settle between her thighs again, still in my own trousers, and look at her fully for the first time. Open, flushed, wet. Mine in this moment, whether either of us has said it aloud.

I free myself, stroke once, and line up. I push into her slowly, watching every shift in her expression. The tight heat of her draws a rough sound from my own throat. I sink all the way in and stay still, giving both of us a second to feel it.

“You feel that?” I ask, voice low.

She nods, eyes half-lidded, lips parted. “Yes.”

I start to move in a steady, deep rhythm. Not frantic. Searching. Every stroke measured. My hand returns to her throat, fingers spanning the same place they did the night before, thumb under her jaw. She leans into the pressure exactly as she did then. The moan that leaves her this time is longer, richer.

“Good girl,” I murmur against her mouth. “Take it.”

I keep the pace controlled, varying the angle until I find the one that makes her breath hitch on every thrust. Her hands move restlessly over my back and shoulders, nails digging in when I drive deeper. The wet sound of us fills the quiet room along with her soft, broken moans and the lower ones I can’t fully hold back.

“Harder,” she whispers at one point.

I give her harder, but still on my terms—deeper, fuller, the same relentless control. My hand stays on her throat, feeling her pulse race under my palm. I watch her fall apart beneath me, the way her body tightens, the way her sounds grow higher and less controlled.

“Come for me,” I tell her. “I want to feel it.”

She does, with a sharp cry she tries and fails to swallow, her body clenching hard around me. I work her through it, never stopping, until the last of the tremors fade. Only then do I let myself follow, driving deep one final time and coming with a low, rough sound against her neck.

I stay inside her for a long moment after, both of us breathing hard. My hand eases from her throat and settles instead at the side of her face. I kiss her once, slower than before, then carefully shift us so she’s against my chest.

I lie there with her head against my chest, her breathing slowly evening out, and I don’t reach for an explanation the way I would for almost anything else that happens under my roof. I don’t tell myself it was a mistake. I don’t run through the tactical reasoning that usually governs every choice I make.

I stay, her hand resting loosely over my heart, and let the quiet exist without trying to fill it with justification. Her fingers twitch once against my chest, some small unconscious movement, and I find myself watching the rise and fall of her breathing instead of doing anything useful with the time.

“You’re still here,” she says eventually, voice thick with the edge of sleep.

“I am.”

“Aren’t you going to leave? Say something about how this shouldn’t have happened?”

“No.” I press my hand over hers where it rests against my chest. “I’m not going to do that.”

She’s quiet for a long moment, and I feel some of the tension in her shoulders ease further into the mattress, into me. Neither of us says anything else. There’s nothing that needs saying, not tonight, not when the truth of it is sitting right here in the room with us, plain and unavoidable in a way neither of us seems interested in arguing against anymore.

I stay until her breathing goes slow and even, until she’s fully asleep against me, and even then I don’t move to leave. I lie there in the dark of her room, something in my chest settled in a way it hasn’t been in longer than I can account for, and for the first time since this entire situation started, I don’t spend the quiet hours running through threats or contingencies. I don’t think about the Sokolovs, or the leak I still haven’t traced, or any of the dozen things that usually occupy every unoccupied minute of my day.