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I rise and kiss her so she can taste herself on my tongue. She reaches for my belt at the same time, freeing me with less patience than I have shown her.

When her hand closes around my cock I groan into her mouth. She strokes me once, twice, then pushes lightly at my chest until I sit back against the sofa. She slides to her knees between my legs and takes me into her mouth without hesitation.

The wet heat of her closes around the head and then sinks lower.

I rest one hand lightly in her hair, watching the way her lips stretch around me, the way her eyes lift to meet mine while she works me.

She takes me deeper on every pass, one hand wrapped around the base, the other cupping my balls and squeezing gently. Low sounds leave my throat that I cannot fully control.

“That’s it,” I tell her. “Just like that. You’re perfect.”

She hums around me, and the vibration nearly undoes the last of my restraint. When the pressure builds too high, I ease her off and pull her back into my lap. She straddles me again. I reach between us, guide myself to her entrance, and let her sink down onto me in one slow, continuous motion.

The tight heat of her draws a rough breath from both of us. We stay still for a long moment once I am fully inside, foreheads together, simply feeling it. Then she begins to move. I hold her hips and help her find a deep, rolling rhythm that keeps me buried inside her on every stroke.

My mouth returns to her breasts, sucking and licking while she rides me. One of my hands stays splayed across the curve of her belly; the other grips her ass and pulls her down harder each time she sinks onto me.

“You feel so good,” she breathes against my ear. “I never want this to end.”

“It doesn’t have to.”

We keep going like that, lost in each other. When I feel her start to tighten again, I reach between us and rub her clit in tight circles until she comes a second time, clenching hard around my cock and crying out against my neck.

I hold her through it, still moving in shallow strokes, until the last tremor leaves her. I lift her carefully and turn her, so she is on her hands and knees on the sofa, facing the fire.

I take my time preparing her, using the slickness already coating both of us, working one finger and then two into her ass with slow, careful pressure while my other hand strokes her clit to keep her open and relaxed.

She pushes back against my hand, breathing hard. “Please,” she says. “I want you there.”

I replace my fingers with the head of my cock and press forward inch by careful inch, watching every reaction, stopping whenever her breath catches so she can adjust.

When I am fully seated, I stay still, both hands on her hips, giving her body time to accept the stretch. Only when she nods do I begin to move, slow and deep, one hand reaching around to rub her clit in the same rhythm.

The dual sensation pulls another long moan from her. I keep the pace measured, listening to her sounds and adjusting the angle until every stroke draws a richer response.

My free hand strokes up and down her back, grounding her, reminding her I am right here with her. “You’re taking me so well,” I tell her, voice rough. “Look at you.”

She comes a third time with a broken cry, the tight contractions around my cock almost enough to finish me. I hold on until the last of her orgasm fades, then carefully withdraw and turn her onto her back again. I settle between her thighs and push back into her pussy in one smooth stroke, needing the softer heat of her after the intensity of the last act. She wraps her legs around my waist and pulls me deeper.

We move together in a steady, deep rhythm, eyes locked, hands linked beside her head. When I feel my own climax building, I reach between us once more and circle her clit until she follows me over the edge.

I come with a low groan against her neck, buried as deep as I can go, holding her tightly while the last of the pleasure runs through both of us.

Afterward, she falls asleep with the ring still on her finger, catching the moonlight every time she shifts.

I lie there beside her for a long while, turning the whole evening over in my mind the way I turn over everything that actually matters to me, unwilling to let a single detail of tonight slip past unexamined.

I think about the woman who walked into my penthouse eight months ago, certain of nothing except her own instincts, fighting a man twice her size because some part of her refused to freeze even when freezing would have been easier.

I think about everything that’s happened since, the fear, the danger, the slow unraveling of every wall I built around myself over fifteen years of running this life alone.

I think about the exact sound of her voice saying my name in that warehouse, the single thread that pulled me through every corridor between the entrance and the room where I finally found her.

None of it feels like something I’d trade away, not even the hardest parts, not even the nights neither of us will fully recover from.

Every piece of it led here, to this room, this ring, this woman sleeping beside me with a future finally settled between us instead of hanging uncertain the way it’s hung since the night I first pulled a gun on a stranger in my own home.

I press a kiss to her temple, careful not to wake her, and let myself feel something I’ve rarely allowed in fifteen years of careful, calculated living, a softness I used to consider a liability rather than a strength.