She cried out at the wonderful invasion. “Lore…”

He braced his forearm against the door next to her head and leaned in as his fingers began a slow glide in and out. She expected him to kiss her, but instead he watched her, his breaths labored, his eyes half-lidded. Under his admiring gaze she felt like a beautiful treasure.

“I’ll never get tired of looking at you,” he whispered. “I want to watch you come every day. Ten times a day. A hundred.”

“You say the most wonderful things,” she panted. “You are never getting rid of me now.” It had been a week since they’d left the assassin den forever, and she had said the same thing every day since.

“Good.” He made a sinful twist with his fingers, and she arched into his hand, hanging right on the edge. “Damn, Idess. You’re drenched, so wet, and all for me.”

“For you,” she agreed.

“Mine,” he growled.

“Yours.”

His fingers raked a sensitive spot deep inside that ignited her, sent flame racing through her until even her breath burned in her throat. Every pulse of her cl**ax sang with pure, rich notes as her body churned to life.

Lore brought her down with light, gentle strokes over her center, never once taking his eyes off her. Before he’d come along, she hadn’t believed that being watched during such a private, intimate moment would be so sexy, but the way his gaze grew hotter, his expression more intense, and his body harder… yes, this was something she enjoyed and wanted to repeat often. Her mind started flipping through future scenarios, more things she could do while he watched, and the fire sparked again.

“Inside,” he rasped. “Now.”

“What happened to against the door?” she said saucily.

“I want you so bad I’ll break it.” He nipped her throat before turning her around and giving her a playful slap on the bottom. “Bed. I need your bed.”

She opened the door and paused at the threshold. “Our bed now.”

Stark masculine pride and possession took over his expression. She shivered with appreciation as he swept her into his arms and carried her to the bedroom. With a gentleness she didn’t expect, he placed her on the bed they’d both been chained to. Still were, in a way, and she wouldn’t change a thing.

She trailed one finger along the whorls of his dermoire, and he marveled at the blessed sensation, didn’t know if he’d ever get used to feeling something he’d stopped praying for decades ago. “You said once that you weren’t always a killer. That you were more than that. You were right.”

“At the time I said it, I was lying.”

“And now that you aren’t an assassin? Do you still think it’s a lie?”

“No,” he said, as he trailed kisses along her shoulder. “I’m a man with a future and a family. Because of you. My old life is over, and I can’t thank you enough for that.”

She grinned. “I feel the exact same way.” Her hand drifted to his waist, and then lower, until he was gasping in pleasure. “For us, the end is just the beginning.”