Chapter 68
Julian's POV
She didn't answer, too focused on chasing her pleasure, and I was grateful because I couldn't have formed coherent words if my life depended on it. The way she moved on top of me, taking me so deep I could feel her everywhere, controlling the angle and speed—it was destroying me in the best possible way.
The pendant swung with each of her movements, catching the light filtering through the bathroom window—a hypnotic rhythm that matched the rise and fall of her body on mine. Silver glinting against her skin, disappearing between her breasts before swinging out again with the next thrust.
Her face was flushed, lips parted, eyes half-closed in concentration as she ground against me. She was so fucking beautiful it hurt to look at her.
I felt my control starting to fracture, the pleasure building to an unbearable peak. My hips thrust up involuntarily to meet her movements, hands gripping her waist hard enough to leave marks as I helped lift and lower her with increasing desperation. Water sloshed over the sides of the tub with each motion, splashing onto the tile, but I couldn't have cared less.
"Evelyn," I groaned, the warning rough in my throat. "I'm close, I'm—fuck—"
She kissed me, and I came undone. My whole body went rigid as I pulsed inside her, the condom the only barrier between us, and I held onto her like she was the only thing keeping me from flying apart completely. Like if I let go, I'd shatter into a thousand pieces.
I felt her inner walls clench around my cock in rhythmic waves, felt her fingers dig into my shoulders as she found her own release, and the knowledge that I'd brought her there—that we'd reached this together—made the pleasure almost unbearable.
Perfect. This was perfect. She was perfect.
And for the first time since this morning's panic had set in, I let myself believe that maybe, just maybe, this could be real.
I'd never felt anything like this. Not just the physical pleasure—though fuck, that was overwhelming—but this sense of rightness. Of safety. Of being exactly where I was supposed to be.
She was choosing this. Choosing me. Taking control, taking what she wanted, and what she wanted was me.
The realization made something crack open in my chest, something I'd been keeping carefully locked away since this morning.
I'd been terrified all day. Since the moment I'd woken up and found myself still in her apartment, still tangled in her sheets, still breathing her air. The fear had been a constant hum beneath my skin, a warning I couldn't silence.
Before last night, everything had been simple. I could flirt, could push, could pursue with reckless abandon because nothing was real yet. It was all potential, all possibility. I could say outrageous things and make bold moves because the worst she could do was say no.
But after last night—after hours of losing myself in her body, after seeing her come apart in my arms, after feeling her surrender in a way I knew she'd never surrendered to anyone—everything had changed.
Now there was something to lose.
Now I was fucking terrified of losing it.
I'd spent the morning cooking breakfast and coordinating Caldwell's extraction while fighting down panic, telling myself that the sex had meant something, that she wouldn't just disappear, that this wasn't just a one-time thing born of desperation and proximity.
But I hadn't been sure. Hadn't dared to hope.
Until now. Until she'd climbed into this tub and taken me inside her with that determined look in her eyes. Until she'd chosen to touch me, to ride me, to let me see her face as she chased her pleasure.
She wanted this. Wanted me.
The relief of it was almost painful.
When she came, her pussy clenching around my cock in rhythmic pulses that dragged my own orgasm from me like a riptide, I held her so tightly I was probably hurting her. Couldn't help it. Needed to feel her solidness, her realness, needed confirmation that this wasn't some fever dream I'd wake from.
"That was..." I couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't find words adequate for what I was feeling.
"Yeah," she agreed softly, and the tenderness in her voice made my throat tight.
I carefully lifted her off me, disposing of the condom before pulling her back against my chest. The water had cooled but I didn't care. I just wanted to hold her, to exist in this moment where everything felt perfect and possible.
"I could get used to this," I said, the words slipping out before I could stop them. "To you. To us."
I felt her stiffen slightly in my arms, but before I could analyze what that meant, she was pulling away.
"Let's get cleaned up," she said, her tone shifting to something more neutral. "You should probably start investigating before it gets too late."
The dismissal stung, but I forced a smirk onto my face. "Right. Work. Of course."
I pulled on the fresh clothes Webb had brought—dark jeans, a black henley, leather jacket. Evelyn disappeared into her bedroom, emerging in tactical pants and a fitted sweater that somehow made her look both deadly and devastatingly beautiful.
That bubble of happiness was still there, effervescent in my chest. She'd initiated sex. She'd smiled at me. She'd let me hold her. Those things meant something. They had to.
"We should get moving," I said, checking my phone for updates from my team. "I've got some leads on who might have wanted Caldwell dead, and we need to—"
"Not we," Evelyn interrupted, her voice quiet but firm. "Just you."
The happiness stopped bubbling. Started sinking instead, a stone dropping through water, down and down until it hit bottom with a sickening thud.
I looked up from my phone, trying to read her expression. "What do you mean?"