HE WAITED 1,095 DAYS TO CLAIM ME

Chapter 23

The secondary road ran east through low ground where the tree line pressed close on both sides and the sight lines were useless. Raze had taken it without discussing it. If Fen had already moved our departure window up the chain, the main road was being watched. He had known that before I did.

I watched the compound disappear in the wing mirror and said nothing.

"Renard will want proof," I said.

"Yes."

"Ada's name alone won't hold him."

"No."

"I have the last three pages of the letter. I'll let him read them in the room."

Raze didn't answer. We were both running the meeting already, mapping positions, thinking through who Renard would have standing behind him and what angle he'd use to test us before he decided anything. The silence was the working kind. I had learned to tell the difference.

Twelve minutes out, he slowed the car.

He turned onto a track between two sections of tree line that didn't exist unless you already knew to look for it. Cut the engine. The silence that followed was immediate and total, the kind that pressed in from all sides.

I looked at him.

He was already looking at me. Not the operational look. The other one — patient, low, asking without asking. His hand came to my jaw. Thumb moving slow along the line of it.

"We have time," he said.

"We don't."

"Fifteen minutes."

"Renard is expecting us inside a specific window."

"I know the window." His thumb traced lower, along my throat. "Nyra."

I didn't answer. My body already had.

I pulled him in by the collar and kissed him and there was nothing careful about it. He groaned against my mouth, hands finding my hips immediately, pulling me across the centre console. I went without resistance. His seat was pushed back just far enough. I got my knee between his thighs and settled over him and he got his hand inside my trousers before I'd even finished moving.

His fingers pushed past my underwear and found my c**t and I jerked against his hand.

"Already wet," he said, low against my ear. Not a compliment. An observation, delivered with the particular satisfaction of a man who had expected exactly that.

He worked my c**t with two fingers, slow tight circles that had my hips rolling into his hand before I could stop them. I bit down on his shoulder. His other arm locked around my back and held me through it, fingers working until my thighs were shaking and I was making sounds against his collar that I didn't plan for.

"Raze—"

"I know." He didn't stop.

He pushed two fingers inside me and curled them and my whole body clenched around him. He f****d me with his hand until I came apart on his lap, my p***y clenching hard around his fingers, slick heat spilling into his palm, a broken moan pressed into his neck that I couldn't swallow in time.

He pulled his fingers out. Brought them to his mouth. Held my eyes while he did it.

I reached for his belt.

He let me. Watched me work it open, watched me free him, his c**k thick and already hard in my hand. I stroked him once and felt the muscle in his jaw jump.

I pulled my trousers down far enough. Pushed my underwear to the side. Positioned myself over him in the narrow space and sank down slowly.

The stretch of him was immediate and deep and obscene. My breath left me completely. His grip on my hips tightened hard enough to bruise.

"f**k," he said, the word rough and barely controlled.

I gave myself three seconds to adjust. Then I started to move.

There was nothing patient about it. I rode him in the cramped front seat with the windows already fogging and the clock running and both of us knowing we had no business doing this here. His hands guided my hips, setting a harder pace than I'd started, his c**k driving up into me every time I came down. The wet sound of it filled the car. The drag of him against my walls every stroke pulled sounds from me I couldn't manage.

He thrust up hard and I gasped.

"Again," I said.

He did it again. And again. One hand left my hip and found my c**t, his thumb working it in tight circles while he f****d me from below, and I felt the second orgasm building fast at the base of my spine before I was ready for it.

"Don't stop," I said.

He didn't stop. His c**k filled me completely on every stroke, his thumb relentless on my c**t, and when I came the second time it hit harder than the first — my p***y clenching around him in waves, my whole body shuddering, his name leaving my mouth in a way that had nothing composed about it.

He followed immediately after. Both hands locked on my hips, pulling me down hard as he drove up and held there, buried as deep as the angle allowed, and I felt him release inside me — hot and thick, pulse after pulse, his groan low and controlled against my throat. I felt every bit of it. My body clenched around him like it wanted to keep it there.

We stayed still.

His forehead dropped to my shoulder. His breathing was uneven against my skin and mine was worse. Outside, the tree line held perfectly still. The birds in the branches were unbothered. The morning didn't care about any of it.

Slowly, the shaking settled.

I lifted my head. He was watching me with that particular quiet on his face — the one that only appeared after, when whatever he was always bracing against had gone loose. I felt him softening inside me. Felt what he'd left there, warm and present in a way I had no operational use for.

"That wasn't enough," I said.

"No," he said. Flat. Factual.

"After Renard."

His eyes held mine. "After Renard," he said.

Not a question. A decision, made in the same quiet way he made all of them — without performance, in a tone that meant he had already settled it internally and was simply informing me.

I climbed back to my seat. Straightened myself. He tucked himself away, fixed his belt, ran a hand over his jaw once. The windows were completely fogged. He cracked his open two inches and cold air moved through the car.

"Six minutes," I said.

He started the engine.

The track rejoined the road and the tree line broke open into flat grey-green fields running to the horizon. My body was still warm. I kept my face toward the road and let it be what it was — what it had been, and what it would be again later, when Renard was behind us and the promise had nowhere left to wait.