We stayed clinging together long after his hips stopped twitching. Our heartbeats thundering to the same beat.

Slowly, he raised himself on his elbows and cupped my head in his hands. The intimacy between us caused sudden tears to spring to my eyes.

“You’re everything I’ve ever needed, Nila.” His voice was hoarse and deep. “Through every day, every text message, every awful debt, I gave you my heart.” He nudged my nose with his. “And now, you own all of it.”

My nipples tingled against his chest as my uninjured arm wrapped around his muscular waist. There was no space between us. His heart pattered against mine and I never wanted him to leave. My pussy quivered with aftershocks of our orgasm—milking Jethro’s erection still inside me.

He chuckled, causing his cock to jerk. “Eager for another round, Ms. Weaver?”

I gasped, shivering with a mixture of happiness and distress at my last name. “Always.”

Tilting his head, he breathed, “Kiss me, Needle.”

My heart leapt into my mouth as I kissed him with everything I had left. Our lips met hot and wet, the crackling lust of sex mixing with the erotic promise of more.

My fingers disappeared into his hair, holding him like he held me. Our hearts once again spoke silently as his kiss turned demanding and infinite. His cock thickened inside me as his tongue drove in and out, fucking my mouth just like he’d fucked my body.

I couldn’t love him anymore than I did. I couldn’t ask for any more than I’d been given.

Whatever he’d done tonight still tainted the air around us. The undercurrent of death and destruction hadn’t dissolved, but the allure of a bright and untwisted future grew stronger every minute.

It would take time for us to move on. But we would move on.

All of us.

Because we deserved it.

With him inside me, we were inseparable.

Now and forever.

He’d proposed.

I’d said yes.

We were each other’s.

For eternity.

MY HEART COULDN’T handle any more stimuli.

Not after yesterday’s rush of terrible highs and morbidly low lows. And yet, I had no choice but to endure more.

In my right hand, I held my sister’s. In my left, I held my fiancée’s, unknowingly passing emotional messages as natural as breathing.

Last night, we’d become more than two people beneath the spray. We’d become one.

Things had changed between us.

There was a new layer to our connection. A deeper, unbreakable bond—an indescribable friendship.

And as much as I wanted to deny it, I needed Nila’s friendship and support more than anything today.

Today.

I swallowed hard, hating the word.

I would forever remember this day. I would forever despise this day.

The morning had been blissful. After fucking Nila, I’d tumbled into a sleep so deep, I entered a black hole of tiredness. I didn’t wake until late lunch and only because the gnawing pain of hunger drove me to service my other needs now my brain wasn’t shredded with lethargy.

Once Nila and I had raided the kitchen for roast chicken sandwiches and crisps, Flaw found us and demanded we follow him to his newly created triage in the east wing.

There, he’d redone Nila’s soggy cast, and stitched up the tear in my side. He’d also checked my vitals, and given me antibiotics for my fever. Afterward, he’d given me strict instructions to head for a proper check-up with my doctor at the hospital and assured me he’d taken care of the injured from the ballroom and had the aftermath well in hand.

I normally didn’t give employees such trust. But Flaw was more than that now. He’d proved himself capable and loyal. If he said he had things under control, I would believe him while I focused on more important things.

Things such as healing and shedding the memories of what had happened between Cut and me. Every time I thought of my father, my heart ached with torment. Was I right to do such things? Was I wrong to regret them after everything he’d done?

I sighed, squeezing my sister’s and Nila’s hands. I couldn’t think about that.

Not here.

Not now.

Not when the very building I stood in stripped every reserve I had, poisoning me with sadness, grief, and insurmountable helplessness.

Kestrel.

Goddamn you, brother.

My eyes burned as I focused on my best friend.

Flaw had gotten his wish. I’d returned to the hospital. However, I stood in the basement of a facility dedicated to healing and keeping the injured alive, breathing in the stench of death. Above, the living still clung to hope. But down here…down here, we stood in a morgue.

A crypt where soulless bodies froze on ice, waiting for their loved ones to determine their fate. A terrible, terrible place where the lingering emotions of destroyed relatives and broken-hearted lovers said goodbye for the final time.

I don’t want to say goodbye.

Nila squeezed my hand as I swallowed back a growl, snarl, curse…sob. I didn’t know how to react. I couldn’t unscramble my thoughts from Jasmine’s or Nila’s.

In the car over here, I’d had to screech to a stop, scramble out, and sucker punch an innocent tree on the side of the road.

Jasmine.

She hadn’t told me.

After Flaw patched me up, I’d searched for Nila. I’d dealt with my hunger and sickness, all I wanted to do was return to bed and spend days hiding from others, wrapped up in the love Nila had for me.

But that was before the phone rang.