“Are they going to make it on the boat in one piece or more likely in pieces?”

He snorted. “Depends on how much of a hassle they want to give the boys. Either way they won’t be in the Point after tomorrow.”

He tugged on my hand and pulled me around so that I was in front of him with my rear end resting against the edge of his desk. His candy-colored eyes gleamed up at me. They always did when he called me his wife.

When he first asked me if I wanted to get married, I had laughed it off, thinking it was the painkillers and too many close calls in such a short amount of time. But then he asked me the next day and the next. He asked me every single day for a month if today was the day I wanted to be his wife, and on the last day I finally told him yes. It took me a minute to get used to the idea of settling into something so traditional and steeped in custom. That didn’t feel like us but it was obviously something that mattered deeply to him, and when he showed me his soft side, his vulnerable side, I couldn’t keep saying no.

He wasted no time. I had a ring by lunchtime and an officiant—along with Chuck and Reeve, because I couldn’t think of anyone else to act as a witness for me—there by dinner for the ceremony. It was fast. It was simple. It was quiet and solemn. There was no flare or show to it. It was so unlike everything in the rest of our relationship that it made me cry because it felt so perfect and special.

It was such a weird and ever-evolving thing, this relationship of ours. Some days we seemed like a typical married couple, sitting on the couch watching movies together—the first one I made him sit through was Pinocchio; obviously—arguing about whose turn it was to do the dishes, making love softly and sweetly while we told each other how happy we were together. Other days we dealt with people trying to kill us, trying to arrest us, trying to get between us and make us weaker because as a unit we were invincible. The city had no idea what would happen when Hades handed over half of the underworld to Persephone. She came into her own and was unstoppable. Those were the days we fucked, tore at each other, couldn’t get enough as we tried to cram as much life and time as we had together into every second of every day. We were equally appreciative and greedy. It was never the same and it was never boring. Each day left a mark, a memory that I was happy to hold on to, and I could tell that the number of good memories was overtaking the number of poisonous ones from the past. Every single day, no matter what kind of day it was going to be, I faced it being proud to have a place by Nassir’s side, and I never regretted making that ultimate commitment to him.

My ring sparkled as I brushed my fingers across his high cheekbone. “How about you picture all the things you want to do to your wife instead.” Sitting in front of him on this desk was not a new position for me. In fact, it was one of my favorites. I had a lot of new favorites because of him. There wasn’t a boundary he didn’t try to cross, a sexual fantasy he didn’t fulfill, and yes, being tied up in actual rope as long as he was the one doing it was a lot of fun, and I now had a better understanding of why all the people in this club paid him so much money to chase down their needs.

His eyebrows lifted up and his teeth flashed as a wicked grin spread across his handsome-as-sin face.

“My office always turns you on.” His fingers brushed up along my thighs, taking the hem of my tight dress with them. Seeing him behind that big desk playing lord and master over all he surveyed turned me on, and now that I knew he would make sure no one was watching what went on between us in here anymore, I never denied myself having a piece of him.

“No. You doing your thing always turns me on. Power is sexy and it has always looked so effortless and easy on you.”

“Hmm . . .” He got to his feet, which forced me to actually sit up on the desk as he made room for himself between my spread legs. “It looks good on you too, Keelyn.”

I got ahold of the buttons on the front of his shirt and started meticulously pulling each one free of its hole. Usually I would rip the thing open to get to all that smooth, bronze skin lying underneath, but we had to be somewhere in a little bit and that didn’t leave time for a wardrobe change.

“Not as good as you look on me, Gates.” I purred the words as he maneuvered the bottom of my dress all the way up to my hips. The glass top of the desk was cold underneath my backside but he was so hot and hard in front of me that I didn’t even notice. When the sides of his shirt fell open, my eyes landed not only on that massive scar that now ran all the way down his breastbone but on the new black-and-gray ink that covered his pectoral muscle right over his heart. An old lock was firmly snapped closed and attached to a thick chain that wound its way in ink all across his chest, over his shoulder, and down to his wrist. He didn’t wear a ring like I did, but that tattoo was his way of telling the world he was taken, locked up and bound, and I was the Key. I had the symbolic key as well. I liked his tattoo so much, was so moved by the gesture, that I had gotten a dainty little skeleton key tattooed on the inside of my wrist. We matched and I loved it.

He used his finger to push some of my hair out of my face and bent forward to kiss me. I ended up leaning back on my elbows and almost knocking his laptop to the floor. He didn’t seem to notice, so I let him make love to my mouth while his impatient hand tugged at the top of my dress, trying to get at my breasts. The material was too tight for that, so he gave a frustrated groan and bit down on my lip. These were my favorite times with him, when it was half making love and half fucking like wild beings. It fit the two parts of the man he was and I felt it in every touch and every swipe of his tongue along mine.

Since he couldn’t get at my breasts or the nipples that were pushing against the fabric, all but taunting him, he took a step back and sat back in his chair. I fell all the way back so that my head thunked against the glass when he grabbed each of my ankles in his hard hands and lifted them up so that my fancy purple shoes were next to my bare ass and I was wide open and exposed to his heated gaze. It made me shiver even though I felt like it was a thousand degrees inside the office.

He started off by kissing the inside of my knee, then trailed his tongue in a searing path up my thigh. It made my skin quiver and my tummy dip. I couldn’t imagine a more wanton and vulnerable position to be in, and that’s what made it so sexy. One of my hands curled into a tight fist of anticipation on my stomach and the other buried itself in the midnight locks at the top of his head. I knew exactly where this was going and knew from experience I needed something to hold on to.