It worked. Holy shit. I couldn’t believe it worked!

The whole time Julian and I were planning it, I thought for sure our plot was too simple—that Tessa would weasel her way out of it somehow. She seemed to have such intricate designs that I was certain she’d find a way to be one step ahead.

But no. It worked. Tessa had, indeed, let something vital slip. And we’d got it all on camera, practically catching her red-handed… but instead of feeling victorious, I almost felt sorry for her.

Once Tessa walked out of Julian’s flat, head low and sporting a thousand-yard stare, I stopped recording and stowed my phone in my pocket. Julian enveloped me in a gentle embrace, and I rested my head against his broad chest. I could feel his heart beating just as fast as mine was.

He let out a low breath. “Well. Now that’s over…”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I was riding quite the high from closing this chapter of our lives, and hopefully starting a brand new one. “It is,” I agreed, slipping my hands up along his sides and under his t-shirt, exploring the pathways of his muscles. Pressing my lips to his neck, I grazed my fingertips along his contours and planes, making a measured study of them as if I was reading Braille.

Julian snickered. “Awful handsy, aren’t we, Ms. Lawson?” he said as he looked down at me. His face was lit up with his usual mischievous grin, and despite how much I had told myself I hated it, I couldn’t help but want to press my lips against it.

“That’s Mrs. Bastille to you, sir,” I said, fighting back a giggle as I leaned up for a kiss. It was a chaste one, all things considered, but we both still lingered far longer than was strictly necessary. “And don’t you forget it.”

“I think I can manage to remember,” he said, lightly pressing his fingers into the small of my back. “Think you can manage to tell me what’s got you all giddy?”

I returned his grin. “You were hot back there. All aggressive and domineering.”

“Ah, you liked that, did you?” Julian asked, Eskimo kissing me in the sweetest of ways. Maybe that should have cooled me down some, the gesture being so antithetical to what had turned me on in the first place, but somehow it only seemed to get me hotter. I guessed I liked him both ways: hard and gentle; fire and ice.

I said, “Maybe.” And then I pulled him onto the couch.

Julian slid his hands up along my back, making a shudder race through me. I couldn’t help but delight in the way his hands felt, even the roughness of the calluses from hours spent playing his guitar. Everything about him was cast in a soft glow of affection that I just couldn’t find fault with, especially when I needed his touch so badly.

“Julian,” I cooed as I pressed my chest against his, the thin fabric of the oversized t-shirt I had borrowed from his closet doing little to hold back the stiff peaks of my breasts. He seemed rather appreciative of this, really, reaching up to cup them. He didn’t miss a beat with letting his thumbs make those peaks even stiffer.

I let out a moan as I started to undress him, starting with his shirt. I tossed it aside as though its very existence offended me, my fingers finding his tattoos the way they always did. I didn’t think that I would ever tire of feeling his body, especially knowing that I had it all to myself. Julian Bastille was mine, after all. I took a moment to let that sink in, coursing my tongue along his neck as I did so.

“I never thought I’d meet a girl so eager to have a go as you are, love,” Julian said, grinning and writhing beneath me as I bit at his throat. “It’s a bit of a turn-on, I’m not going to lie.”

“Let’s just call it making up for lost time,” I said as I ground against him, making sure he knew that only a shirt and a pair of panties lay between him and the rest of me. “I don’t plan on wasting any more of it.”

That elicited a playful growl. “Neither do I.” When I dug my knees into the spurs of his hips, he took the hint and pulled his shirt off my body, letting the fabric drag on my skin so he could take his time unwrapping me. I lifted my arms to help him, but kept him captive, tight between my thighs. I wasn’t about to let him slip away again.

“Can you say it again?” I asked him, lifting up just a little so he could get my panties down.

“What’s that?” Julian asked me, working on his jeans next.

“What you said back in our hotel room.” I lifted up again, helping rid him of the last barrier between us. His cock fit perfectly into my slit and I sawed against it, lightly brushing against his piercing with each movement. He groaned.

“I rather think I said a lot of things…”

“True.” I began grinding again, this time skin-on-skin, and giggled as Julian’s eyes fluttered shut. He tried to buck up into me, but I wouldn’t let him. Not yet. “I’m talking about one thing in particular, though.”

If he hadn’t been hard before, he certainly was now. He’d filled so much, he was almost fit to burst. Opening one eye, he regarded me. “Were you planning on making me guess, love? Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s not much blood left in my brain, and…”

I moaned as he took hold of my hips, trying to bring me down once more on his cock. I supposed I could let him off the hook. “I want you to say you’re my husband.”

“That?” Julian grinned. “Why didn’t you say so?” And then he sat up, took one of my breasts in his hand, and swirled the nipple with his tongue.

I threw my head back, moaning at the attention, realizing that even when he was on his back, Julian was completely in control. This was going to be a theme with us, I was sure of it. There was no use in fighting it. Not when it was so much sweeter to just give in.

As he bit my nipple, nipping and sucking until it was hard and puffy, I aligned us properly and slid down, hard, onto his cock. The way he breached me was often the best part—that sacred moment when the two of us interlocked. Julian must have agreed with my assessment, because a wet, hungry growl went skipping through his throat, out his lips, and teased my poor nipple into an even more heightened state of agitation. He tried to make it better with a kiss. It didn’t work.

And I only knew of one thing that would.

Clinging to the nape of his neck while the nails of my other hand embedded in his shoulder, I started to rock, sliding back and forth along Julian’s length. This was the first time I’d commanded our movements myself, but it didn’t last long. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one eager to “have a go.” He started thrusting up to meet me, like he wanted to see just how deeply he could bury himself with every stroke.

“Relax,” I urged him, wriggling as both his hands made swift contact with my ass. The shock of sensation made me moan. “Let me do the work.”

I adored the gleam in his eyes when he replied, “Not a chance.” And then I enjoyed the way he sucked his lower lip into his mouth, a measure of his concentration as he used his grip to pull me back and forth along him, settling us into heated rhythm.

“You still haven’t said it,” I reminded him, that last syllable devolving into a breathy whine. “You still haven’t said…”

“I love you,” Julian rasped, teeth grazing my earlobe. “I’m your husband, and I absolutely adore you, my darling wife.”

“Show me,” I begged him, dipping my hand between us to where we were joined. Spreading myself, I moved my fingers over the parts of me I knew would bring me to cresting in no time. “Show me how much.”

Capturing my lips one more time, Julian sank his teeth into the lower one, giving it a slow, ravenous suck. I whimpered as he pulled away, then gasped as he lay flat on his back, giving himself the proper leverage to slam up into me at a maddening pace. Between these competing sensations and their duality—the delicate stimulation of my fingers, the almost barbarous hilting of his cock—I was sent reeling, made breathy and panting by the rawness of my own desire, and by contrast, the steely resolve of Julian’s.

“I love you,” he repeated, and my knees threatened to buckle. “Goddamn, Liz. I love you so fucking much…”

“I love you too,” I whispered on the back of an airy moan. “Oh, God, Julian. I’ve never loved anyone so much…”

When I tumbled over the precipice of ecstasy—when I plunged headlong into the lunacy of rapture—Julian was there to hold me. I knew I would have been lost, if not for him, and moments later I returned the favor, holding him down by his shoulders as I took his pleasure for my own. He gave me the smallest, most impressed lift of his brows as I drew from him those fine ropes of carnal wanting, of aching lust. And then he cupped my cheek, and we breathed together, and he kissed me when I smiled.

That was when I knew, for sure, what I wanted out of all this. That was when I knew I wanted to stay his wife, that I wanted to remain utterly and completely his. That I wanted him to be mine, every inch and every part. And that for the rest of my life, any risk I took, it had to be with him at my side.

We’d taken so many gambles already. And all it had proved to me was this: that when you were in love with Julian Bastille, anything was possible.