Page 91 of His Contract Queen

I move hard at first, a punishing rhythm that has us both panting within seconds. Each thrust is a wordless demand that screams,stay, stay, stay.She meets every one of them, her hips rising, thighs squeezing around me and whispering my name like a prayer against my throat.

The adrenaline ebbs and the rhythm slows. I brace myself on my forearms, my forehead pressing to hers as I take her deeper, slower, grinding against her until her breath hitches and her eyes flutter closed. I kiss her then, tasting every tremor that runs through her.

When she comes it’s quiet, a long shudder that rolls through her entire body. I follow a heartbeat later, burying myself as deep as I can and spilling inside her with a groan that feels like it’s been trapped in my chest for weeks.

We don’t move for a long time. I stay inside her, softening slowly while our breathing evens out. My arms shake from holding myweight off her until I finally settle on top of her. She doesn’t complain. She just wraps her arms around my neck and holds me.

I press my lips to her temple.

“I thought I lost you,” I admit. The words come out rough, barely above a whisper. “When they took you off that stage… when the car disappeared, I was sure I’d failed you. That I’d never see you again.”

For a man who has spent most of his life speaking with absolute certainty, the vulnerability in that confession feels foreign on my tongue.

But it’s the truth.

The image of her up on that stage is still burned behind my eyes. The chaos of the ballroom, the military police dragging her away, her voice calling my name, cutting through the noise just before she’d been dragged outside and thrown into the back of an SUV never to be seen again.

The helplessness of that moment had been unbearable.

Her fingers trace sling my jawline. She murmurs, “You didn’t fail me. You came for me. I knew you would.”

My throat tightens painfully. “Did you?”

The question slips out before I can stop it because part of me still can’t quite believe she trusted me that much.

She shifts beneath me, and I instinctively lift my head so I can see her face properly. When our eyes meet, the intensity there steals what little breath I had left. Her eyes are bright withunshed tears, but the fire behind them is unmistakable. The one that I love.

“Of course I did. You promised me I was yours, didn’t you?” she says firmly.

My heart thuds hard in my chest. “I did. I meant it.”

She cups my face with both hands, thumbs brushing the stubble along my jaw. “That’s why I sent you that letter. I knew once you got it, you’d come for me. You’d burn the damn house down if that’s what it took.”

A quiet chuckle escapes me.

She’s not wrong. If Sasha hadn’t found her in that tunnel, if the extraction had failed, I might very well have done exactly that.

My eyes sting unexpectedly, forcing me to blink a few times to relieve the pressure building behind them. I drag a slow breath into my lungs, trying to steady the storm of emotion threatening to surface.

The truth is, I don’t know what I would have done if the rescue mission had failed. There had been a small voice in the back of my mind during the entire operation, quiet and persistent with doubt.

A fear that Sasha might not reach her in time. That something would go wrong in the tunnel or Borchin’s security would intercept them before they reached the exit. If any of that had happened, I might have lost them both.

The thought had been suffocating, nearly impossible to ignore at the time. Now, sitting here with her beneath me, her warmth pressed against my chest, the reality of it all feels almost surreal.

“I love you,” she whispers.

The words hit harder than the bullet in my side did. My heart stutters as I stare at her, searching for the lie, the hesitation, anything that would convince me I misheard.

But there’s nothing.

Just certainty.

I pull her closer, burying my face in her hair. “I love you too. More than anything. More than the Pact… more than my own fucking life.”

She makes a soft, broken sound against my throat. I kiss up her neck until I find her lips again, moving them on hers slower this time, sealing the promise with every brush of lips and every shared breath captured between us.

We stay like that until the fire burns low.