EPILOGUE
KIARA
SIX MONTHS LATER
The world thinks we’re dead.
According to both of our agencies, Raiden and I went down on the same night, casualties of a very unfortunate series of events that left a warehouse full of bodies and no survivors worth questioning.
The files have been closed, the reports signed, and our names crossed off whatever quiet little lists those people keep in the dark corners of their databases.
Officially, we no longer exist. And honestly? I’ve never been happier.
From what we’ve been able to gather through the occasional whisper on encrypted channels, both agencies are still operating, though apparently not very smoothly.
There’s been a lot of scrambling behind the scenes—contracts slipping through the cracks, jobs taking longer than they should, entire operations falling apart because the people they’ve tried to replace us with simply can’t do what we did.
Turns out, finding contractors capable of stepping into our shoes isn’t exactly easy.
A small, very petty part of me enjoys that, while Raiden pretends he doesn’t, but I’ve caught him grinning to himself on more than one occasion.
What can I say? He’s a smug bastard who gets off on knowing he’s the best, and watching people attempt to claim his throne has been pure entertainment for him.
We’ve talked about starting our own agency eventually.
The idea lingers between us like a loaded weapon sitting on the table—dangerous, tempting, and probably inevitable.
I love what I do. Always have. The rush of it, the strategy, the way the world narrows down to one objective, and the clean satisfaction that comes with finishing the job.
I miss the thrill, but for the first time in my life, I’m not in a hurry to chase it, because right now, life has never looked so good. Right now, life looks like the South of France, and I fucking love it.
Our home sits along a quiet stretch of coastline where the air always smells like salt and the citrus trees growing along the property.
At night, the only sound is the waves rolling in against the shore.
Every morning, the sun rises slowly over the water, turning the whole sky orange and pink in a way that still feels a little unreal after spending most of my life in the darker corners of the world.
Most mornings, I wake before Raiden, slipping out of bed just long enough to watch the sunrise from the balcony with a cup of coffee in my hand. He usually finds me there a few minutes later. Always shirtless. Always perfect. And always ready to rock my world.
Life has slowed down in ways I never thought possible. We cook together. We swim in the ocean. We argue about stupid things like whose turn it is to buy groceries or whether Spikezilla and Needles are achieving world dominance or barely surviving under my care.
Every now and then, when things get a little too quiet around here, Raiden looks at me with that look in his eye and says something like, “So, how would you feel about running our own operation?”
I usually smile. Not because I’m ready to dive back into that world just yet, but because I know when we do, we’ll do it together. If the past has proven anything, it’s that the two of us are damn near unstoppable.
For now, though? The world thinks we’re dead, the agencies are scrambling, and Raiden is currently in the shower .
. . which means I’ve got about five minutes before he comes out, dripping wet, acting like I’m personally responsible for distracting him from whatever plan he was pretending to make.
But let’s be honest, the only plan either of us has is to have him buried inside of me, screaming his name.
Fuck, life is good.
I take another sip of my coffee and smile out at the endless sea.
The bathroom door opens, and Raiden steps out in a cloud of steam, dragging a towel through his hair before letting it fall around his neck. Water droplets slide down his chest and over the hard ridges of his stomach, tracing the familiar paths I’ve memorized more times than I can count.
A loose towel hangs low on his hips, barely doing its job, and he looks entirely too pleased with himself for a man who just walked into the room half-naked.
My gaze drifts slowly from his shoulders down over his chest, lingering for a moment on the lines of muscle running across his stomach before dropping just a little lower. The man looks like he walked straight out of a goddamn sin catalog.
Then my eyes drag their way back up to his face.
I don’t even pretend to look away. Not subtle.
Not embarrassed. Not even a little ashamed of the full-body inspection I’m giving him.
Because shit, why not look at something so incredibly delicious if it’s presented to you like a goddamn snack?
Honestly, at this point, it would be rude not to admire him.
Raiden catches it immediately. He always does, and his mouth curls into that slow, knowing smirk he gets when he realizes exactly what I’m thinking, like he’s already ten steps ahead and enjoying every second of it.
His shoulders roll back slightly as he steps further toward me, completely aware of the effect he’s having and absolutely shameless about using it. He leans back against the stone edge, his body so relaxed that it somehow makes him even more delicious.
“See something you like, Firecracker?”
I lean back in my chair and let my eyes drag over him one more time, slow and deliberate as I linger on the sizeable bulge hidden beneath his towel, mapping out the whole shape of his massive cock, before meeting his gaze again.
“No,” I say flatly, barely able to hide the hunger in my tone. “I’m just making sure all the important parts are still there.” His brows lift, and my lips quirk with a grin. “Would’ve been a shame if the one useful thing about you suddenly detached and ran away.”
His brow arches, and he slowly pushes off the stone edge, looking at me like a predator stalking his prey. “The only useful thing?” he questions, his tone so low and gravelly it wakes up something deep inside of me.
“Mm-hmm.”
“It seems you must have forgotten what my fingers and tongue are capable of.”
Oh shit.
Raiden doesn’t stop until he’s standing right in front of me, and I hastily put my mug down, never knowing where this could go. He reaches down and grabs me, effortlessly lifting me straight into his arms before striding back over to the stone edge that peers off into the world beyond.
He settles me on my feet, the backs of my legs brushing against the harsh stone as he pulls at the string holding my silk robe closed.
His fingers slip inside, trailing over the silk and up toward my shoulder before pushing it over my skin, his heavy gaze locked on my body as though mesmerized by my skin.
The silk falls to my elbow at one side, exposing my breast as it goes, and I immediately feel the cool morning breeze brush against my skin, my nipple pebbled under the sensation. Raiden groans and goes straight to the other side, repeating the process.
The robe falls all the way to the ground, the soft material brushing over my skin with ease, and Raiden’s fingers grasp my chin, slowly bringing my lips almost to his. “Baby, your life insurance doesn’t cover what I’m about to do to you.”
I laugh. He knows damn well that neither of us has life insurance. It’s not exactly typical for someone who works as an assassin, plus the premium would be through the roof. Besides, according to the world, we’re both already dead anyway.
His hands come to my waist, and I suck in a breath just as I go to capture his lips in mine, only he lifts me onto the edge, my bare ass pressed against the rough stone.
I brace my hands against the stone to keep from falling right off the cliffside and plummeting to my death below, but fuck, what a spectacular way to go.
“Feet,” he orders, holding his hand out.
I arch a brow, but I’m so here for it, and instead of giving him a hard time like I usually do, I simply lift my feet off the ground and place them into his hand.
He grasps my heels, his other hand skimming up the length of my legs before trailing back down, and when he curls his fingers around both of my feet and slowly begins to spread them, my heart starts to race.
He spreads my legs as far as they’ll go, bracing each foot against the stone until I’m nothing more than a buffet to be devoured.
He scoots my ass closer toward him until there’s nowhere left for me to go, and as I lean back against my palms, my hair whipping through the morning breeze, Raiden drops to his knees before me.
My eyelids flutter with anticipation, and before I can even gasp, his mouth is closing over my clit. “Oh fuuuuck,” I groan, my head tipping back as pure, electrifying elation pulses through my body.
His tongue rolls tight circles over me, the pressure exactly the way he knows I like it, and when his lips tighten over my clit and suck, my hips jolt. A loud gasp pulls from deep within me.
I feel his smile against my core as my chest heaves with panted breaths, and goddamn it, I can’t wait to return the favor.
Raiden adds his fingers to the mix, reaching up beneath his chin to my entrance, and the moment he begins pushing inside me, my walls begin to clench. “Yes,” I groan, just as his fingers push all the way in. They bend just right, teasing me as my walls tremble around him.
His tongue never lets up, working me right to the edge and giving me exactly what I want.
I cry out, the pleasure building deep within me, my body growing hot, and hell, I don’t even care that I’m ass naked out on the balcony, screaming for my man.
If the neighbors can hear, they might as well pull up a chair and watch, because the moment they see the way this man fucks, they’ll never be the same.
His fingers are like magic as they split inside me, scissoring and doubling the intensity as my hips rock against his face, not able to hold on much longer.