Oh, fuck.

Nico’s head dropped back against the pillow like she’d knocked the breath clean out of him—and maybe she had. Maybe she’d taken everything he was with that look, that voice, that goddamn command wrapped in velvet and flame.

Because no one had ever done this to him.

Not like this.

Not with reverence in their ruin. Not with worship in their teeth.

Not with love so palpable it felt like absolution.

“Emilia…” he groaned, her name rough and cracked and holy in his mouth. He could barely speak—could barely think—with her lips still warm against his skin and her hands pinning him like he was the fragile one now.

Like he was the thing worth keeping safe.

And Christ, maybe he was. To her. Just like this.

Every nerve in him lit up when her mouth wrapped around him again. And this time, he didn’t even try to keep quiet.

Didn’t want to.

His hand fisted the sheets, the other finding her hair—fingers gentle, reverent, almost trembling as he let her take control. Not out of surrender, but trust. Worship for worship.

Because this wasn’t just about sex.

It was them.

A liturgy of lips and moans. Of whispered names and gasped confessions. Of fire wrapped around faith and hands that held instead of hurt.

And when she pulled back again—mouth swollen, eyes burning, his—he couldn’t stop the way his chest heaved. Couldn’t stop the awe in his voice when he said, broken and breathless:

“I’d let you ruin me every night if it meant I got to be yours in the morning.”

His thumb brushed her cheek.

Then lower—tracing her jaw, her throat, the wild rise and fall of a woman unafraid to love like this.

And God, wasn’t she everything?

His beginning. His undoing. His fucking home.

So he didn’t stop her.

Didn’t guide.

Didn’t lead.

He let her.

And for Nico Romano—man of many sins, many songs, and one salvation—this was the holiest thing he’d ever known.

She heard him.

God, did she hear him.

His voice—a wrecked groan of her name, broken open like prayer and pulled from somewhere deep—went straight to her core. Made her thighs tighten around nothing. Made her smile curve with wicked reverence.

Because that?

That was hers.

That wasn’t Nico Romano the charmer, the frontman, the sinner with a saint’s mouth.

That was her man.

Undone. Unmade. Hands in her hair like she was spun from divinity and sin and something only he got to touch.

And still—still—she didn’t rush.

Lilith took her time.

She ran her tongue along the underside of him like she was tracing poetry. Like every inch was worth learning. Like pleasure was her second language and tonight she was writing sonnets with her mouth.

She dragged her lips down slow, savoring the weight of him, the taste. Pausing to tease him with the flat of her tongue, then sucking him back in with a moan low in her throat—just enough to make his hips twitch. Just enough to remind him who was in control.

And fuck, the way he responded.

Fist tangled in the sheets. Other hand in her hair like he was afraid to let go but didn’t dare hold too tight.

He was hers.

He always had been.

And she was going to ruin him for anyone who ever thought they could follow.

Because this?

This wasn’t just worship.

This was claiming.

She kept her eyes locked on his as she bobbed her head slowly, mouth hollowing, pace teasing—each movement a promise laced with fire.

She knew exactly what she was doing.

Knew the way his breath stuttered.

Knew the way his thighs tensed, the way his voice caught, the way his whole fucking soul cracked beneath her.

And just when she felt him tremble—just when his hips gave that desperate, instinctive roll, chasing release—

She pulled off with a wet, deliberate pop.

And smiled.

The kind of smile that made men pray and burn and thank her for it.

“Not yet,” she whispered, lips kiss-swollen, voice thick with heat and velvet. “I’m not done making you feel me.”

Then she crawled up his body like the slowest kind of storm—soft, searing, inevitable—and straddled his lap.

Her hands on his chest.

Her breath ghosting over his.

His mouth parted, still wrecked from her, eyes molten with everything he couldn’t say fast enough.

She reached between them, wrapped her hand around him—slick and steady—and gave a single slow stroke, watching his eyes darken, his body twitch.

“Sit up for me, baby,” she murmured, coaxing him upright with a hand curled around the back of his neck. “I want to feel all of you when I take what’s mine.”

And when he did—when their bodies pressed flush, her thighs cradling him, her mouth hovering just over his, her pulse roaring in her ears—

She whispered, sultry and full of flame:

“Let me love you like you’ve always let me fight.”

Because this wasn’t just about sex.

It was redemption.

It was her giving everything she’d held back—every piece, every moan, every ounce of control—and choosing him with every drop of sweat and sin and sweetness she had left.

And when she finally sank down onto him?

It wasn’t just heaven.

It was home.

His breath left him in a shatter.

Not a gasp. Not a groan. A shatter.

Like she’d broken something wide open inside him just by existing like this—goddess and wildfire and the woman he’d loved in silence long before he ever touched her. And now she was in his lap, flushed and bare and his, looking at him like salvation was something she could summon with a single roll of her hips.

And Jesus Christ, she did.

Because when she sank down onto him—slow, deep, deliberate—it wasn’t just his body she took.

It was his past.

His ache.

His every breath that came before her.

His mouth fell open around her name—just her name—as his hands flew to her waist, but he didn’t guide her.

He held on.

Like she was the only thing anchoring him to this earth.

“Emilia,” he rasped again—because it was the only thing that made sense anymore. Not Lilith. Not fantasy. Not performance. Just her. Real and wild and wicked and home.

She moved with intention. With rhythm. With all the grace of a sinner who’d finally found something worth praying to—and God, if he wasn’t the lucky bastard on the altar.

Their foreheads touched. Their mouths brushed. But they didn’t kiss.

Not yet.

Because that would’ve ended him. And she knew it.

She was taking her time. Drawing it out. Writhing in his lap like poetry, like vengeance, like she meant every moan, every grind, every sacred fucking stroke.

And all he could do—all he could do—was hold her through it. Let her have him. Let her take everything.

Because she already had.

“Look at me,” he whispered, voice rough, hands framing her face now. “I need to see you when you come.”

Because this wasn’t just about pleasure.

It was about them.

About all the nights he watched her walk through fire and didn’t reach fast enough.

About all the mornings she woke up next to him, blinking off the ashes and still smiling like he was enough.

It was about choosing her every day and letting her choose him back.

And when she rocked down just right—when her breath caught, and her lashes fluttered, and she clenched around him like she was falling—

He kissed her.

Finally.

Not soft.

Not slow.

But full of everything.

Everything they were. Everything they’d survived. Everything they’d become.

And when she broke apart in his arms?

He held her through that too.

Wrecked. Loved. Ruined.

And still whispering her name like a vow.

It hit her like a wave.

No—like the wave.

The one that pulls you under and makes you want to drown.

Her release snapped through her like the crack of lightning over the sea—hot, wild, all-consuming. It wasn't just the orgasm. It was everything behind it. Everything she'd been holding. Everything she gave him now, willingly, piece by precious piece.

Nico’s name tore from her lips—not whispered, not bitten back. Cried. Like he was the only word she still knew. Like her body had memorized him in every language that mattered.

Her nails bit into his shoulders, her head falling forward into the curve of his neck, breath catching in a broken gasp as she rode it out. As she let herself be held.

Because he did. He always did.

Arms tight around her. Voice in her ear like a tether. Hands grounding her even as she flew apart in his lap.

And God, it should’ve undone her.

But instead, it made her whole.

“I’m yours,” she breathed into his skin, voice raw and shimmering with the aftershock. “Always.”

She felt him shudder.

Felt the way he was barely hanging on, the way he held back for her, always for her—like he was afraid of losing control unless she said the word.

So she pulled back just enough to look at him.

Flushed. Wild-eyed. Hers.

And with a slow, wicked smile still playing at her kiss-bruised mouth, Lilith cradled his face between her palms, pressing her forehead to his again as her hips rolled—one last time—deep, slow, precise.

“Let go, baby,” she whispered. “Come for me.”

And he did.

God, he did—with a sound so guttural, so broken, it echoed inside her like another kind of climax. His arms locked around her, face buried in her shoulder, breath ragged as he came apart with her name on his lips and everything else falling away.

And when it passed—when the last tremor left him and all that was left was her—he collapsed back into the mattress, arms still around her like he didn’t know how to let go.

Like he never would.

And she didn’t move.

Didn’t tease.

Didn’t smirk.

She just followed him down, her body melting into his, soft and slow and utterly real. She kissed his jaw. His cheek. His temple.

Every soft place she could reach.

And murmured, lips brushing his ear:

“Every night. Every city. Every time. I’ll love you like this.”

She smiled against his skin.

“And I’ll never stop choosing you.”

Because she was still her.

Still the girl who could bring a man to his knees and kiss him back to life.

Still the woman who knew how to turn worship into art.

But here—with him—she was only Emilia.

And she’d never loved anything more than being his.

He held her like she was made of every answer he’d ever prayed for—like his body had been carved to cradle hers, to hold her steady when the world spun too fast.

She wasn’t shaking from the high anymore. But she hadn’t let go either.

And he didn’t want her to.

Because Nico Romano had known a lot of things—stages and secrets, champagne kisses and empty beds. But he’d never known this. Never known what it felt like to be chosen in the aftermath. In the silence. In the way she folded against him like the fight was over and he was the victory.

He breathed her in—jasmine and heat and the kind of wreckage that came from being loved too well and not regretting a second of it.

Then he spoke—low, ruined, reverent.

“Baby…” His fingers traced the slope of her spine, like he was still memorizing her. “If this is what it feels like to be ruined…”

He kissed her—soft and slow, right on the lips she used like spells and scripture.

“…then I hope you never stop.”

He let the silence sit for a beat—let her feel him, all of him, with every inch she’d just undone.

Then, voice steadier now, full of something quieter. Truer.

“You don’t have to fight to be loved anymore, Emilia.”

His thumb brushed her cheek, and he smiled. That smile he only gave her. The one that said I see you, I choose you, I’m not fucking going anywhere.

“Not with me. Not ever again.”

And maybe that was the real ending.

Not the orgasm. Not the vows. Not even the worship.

But this.

Her, safe in his arms.

And him, already planning forever.