He shifts her beneath him, the leather cool against her back, and settles his weight—not pressing her down but anchoring her here, with him. Her legs fall open wider without him asking, and the angle changes just enough that he sinks deeper, her body taking him in the way it has all night, like she was made for this.
She gasps—a small, broken sound—and her hands find his shoulders. Her nails press crescents into his skin through his shirt. He moves slowly, nothing urgent now, just this: the slide of him inside her, the way her lips part with each thrust, the flutter of her lashes as her eyes find his.
The dawn light is gray and thin through the fogged windows. It catches something at the corner of her eye—a single tear tracking over her temple into her hair. He stops moving. Kisses it away. Salt. Her skin is warm.
"Marco." Her voice is raw, scraped clean of everything but him. His name. Not a question, not a plea—just a fact. Like she's saying it for the first time. Like she's saying it to keep it real.
He answers by moving again, slower this time, watching her face. Her breath comes in shallow pulses. Her body clenches around him, a small aftershock from hours before. He feels it low in his spine, a heat that doesn't want to end.
Her hand slides from his shoulder to his jaw. Her thumb traces the line of his cheekbone, stops at his ear. She holds him there, looking at him the way she touched his scar in the dark earlier—memorizing.
He knows what every second costs. Every inch he stays inside her is another inch he chooses her over Salvatore. Another inch that can't be taken back. The estate is waking up. The world is out there, waiting to reclaim them.
He doesn't stop.
She whispers his name again, softer this time, and it doesn't sound like surrender. It sounds like permission—permission to let the door close behind them both, to be here in the backseat of his own car at dawn, buried inside his boss's wife, and not care that he's already lost.
He presses his forehead to hers. Breathes her in. Stays.