Chapter 87: My Liberation Rewards

Slowly by slowly, we collapsed onto her king-sized bed, both of us breathing hard.

Isabella was pressed against my chest, her whole body still trembling like aftershocks from an earthquake. Her face was buried in my neck, and I could feel warm tears against my skin.

Not sad tears.

Relief tears.

The kind that come when something breaks open inside you that’s been locked away for years.

Like she’d finally

exhaled

after a lifetime of holding it in.

"Fuck," she whispered, voice completely wrecked. "I can’t... Peter, what did you do to me?"

I wrapped my arms around her tighter, feeling her heartbeat gradually slow against my ribs. Her skin was still burning hot from my touch, and every few seconds another shudder would run through her body as the supernatural sensations continued echoing through her nervous system.

"I just showed you what you deserve," I said quietly, pressing my lips to her hair. "What you should’ve been getting all along."

She pulled back to look at me, her dark eyes wide and glassy. "No, that’s not... Peter, your fingers... the way you touched me... and how did you...?" She trailed off, her face flushing as the memory flickered behind her lashes.

"You changed. I felt you change inside me. That’s not possible. What you did with your hands, your..." She shook her head like she was trying to make sense of something that defied logic.

I didn’t say a word.

I just looked at her—

really

looked—like she was mine and always had been.

Her lips parted again, but it was just a shaky breath that left her.

"I still feel you," she said, and her voice cracked on the last word. "Inside me. Like you’re still there, pulsing."

My hand slid down to her thigh, slow and calming, not to start anything—just to remind her she wasn’t imagining it.

"I am," I murmured. "Not just in your body. I’m in your nerves. Your breath. Your goddamn heartbeat."

She whimpered—low and desperate—burying her face into my chest again. "Is this you? Is this what being with you means?" she asked, muffled.

"This is me," I said. "Unfiltered. When I claim something... I don’t do halfway."

She pulled back again, tears still clinging to her lashes, and whispered like she was confessing a sin: "Then don’t ever let me go."

I smiled at her, but it wasn’t soft.

It was possessive.

Dangerous.

Certain.

"I wasn’t planning to."

I didn’t say anything right away. I kissed her forehead instead, pulling her tighter under the covers. Letting her feel the steady beat of my heart against her chest, and mine syncing with hers like they were trying to remember the rhythm of something ancient.

She curled her fingers into my chest. "Are you even human? Or something else?"

I met her gaze. Held it. "It’s me. But... not the version of me most people get. It’s the part I keep hidden. The part that only comes out when I’m with someone who actually

sees

me."

Her breath hitched again, not from fear or shock—but from the weight of being seen that clearly. "I didn’t mean to fall like this," she murmured.

"I didn’t mean to catch you," I whispered back.

And we just stayed like that. Tangled in silence, with only the sound of our breaths and the soft hum of the city lights beyond the blackout curtains. Her legs still draped over mine. My hands still sliding up and down her back in slow, grounding strokes.

There was no rush to start the next round.

Because this—

this

—was the after.

The part where the sex faded into something deeper.

Where she didn’t just feel taken.

She felt

kept

.

’Right. Normal humans don’t have Magical Fingers that can rewrite someone’s nervous system or Size Control abilities.’

"It felt different because it mattered," I said, brushing a tear from her cheek. "Because I wanted you to feel good, not just get through it."

Isabella’s face crumpled slightly, and she pressed her forehead against my chest. "Four years," she whispered. "Four fucking years of thinking something was wrong with me. That I was broken. That I just... wasn’t built for this."

My chest tightened listening to her. Four years of her husband making her feel defective because he couldn’t be bothered to learn how to touch a woman properly. Four years of Isabella thinking she was the problem.

"You’re not broken," I said, my voice rougher than I intended. "You’re perfect. I am, sorry to say this but your husband’s just a pathetic excuse for a man who doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as you."

Her face crumpled slightly, and she pressed her forehead against my chest. "I can’t go back to him," she whispered. "Not after this. I can’t pretend that what we just did wasn’t the most alive I’ve felt in years."

The vulnerability in her voice hit me harder than expected. This wasn’t just about the mission or the SP anymore. She was just a woman I wanted to be with. My woman now. Isabella Rodriguez was looking at me like I’d saved her life, and maybe I had.

"You don’t have to go back to anything," I said, tilting her chin up so she had to meet my eyes. "You don’t owe anyone a performance of being okay with less than you deserve."

She searched my face for a long moment, like she was trying to figure out if I was real or if this was all some elaborate dream.

"I know this sounds crazy," she whispered, "but I feel like you just woke me up from a four-year coma. Like I was sleepwalking through my own life until you touched me."

’That’s exactly what happened,’ I thought. ’I literally rewrote your nervous system and showed you what your body was capable of feeling.’

"It doesn’t sound crazy," I said instead. "It sounds like someone finally treated you the way you should be treated."

Isabella curled closer to me, her leg sliding between mine as she settled against my chest. "I don’t want this to end," she admitted quietly. "I don’t want to go back to feeling invisible."

I held her tighter, one hand running slowly down her back, tracing every vertebra like a prayer. My other hand rested over her hip, grounding her against me.

"You won’t go back to that," I said low against her hair. "Not the numbness. Not the silence. You’re not invisible anymore, Isa. I see you. All of you."

She breathed out shakily, the air brushing across my chest like silk.

"You touched something in me I didn’t even know existed," she murmured, her fingers playing with the edge of the sheet draped over us. "I didn’t think my body could even feel like that. Or that someone would ever want to explore me like I was... sacred."