A/N:

Okay before you start reading, I want you guys to know that this chapter is....spicy. Consider it as my gift to you for being MIA for 2 months.

Enjoy reading 😏

***

Lena's POV

Biarritz arrived as a breath I didn't know I'd been holding.

The jet door opened and the Atlantic walked up the stairs, salt-cool, clean, threaded with gull cries. 

Miu blinked into the light like the city had turned its face toward her on purpose. Her hand tightened in mine once, reflexive, the way people squeeze railings when the view drops away and becomes sky.

"Aéroport de Biarritz," she read, voice small with awe and humor braided together. Then, softer: "We're in France."

Pride hit me with a ridiculous, adolescent brightness. 

Not the boardroom kind—the I-built-this feeling you can point at with a laser on a slide. This was smaller and louder: I chose well and she's happy. The only metric that matters.

On the tarmac she tipped her face to the breeze, hat still in her hand, hair being undiplomatic. I filed away the image: Miu, sunlit and unguarded, a little stunned by joy. I wanted to build rooms around it. I wanted to put soft chairs under it and say, live here, please.

The car ride was ten minutes of proof. Villas with blue shutters. Bougainvillea like confetti on stone walls. A slit of ocean that kept reappearing between buildings as if shy and then not. 

When the car turned into the drive of the Hôtel du Palais, she went very quiet. 

It was the reverent quiet—the kind she gets in museums when she reads a plaque and then has to stand back and look again, as if distance might teach the painting manners.

"It used to be a palace," I said, suddenly self-conscious about the scale of the gesture, about the pristine sweep of the facade and the way the sea bowed to it without irony.

She didn't answer, because she'd already stepped toward the view that opened behind the lobby's glass—the Grande Plage stretched wide and companionable, surfers stippling the break like punctuation. Her palm found the glass. 

For a heartbeat I thought she might cry. Then she laughed instead, soft and disbelieving, and turned back to me with her eyes shining.

"You did this," she said.

I had, and hearing it from her made it true in a new way. "Do you like it?"

She shook her head once like a startled swimmer and then nodded, emphatic. "I love it." The word landed low in my chest and took root. "I love you," she added, and then she rose onto her toes and pressed a soft, certain kiss to my mouth—sweet, sealing, the kind that says yes without asking for anything back.

I kissed her once more, lighter, because pride was suddenly a living thing in my throat and I didn't trust my voice yet.

I set our bags down and watched her take inventory the way she always does—first with her senses, then with her mind. 

The sea. The curve of the bay. The lighthouse bisecting horizon and town like a pencil line. She looked back at me, a grin tugging without permission. 

I had the unhelpful thought that I'd follow that smile into any weather.

"Come here," I said, and when she did, I put an envelope in her hands before I lost the nerve.

She arched a brow. "You wrote me a love letter?"

"Worse," I said. "An itinerary." She laughed, already charmed, and slid the card out. My handwriting looked almost calm.

Sunset walk to Rocher de la Vierge. Make a wish. Don't tell me.Dinner near Les Halles. You can refuse oysters; I will not stage a debate.Morning at the market. You pick fruit; I overcommit to cheese.Optional surf lesson. Permission to laugh at me in neoprene.Port Vieux swim if wind behaves.Crêpes. Lemon sugar for you, buckwheat for me.A secret—if the tide is low.

By the third line she'd stopped teasing and was just reading, lips moving a little. When she finished, she touched the paper like it was something you don't fold yet.

"You planned joy," she said, voice gone soft.

"I planned buffers, too," I admitted, because honesty is structural. "And a failover route if it rains."

"Engineer of happiness," she murmured, stepping into me until the card was pressed between us. "You continue to amaze me."

Outside, the city did not applaud, which felt like permission to keep being nobody but us. We walked down to the promenade and let Biarritz teach our feet its rhythm—stone, sand, board, stone.

"Rate my French," Miu said, pointing at a chalkboard menu. "'Frites maison.' House fries. I am fluent."

"Top of the class," I said. "Truly bilingual: speaks fry."

A boy on a skateboard fell with elegance and stood with more. Miu winced in sympathy, then grinned when he bowed to his audience of pigeons.

An old couple argued smilingly about whether to sit or to continue pretending not to sit.

"That's us in fifty years," Miu murmured. "Fighting about a bench, holding hands anyway."

"We can start training now," I said, and steered us decisively toward a bench we didn't need. We didn't sit. We laughed at ourselves for not sitting.

At the Rocher de la Vierge, wind turned Miu's hair into singing wires and the footbridge thrum became a chorus of strangers' days. 

She leaned on the rail and closed her eyes for her wish.

"Do I get a hint?" I asked, knowing the answer and wanting her voice anyway.

She didn't open her eyes. "No hints," she said, smiling. "Just a kiss."

I couldn't help the grin that tugged at my mouth. "Well, I'm waiting for my kiss."

Her laugh blew across the wind like a secret shared, and she leaned in to oblige—light, certain, a promise pressed to my lips before she turned back to the sea to finish her wish.

We let the tide measure time for us until shadows lengthened and a saxophone tried out a scale somewhere behind the casino. 

Back at the hotel, I told her we should change for dinner.

"For... crepes?" she asked, suspicious and charmed.

"For dinner," I repeated, which was not an answer.

In the suite, we split to opposite closets like a dance we'd choreographed in another life. When I stepped back into the sitting room first, she emerged a breath later and stopped me in the doorway.

Miu wore black that didn't argue with her body, silk that knew better than to fight gravity: a slip with a low back and a hem that flirted with her knees, barely-there gold at her throat. She'd left her hair loose; it obeyed nothing. 

For a beat I forgot every language I'd brought.

"Hi," she said, suddenly unsure under my stare.

"H-hi," I said like a starstruck fool. "You look...wow... I can't wait to tear that dress later."

"Oh?" she purred, stepping closer so the hem of her dress whispered against my shin. "Bold thesis for someone who can't conjugate 'wow'."

She slid her hands up my lapels, smoothing fabric that didn't need smoothing, fingertips catching at the seam near my collarbone like a promise tucked under a stitch. "Careful, Director. Threats like that are binding agreements."

"I sign gladly," I managed.

Her gaze dipped to my mouth, then back up, amused and hungry. "Good. Because I was going to ruin your perfect jacket the moment we got back anyway." 

She leaned in, kissed the corner of my grin—light, taunting—then pulled back just out of reach, eyes glittering. 

"For now, you behave. You escort me. You look at me like that the entire night so every reflective surface gets jealous."

"I don't know about the behave part, but the rest...achievable," I said, dazed and very willing to fail at behaving.

She laughed, low. "And later," she added, voice dropping so only my bones could hear it, "you can practice your tearing technique. Slowly. I like precision."

I swallowed, pride and something hotter lighting up the same nerve. "Yes, baby."

"Good girl," she teased, pleased, and slid her hand down to take mine. 

The car took us five minutes and two heartbeats to Les Halles. Lights were just warming on. The doors opened to quiet.

Miu blinked. "Is it... closed?"

"For everyone else," I said. Her head turned to me so fast it would have been comedic if the look in her eyes hadn't stripped the joke of air.

Inside, the space had been transformed without lying about itself: long farm tables dressed in white linen, strings of lights draped high like constellations with better handwriting, flowers that looked like someone had eavesdropped on our color preferences. 

At one end, a tiny trio tuned—upright bass, guitar, soft brush on snare. At the other, a row of stalls stood proudly open for an audience of two: oysters, charcuterie, cheeses giving off their quiet arrogances, a crepe station like a thesis statement, a corner of fruit perfect enough to make painters cranky.

Miu didn't speak. Her hand found mine and held so tight I felt it in my spine.

"Lena," she said at last, my name a reprimand and a thank you. "You—"

"Yes," I said, because I'd run out of ways to make planning sound less like obsession and more like care.

"How much...?" She stopped herself. Exhaled. Shook her head. "No. I don't want to know. I just—did you really—rent the market?"

"Technically we partnered with it," I said, uselessly technical. "They were generous. I bribed with spreadsheets and sincerity."

She laughed, fragile and delighted. "You planned joy," she said again, like the first time had been a hypothesis and this was proof.

We took our seats at the end of a long table that would have made a wedding feel under-attended. Candles bracketed us; the market's metal ribs held the night up.

Starters arrived as small negotiations: anchovies with butter and radish; a plate of jamón so thin it looked like blush; a dish of pickled something that made her eyes go bright.

"What was your first thought when we landed?" I asked.

"That the air smelled like a memory I didn't know I had," she said. "Second thought: your terrible French is hot."

"My French is functional," I said, offended for show.

"It's adorable," she corrected. "Say something."

"Je suis très content d'être ici avec vous," I said, and her eyes softened like I'd cut a ribbon somewhere.

"What about you?" she asked. "First thought."

"That you looked... surprised without fear," I said. "Like you'd stepped onto a balcony you didn't plan and found it held."

She went quiet, the good kind. "It holds," she said.

The oyster man arrived, reverent and wry. He set down a dozen like pearls that had decided to be useful. Miu eyed them as if they might request a dance.

"No pressure," I said.

"You're going to gloat if I like it," she accused.

"I'll be unbearable."

She rolled her eyes, picked the smallest, tipped it carefully, and closed her mouth around bravery. 

I watched the thinking happen. Skepticism. Surprise. A flare of betrayal at herself for not hating it. Then laughter.

"I hate you," she declared, reaching for a second.

"Bienvenue," I said, smug beyond salvation.

The trio slid into a standard I almost recognized. Miu's foot found mine under the table, ankle hooking with unconscious confidence. We traded plates until territory meant nothing.

"Question," she said between bites of lemon-sugar crêpe the chef had insisted arrive mid-meal "to calibrate your palate."

"Proceed."

"What are we telling our dads? And when?"

I leaned back, looked at the metal ceiling, and decided. "Tomorrow. From the same room. No announcements. Just... the two of us on one call each."

On the walk back through the dim market, Miu drifted her fingers along the tile and stall wood like she was reading braille.

Outside, the night was mild and salt-clean. We crossed the quiet street, the hotel lifted its lights to meet us, and I realized with a small shock that the feeling detonating behind my ribs wasn't pride anymore; it was something without edges.

Miu slipped her hand into mine. "Thank you," she said simply, no embellishment, like a cornerstone. "For all of this. For trying so hard in the direction of us."

"It's the only direction I know now," I said, and it wasn't poetry. It was a plan.

Back at the hotel, Miu beelined for the bathroom with a kiss to my jaw and a "five minutes" that meant fifteen. 

I showered after her, steam turning the mirror to a polite fog, then dressed down—soft tee, drawstring pants, bare feet that made the suite feel more ours.

When I stepped out, I expected to find her on the bed pretending to read and actually waiting for me. The bed was smooth, undisturbed. The balcony doors stood open, curtains breathing in and out like the room had a pulse.

I walked slowly toward the wind.

She was there at the rail, facing the city. Biarritz spread below in warm diamonds and slow, domestic motion: people finishing dinners, a scooter threading the promenade, the lighthouse blinking like a metronome. 

Light from the room spilled over her shoulders; the moon's glow lifted her face. She looked carved out of the evening and given back to me.

Something in me uncoiled. I stepped in behind her, slid my arms around her waist, palms meeting at her belly, and fit my mouth to the notch of her neck. 

A soft kiss. She melted back immediately, a quiet sound leaving her that lived somewhere between relief and satisfaction. The kind of sound that rewires your spine.

We stood like that a long while—counting the lighthouse blinks, letting the tide do the talking, my breath syncing to hers.

"What are you thinking?" I asked at last, voice low against her skin.

"Us," she said simply. "About... everything. The mess, the distance, the stupid brave parts and the stupid coward parts, and how they somehow got us here—this kind of happy." 

She turned in my arms, and I let her, hands sliding to her lower back so I didn't lose contact for a second.

A strand of hair had escaped and was tracing her cheekbone. I tucked it back behind her ear, my fingers lingering because they could. 

"Miu," I said, and my voice betrayed me, already rough. "I will always be haunted by the decisions I took and the mistakes I made. I can't sand those out of the beam—they're knots in the wood. But I can spend the rest of my life building around them, stronger, truer. I want to spend the rest of my life making it up to you. You deserve so, so much more than apologies and empty promises."

Her eyes went wet, steady.

"You gave me a chance," I went on, because stopping would have been a lie. "You handed it to the biggest fool you know and said, 'Try again.' I put you through so much. You are the love of my life. You are my lifeline. I will make sure you never...ever feel abandoned by me again."

"Lena—" she started, a tremor in it.

"Shhh," I said gently, a fingertip at her jaw, not to silence her forever, just for the rest of this sentence. 

"I'm not finished. I am ashamed of how I left. I dressed it up as strategy, as necessity. It was cowardice. I love you beyond reason. I love you in a way that breaks language—there isn't a word for the size of it. Let me show you, every day, in small, boring, faithful ways and—"

I stopped because she was looking at me like a lighthouse looks at water: patient, certain, like I'd finally found the line I'd been tracing in the dark.

No words formed for her. They didn't need to. She leaned and kissed me—soft at first, then certain, the kind that tells you everything you thought you needed to say and everything you were afraid to ask has already been heard. 

I let the talk drain out of me and answered with my mouth, with my hands at her waist, with the matching yes in my chest.

The night cooled our cheeks; the room warmed our backs. I walked her inside without breaking the kiss, the curtains brushing our shoulders like witnesses who promised not to tell.

We found the bed by feel. She went down with me, knees nudging the mattress, laughter a brief spark against my mouth before it dissolved into something lower. 

I kissed the places the wind had touched—temple, cheek, the corner of her smile before finding the pulse at her throat and sealing it with a reverent press. Her fingers curled in my shirt, pulling, not rushing, just insisting we be closer than language.

"Let me show you," I whispered against her skin, an echo and a vow.

"Then show me," she breathed, and the request steadied me more than any plan.

The world narrowed down to the four corners of that bed and the heat radiating between us. The air in the suite was still thick with the salt of the Atlantic and the weight of everything I'd finally admitted, but as I looked at Miu, the guilt was eclipsed by a hunger so sharp it felt like a physical ache.

I remembered what she'd said earlier—about my "tearing technique." I wanted to be precise, but I also wanted to be wrecked.

I shifted, pinning her gently beneath me, my hands sliding up from her waist to the delicate straps of that black silk slip. The fabric was a whisper against her skin, a thin, shimmering barrier that felt like an insult to how much I needed to touch her. 

I didn't tear it—not yet—but I slid the straps off her shoulders with a slow, agonizing deliberation, watching the silk glide down her curves until she was bared to me in the soft glow of the room.

She looked like a masterpiece I wasn't worthy of, but I was the only one allowed to touch.

"You are so beautiful," I breathed, my voice a jagged ruin. "I can't even breathe when I look at you."

Miu didn't answer with words; she arched her back, her chest brushing against mine, her eyes dark and demanding. 

She reached up, her fingers tangling in my hair and pulling me down into a kiss that wasn't a request—it was a claim. It tasted of the wine we'd shared and a desperate, long overdue longing.

I let my hands wander, mapping her body with a reverence that bordered on worship. I traced the dip of her waist, the swell of her hips, and the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. 

Every time I touched her, she made a sound—a soft, broken whimper that vibrated through my own chest, fueling the fire in my gut.

I moved down, my lips trailing a path of fire across her collarbone and down the valley of her breasts. I took one peak into my mouth, swirling my tongue around the hardened tip before sucking firmly, and Miu let out a sharp, strangled cry, her fingers digging into my shoulders.

"Lena... please," she gasped, her hips beginning to roll instinctively against me.

I shifted, sliding my body between her thighs. I could feel the heat radiating off her, a damp, inviting warmth that made my head swim. 

"You're so wet for me, baby." The sight was intoxicating, it's driving me mad.

I didn't go straight for the center; I teased her, my tongue tracing the crease of her thigh, grazing the very edge of her lace underwear. 

I wanted her on the brink. I wanted her aching for me.

When I finally slid my hand beneath the lace, she was already slick, her body humming with a frequency that matched my own. My fingers found her—swollen, sensitive, and pulsing. 

The moment I touched her, Miu's entire body jolted, a long, shuddering moan escaping her lips.

"Right there," she whimpered, her voice wrecked. "Oh god, Lena, right there."

I didn't let up. I used my thumb to apply a steady, rhythmic pressure to her clit while sliding two fingers deep inside her. 

She was tight, gripping me with every pulse, her internal muscles clamping around my fingers in a way that nearly broke my own resolve. I increased the pace, my movements becoming faster, more urgent, mimicking the frantic beat of our hearts.

I watched her face—the way her eyes fluttered shut, her lips parted, her head tossing from side to side on the pillow. 

She looked completely undone, stripped of every defense, and the sight of her surrender was the most intoxicating thing I'd ever experienced.

"Look at me, Miu," I commanded, my voice rough.

She opened her eyes, her gaze swimming with pleasure and an intensity that felt like it could burn through the sheets.

"I love you," I whispered, the words a vow and a plea. "I love you so much."

"I love you," she sobbed out, the words catching in her throat as she reached her peak. Her body tightened, her hips snapping upward as the first wave of orgasm crashed over her. 

She called my name—not a whisper, but a cry that filled the room as she shattered beneath me, her muscles pulsing in violent, rhythmic waves around my fingers.

The intensity of her release triggered my own. I pressed my body hard against hers, the friction of our skin and the sound of her pleasure pushing me over the edge. 

I groaned, burying my face in the crook of her neck, my own climax hitting me like a tidal wave, leaving me breathless and trembling.

I didn't let her come down.

The moment her body started to soften, still fluttering around my fingers, I pulled them free only to slide lower, replacing them with my mouth. No teasing this time. No slow build. I was done being careful.

I sealed my lips around her clit and sucked—hard, greedy, relentless. Miu's hips jerked violently, a broken cry tearing from her throat as the overstimulation hit her like lightning.

"Lena—fuck—too much—" she gasped, but her hands flew to my hair and held me there instead of pushing me away.

I growled against her soaked flesh, the vibration making her thighs clamp around my head. 

Good. Let her feel it. 

I wanted her to drown in this. I licked broad and flat, then flicked the swollen bud with the pointed tip of my tongue in rapid, merciless strokes. 

Two fingers pushed back inside her without warning, curling sharply against that spot that made her see stars.

She tasted like salt and heat and mine. 

I devoured her like a woman starved, like the weeks apart had carved a hole in me only her pleasure could fill. 

Every moan, every twitch, every desperate roll of her hips fed something primal in my chest.

I looked up the length of her body. The black silk was bunched uselessly around her waist, her breasts rising and falling with each ragged breath, nipples tight and dark. 

Her head was thrown back, mouth open, that beautiful face twisted in overwhelming ecstasy. I wanted to memorize every second of it.

I added a third finger, stretching her, thrusting inside her deep and steady while my mouth never left her clit. The wet, obscene sounds of my tongue and fingers filled the suite, louder than the distant waves outside. Her thighs started to shake.

"I can't—Lena, I'm gonna—again—" Her voice cracked.

"Come," I ordered against her core, the word half command, half prayer. "Let me feel you fall apart on my tongue."

She shattered with a silent scream this time, her whole body locking up before the convulsions took her. 

I didn't stop. I rode her through it, sucking and licking and thrusting until she was sobbing my name like a broken litany, hips grinding against my face in helpless little jerks.

Only when the tremors finally eased did I ease back—just enough to kiss the inside of her trembling thigh, then higher, mapping every inch of her with my mouth. 

I worshipped the soft skin under her breasts, the sensitive underside where her ribs met her waist, the sharp cut of her hipbone. I bit down gently on the flesh just above her pubic bone and sucked until I left a mark. 

Mine.

"You're so fucking perfect," I whispered against her skin, voice wrecked. "Every part of you. I could spend hours here and still not get enough."

Miu's fingers were still tangled in my hair, trembling. Her eyes were glassy when she finally looked down at me. "Lena... you're going to kill me."

"Not yet," I promised darkly.

I flipped her onto her stomach in one smooth motion, pulling the ruined slip the rest of the way off and tossing it aside. 

The sight of her like this—back arched, ass raised slightly, hair spilled across the sheets sent a fresh wave of heat through me.

I covered her body with mine, pressing my breasts against her back, my mouth at her ear.

"I'm not finished showing you," I murmured, sliding one hand between her legs from behind. She was drenched, dripping down her thighs. 

I circled her clit slowly now, teasing, while my other hand cupped her breast and pinched the nipple hard enough to make her whimper. 

"I want you to feel how much I worship this body. Every moan, every shake, every time you come for me tonight is proof."

I pushed two fingers back inside her from this new angle, deeper, and started a punishing rhythm. My thumb pressed firmly on her clit. She pushed back against me, desperate, grinding.

"Yes—fuck—harder," she begged, voice muffled by the pillow.

I gave her what she wanted. No mercy. I bit the back of her neck, then soothed it with my tongue, sucking another mark into her skin.

When she came the third time, it was with a long, guttural moan that vibrated through both of us. 

I kept stroking her through it, gentler now but still not stopping, drawing it out until she was a trembling, oversensitive mess beneath me.

Only then did I turn her over again and pull her into my arms. Her body was limp, glowing with sweat, marked by my mouth in several places. 

She looked thoroughly ruined and impossibly beautiful.

I kissed her slowly, deeply, letting her taste herself on my tongue. Her arms wrapped around my neck like she never wanted to let go.

"I love you," I whispered against her lips between kisses. "I love every inch of you. And I'm nowhere near done tonight."

Miu let out a soft, breathless laugh that turned into a moan as my hand slid down her body again, possessive and hungry.

"Good," she breathed, nipping at my bottom lip. "Because I want you to wreck me, Lena. Completely."