Slade had never been a man of sweet nothings. His words were tools—sharpened, utilitarian, often laced with threat.

But with her, they changed.

They rasped. They coiled low and rough in his throat, curling around her spine like smoke. Not tender. Not clean. Filthy—not in vulgarity, but in weight. In hunger. In how they filled silences with promises she couldn’t unhear.

He didn’t need to shout. One whisper, one slow drawl in her ear, and she’d forget how to breathe.

She liked it too much. And he knew.

So when he murmured something indecent from the shadows of the doorway, body still stained from the night’s mission, she didn’t flinch.

She stepped closer.

Because with Slade, even filth had gravity.