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“No,” I said simply, smiling when her lips twitched. Running my fingers from the soft fabric of her towel, I ventured up and over to bare skin, encouraged when she closed her eyes, sucking down another controlled breath as goosebumps erupted over her arms.
“You’refundingmen who hunt predators.” Her fingers twined in my hair, slinking an inch deeper between my legs as my hands ran up and down the length of her.
“Legally speaking, they’re advocates for trafficking victims.”
“Shiny little euphemism, there.”
“One leads to prison time. The other doesn’t.”
She blew out a breath, and my world tilted as she leaned a knee onto the mattress, the promise of her wet heat hovering an inch from where I needed her. “Pragmatic of you. So are the crypto keys. I’m assuming none of that can be traced.” I certainly didn’t need her approval or affirmation, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t loving being on the receiving end of it. “How much is on there, Grey?”
“Enough.” In a world where the government owned our resources and could freeze them at the drop of a hat, where banks bordered on bankruptcy, diversifying our reserves had become necessary. Crypto was one of several—the security and anonymity unmatched. I’d loaded Alice’s necklace with enough to help her vanish, trusting she was clever enough to do it should the need arise.
“Greyson,” she scolded.
“Enough to start over.”
“Because this is dangerous—what you’re doing?”
“Yes,” I answered honestly. “Nobody likes someone threatening their supply chain.”
A chill ran down her body, but when I removed my hands, she snatched one, bringing it to her face. Her remarkable, mesmerizing face.
I ran my thumb over her full bottom lip this time. The tiny scar just below it.
Fuck me, this woman was bold when she was authentic. I allowed my other hand to settle at her waist again, mesmerized by the alien warmth in my chest.
Wanted. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt sincerely wanted. Let alone by someone that could give a shit less about my influence or the number of commas in my net worth.
Had I ever known desire like that?
I didn’t think so. Which was why my attention was categorically divided when she kept pressing for information when all I wanted to do was press into her.
“You saw something. Found something when you were over there?” When I just nodded, she huffed a pouty little breath. “You’re not supposed to talk about it?” I shook my head, and she swallowed harder than before. “But it’s why you do this.”
Snatching her hand, I brought it to my face, mirroring how she’d placed mine. She braced her weight on my shoulder and eased the rest of her body onto the mattress, straddling me properly now with her heaving breasts directly below my eyeline. I wrapped my free arm around the small of her back, pinning her against me as the last of my blood headed south. It was impossible to breathe, knowing a towel was the only barrier between me and all of her. The heat of her body robbed all my senses, cock straining against the zipper of my pants.
“Do you go out on these ops?” she asked, though the punch of demand was lost with her breathlessness.
“Not usually,” I admitted. “My back is a liability. Too easy to be rendered useless by the pain—if I move wrong or take a nasty impact, or we’re in the cold.”
She nodded, gaze analytical as she studied my face. No pity. No sympathy. Just facts.
More confidently than I felt, I asked, “Are you in?”
“I’m just beginning to grasp what that entails.”
“But you’re not running for the hills,” I pointed out. She studied me for a long beat before shaking her head once.
“No, Grey. I’m not running,” she said, giving my hair a little tug for emphasis.
God damn, this woman was mine. Maybe she didn’t know it yet. Maybe I couldn’t wrap my head around how the fuck I felt any right to claim her. But she was.
It was that understanding that sent me flipping her onto her back, holding myself over her as I breathed her in. “There is no going back,” I reiterated, no longer just discussingThunderstrike.
“No,” she agreed. “There’s not.” Her words solidified a bond to Alice Rhodes—Hart, I corrected myself—I never anticipated experiencing.
For the first time in my life, I feltseen. Seen by a woman who wasn’t screaming as she bolted. By a woman who’d been witness to the worst of me for two years straight and was still choosing me now.