Page 321 of Blackwood

I smile. “At least you see me now.”

Lex’s jaw flexes, and I know he’s trying to keep it together, so I keep going. “Remember our first date?”

“You mean when I hijacked your mission with Mortal Kombat and turned it into a flirt-off with bullets?”

I roll my eyes. “No. Our real first date. A couple nights after. You picked me up outside Rosethorne like we were about to rob a bank.”

“Because we kind of were,” he grins. “That reservation wasn’t even mine,Mrs. Voronina-Belyakov.”

“You were blasting Russian rap in that sleek black McLaren like you were auditioning forFast & Furious: Bratva Drift.”

“Baby, you wore that red leather jacket,” he says, eyes dancing. “Looked like sex bottled up. What did you expect?”

“And you took me to that rooftop in Tribeca. The one with the string lights, the private chef, and a violinist playingToxicon a loop.”

Lex snorts. “An underrated classic.”

I huff out a laugh. “We didn’t talk about missions. Or Cade. It was just you and me. Champagne and bad decisions.”

He grows quiet. Eyes locked on mine.

“And then…” I say softly, “remember a week or so later when I was spiraling and convinced Cade was never coming back to us? You didn’t try to fix it. You just put me on your bike and drove us to Cooper’s Beach at two in the morning.”

“Because you breathe better by the water.”

I nod. “And you always give me the ocean, Lex. You know me better than you think, baby and we haven’t had nearly as much time as Cade and I.”

I rest my head on his shoulder, then glance up with a teasing smile. “Remember that night in Central Park?”

Lex groans. “When you threatened to kill me if your heels got ruined?”

“They were Giuseppe Zanotti.”

“You were wearing white in the rain, malyshka. You really think I wasn’t gonna make a move?”

“You spun me like a lunatic under that streetlamp.”

“You laughed,” he shrugs.

“You kissed me like the world was ending.”

He leans in. “It was raining. You were soaked. I have no regrets, malyshka.”

I grin. “It was perfect. Just you, me, and the rain.”

Lex exhales slowly, the tension bleeding out of him.

“I remember the first time I knew I loved you,” I say.

His brows lift. “Was it at he pier?”

“No. That’s when I started to fall for you, yeah sure. But the night I knew for sure, was in Boston at The Liberty Hotel.”

Lex stiffens slightly. He remembers.

“We’d just rescued those kids. That hell house in Roxbury,” I say, voice low. “You, me, the guys, and O’Malley. We got them out. Every last one of them.”

“O’Malley’s fucking insane.”