Page 19 of Code Name: Hunter (Club Opus Noir #2)
The safehouse hums with silence. No street noise, no distant sirens.
Just the faint whir of climate control and the soft tick of an old analog clock mounted on the wall.
The shift from chaos to stillness is jarring.
My adrenaline hasn't bled off yet, and every creak of settling wood sounds like a footstep.
Vivian breathes in slowly, like she finally thinks we’re clear. Like she can let herself relax.
She’s wrong.
She tosses her messenger bag onto a chair and leans against the wall like she owns the place. "So, what now? You lecture me? Strip me down? Maybe shout some more about how I’m an ungrateful wretch?"
I stalk toward her. "Take off your shirt."
Her eyes flare—defiant, wary. She blinks. "Excuse me?"
I crowd her. "Do it. Now."
Her gaze narrows, but she peels the fabric off slowly. Controlled. Deliberate. Not because I ordered it—but because she chooses to. A game of wills.
I shove her against the wall. Not hard. Not cruel. Just enough to remind her I’m not some passing shadow she can dance around. Her lips part slightly, defiant. Waiting.
"You don’t get to vanish on me again, Vivian. Not now. Not when we’re this close."
“Close to what?” she fires back.
I don’t answer. I can’t. Because saying it aloud would make it real. Would mean she still has that power over me. "I'm not sure," I admit.
I kiss her fervently, my lips colliding against hers as if staking my claim.
My tongue ventures into her warm, inviting mouth as our breaths intertwine, a fusion of shared desire and shared history.
Her slight gasp signals her surprise as I draw her lower lip between my teeth, but she doesn't resist.
Her fingers claw into my shirt, bunching up the fabric as her fists tighten with a desperate need for support or perhaps something to vent her passion on.
As the rest of our clothing disappears into the ether, I hold her jaw firmly, angling her face up so that our kisses deepen and evolve into an impassioned dance of tongues and teeth, while unspoken vows linger weightily between us.
She molds herself against me as if drawn in by a gravitational force, waves of heat pulsating from within her.
She tugs me nearer, her thighs opening just wide enough to entice me into the inviting crevice. She thirsts for the intensity of our bond and yearns to feel every ounce of possessiveness surging through my veins. And I give it to her—unrestrained, insatiable passion.
My hands journey down her spine before gripping the flesh of her thighs and hoisting her off the ground.
As though driven by instinct, she curls herself around me, clinging tightly as our desires escalate.
The growing heat between us intensifies as she nips at my lip with playful aggression; I welcome the minor pain and the challenge it presents.
We stumble towards the table, its edge digging into my hips as she trembles against me.
She exhales shakily against my throat before releasing a soft moan while I continue to taste the sweetness of her mouth.
Holding her hands behind her back with one hand, I guide her hips closer to mine with the other.
Her breathing comes in ragged gasps—sharp and fractured—her body arching into mine as I release her hands and push myself into her in one deep, unyielding stroke. Her nails drag across my back, pleasure melding with pain as she tosses her head back and moans.
"Logan…"
Her voice cracks as I thrust once more, this time with even greater force.
The velvety warmth of her inner walls tightens around me, luring me deeper with each insistent undulation of her hips.
She's far from passive; she matches my rhythm, our bodies synchronizing stroke for stroke, her warm breath caressing my skin as we make love like never before.
The table creaks beneath us, the wood shuddering with every impact.
I pull her thighs up to wrap her legs more securely around my waist and slam into her again, our rhythm turning fierce and possessive—utterly perfect.
My name escapes her lips in a breathless gasp; her body trembles and her hands clench in my hair as I lean down to bite her shoulder tenderly.
Sweat coats our entwined bodies, heat searing at every point of contact between us—a battleground of lust and passion.
Her legs wind tightly around me, hips rising to greet each thrust as I bury myself inside her again and again, each movement deeper and more forceful—staking claim to what has been denied for far too long.
Her cries aren’t polite or restrained—they’re raw, desperate, the sounds you only make when someone’s stripping you bare in ways you can’t undo.
I restrain her wrists above her head once more, exposing the length of her body beneath me.
With a sharp intake of breath, she feels me press deeper inside her.
Her body quivers violently, and another climax surges through her.
Unyielding, I continue to move within her—I want her forever marked by my touch, my taste, my very essence.
One final thrust sends shudders down both of our spines—not just hers—and this time, our names echo off the walls.
Her eyes meet mine as I bite down on her throat, the pressure leaving a faint love mark.
She convulses beneath me, a beautiful mess of raw emotion and passion that sends me over the edge.
"Mine," I growl into her ear. As she shudders, I feel her unravel—tightening, spasming, and ultimately crumbling in my embrace.
My climax follows suit, a groan of pleasure and release tearing from my throat as we collide against one another, united in a storm of lust and longing.
We collapse together, limbs entangled and breathless, the heady scent of sex and sweat enveloping us.
Later, when her breath has evened out and my body still throbs with the aftershocks of her surrender, I press a kiss to the hollow of her throat and whisper, "We’re not done."
She doesn’t flinch. She says nothing but chuckles softly.
I smile. Not soft. Not warm. A predator’s promise.
A glint catches my eye—barely there, tucked beneath the edge of a torn patch of skin just below her shoulder blade. The kind of tear you’d get from a scuffle like the one she was in earlier, shallow and easy to miss. But what’s beneath it isn’t.
A sliver of tech. Embedded. Foreign. The pulse in my jaw matches the one in my chest—steady, violent—because something this crude should never have made it past her skin.
It doesn’t belong. The design’s wrong—too crude, older gen, definitely not Cerberus-issue. My vision narrows, fury punching through my chest in a cold, surgical strike. I press my fingers gently around it, steady despite the heat in my blood.
Whoever planted this got close. Had to. Within inches.
Skin contact. And she never felt it. Never saw it.
That’s what shreds me from the inside out.
Vivian Black doesn’t get tagged. She clocks a tail before they breathe in her direction—but this?
This slid right past her defenses, slipped under her skin, and waited.
No sixth sense. No warning. Nothing.
It wasn’t the tech that gave it away—it was the injury. A split-second tear in the right place at the wrong time. If she hadn’t gotten into that fight, I never would’ve seen it. Which means it could have been there for a while.
My jaw grinds as the implications lock in. This was deliberate. Precise. Someone wanted her traceable. Which means someone wanted her caught.
"Well, it’s not mine," she says, voice low.
I pinch the skin and extract it with a twist of my blade.
She hisses. "Was that necessary?"
"You want the needle next time?"
She turns, her bare chest brushing mine. "Next time I’ll do it myself."
"No, you bloody won’t. And don’t let there be a next time."
The tracker pulses—once, then again—steady and red. My stomach knots. Fuck. It’s reactivating. Someone out there just got our location. A silent signal. And just like that, the illusion of safety shatters. Someone’s watching. Someone’s coming. Not to test us this time—but to end it.
I snatch up the tracker, shove it into the lead-lined containment box Cerberus issued for exactly this kind of shit. The lid snaps shut, the latch’s click too loud in the stillness—out of place, jarring. A cold rush of adrenaline spikes through my veins.
The air feels wrong now. Too quiet. Too still. Too thick to ignore. Every instinct I have screams the same thing: we’ve been compromised. Whatever comes next—Wolfe, the cabal, the truth that nearly destroyed us—she’s mine to protect, to control, to own. I’m done playing by everyone else’s rules.