Page 26

Chapter

Twenty-Four

GRACE

W e left Rachel’s Paris apartment seventy-seven hours after we arrived.

It was a little longer than Bones wanted, but no longer than necessary.

At least, that was how it came across. Alphabet hadn’t slept much.

He’d either been building a new machine while babysitting his laptop or he’d been chaining them together.

It was fascinating to listen to him describe what he was doing and why he was doing it. I could almost follow the steps, even if I could never replicate the instructions. I split my time between all of them. Lunchbox and Bones were out of the apartment more than in.

Meetings.

Supplies.

Other stuff.

It was the other stuff that made me curious, but they weren’t always specific on what they were doing. Voodoo had to leave for twenty-four hours to collect “weapons.” Considering we were in France, that made sense. They didn’t have access here to what they had at home.

Not that it seemed to slow them down. They focused on what they needed, they made a list and it just happened. Like the rest of the chaos we’d been embroiled in. Like surviving. Like breathing.

We needed it. They would get it.

Simple as that.

From Paris, we headed to Lyon. We cleared out the apartment, including packing up extra food to take with us to our new safe house. I left a physical note at the apartment to thank our hostess and sent Rachel a message thanking her as well.

Her response just made me laugh.

Rachel : Just remember you owe me a photo shoot at some point. I will collect.

It was so utterly normal. As long as I was still breathing when this was over, I planned to deliver. Unlike our first trip out of Paris, we didn’t split up completely. We did take two vehicles—and neither was one we’d been using.

“What are you laughing about?” Lunchbox asked as I climbed into the backseat with Goblin.

“Just—you guys change vehicles more often than some people do their underwear.”

“This is why I skip underwear,” Alphabet said over his shoulder. “Everyone’s a critic.”

Giggling, I shook my head and then twisted to look back at the other vehicle. We were in a pair of SUVs now. Both muscular, heavy duty cars. Plenty of room for our supplies, including a whole new damn wardrobe for me apparently, body armor, weapons, and computer equipment.

At least from what I’d seen while they packed. I knew they had to have more in those cases and boxes or arranged for more to be waiting for us somewhere. Their minds were playgrounds of possibility; clever, unpredictable, and always two moves ahead.

It took a few hours to get to Lyon, but the drive was far more relaxed than our in the dark of the night rush to Paris or our escape from the raid. The guys played music, laughed, teased, and it was—fun. We stopped once for bathroom breaks, to stretch legs and let Goblin out.

Maybe it was the calm before the storm or all the emotion swirling around me. Maybe it was because I’d staked my claim in all of this. I wasn’t just along for the ride. Or maybe it was because I was no longer the damsel in distress. I was a key player and they acknowledged it.

I was part of the team. It gave me purpose and a place.

What we were doing mattered. Stopping these sick bastards mattered.

But they mattered too. These men—brilliant, unpredictable, and gloriously outside the lines—had let me in.

And that meant something. It wasn’t just their brains or their bravado—it was their belief in me.

In this fight. And suddenly, I wasn't just surviving. I was belonging .

The new safe house, as it were, was… a house. They definitely had a way of getting what we needed. I wasn’t even going to ask this time.

It was late afternoon when we got in.

“Eat. Shower. Sleep.” Bones ticked those items off. “Or sleep then shower. Everyone up and ready by four hundred. Grace, you’re with me.”

“I already called dibs for tonight,” Lunchbox argued even as Alphabet snorted.

“Grace?” Bones held out his hand and I shouldered the one bag I’d been allowed to carry before sliding my hand into his. “She’s with me because she needs sleep and so do you. Let’s go.”

The muttering behind me almost made me laugh. As it was, I was biting the inside of my lip as he guided me down the hall, up the stairs and to a bedroom. It was a little frilly for my tastes, but it looked comfortable.

Once in the room, he set his bag down and lifted mine from my shoulder. “Bathroom is yours first.”

“Don’t we need to eat?” I was pretty sure that was the first order of business.

“Yes, I’m going to get our food then come back. You stay in here.”

Hands on my hips, I raised my eyebrows. “Bones.”

Teeth gritted, he gave me a long look. “Please stay up here. I meant what I said downstairs, you will all distract each other and play. That will likely lead to some very noisy, if athletic sex that will cost you in sleep and flexibility tomorrow. I need you sharp, I need them focused. If we—you and I—eat up here, then fewer distractions and you get the rest you need.”

“So, no orgasms for me tonight?” Was I baiting the bear?

Absolutely.

“I didn’t say that.”

Heat swept through at a fiery rate and I swore steam had to be rising from my head. I could feel the roots of my hair as he held my gaze for an endless moment, then nodded once before slipping out of the room.

Wow.

I had no idea who was winning in this tug of war between us, but I couldn’t say I was unhappy with the current results. Putting a hand to my stomach, I took a deeper, steadying breath. Then I headed for the shower.

While I didn’t waste time, I did linger under the pulsating heat of the hot water long enough to relax the tension in my back. I also took the time to put on lotion and slip into a clean pair of panties and a sleep shirt.

The scent of food hit me as soon as I opened the door. Bones stood with his back to the room, the soft cotton of his boxers clinging low on his hips, revealing the carved architecture of his body, a frame forged through years of brutal discipline.

The warm pools of yellow light from the twin lamps spilled across the floor and over him in fractured streaks, casting shadows that rippled across the dense muscle of his shoulders and spine.

Each contour, from the hard angles of his trapezius down to the taut lines of his lower back, was defined in stark contrast, like a sculpture half-snatched from darkness.

His legs, powerful and lean, were braced apart with a casual menace, the cords of muscle tight under skin bronzed and dusted with faint scars, more reminders of the violence he’d lived through, and carried with him.

There was no softness to him, no spare weight, just efficient strength, honed and ready.

Even in stillness, he radiated that quiet, dangerous energy, the kind that turned a room electric without a word.

Behind him, the room breathed with shadow and heat, the lamps casting golden halos on the walls. It seemed the space itself, like me, was holding its breath.

When he did turn, it was slow, deliberate, like a man used to controlling more dangerous urges than desire.

His weathered face, all brutal angles and healed fractures, came into view beneath short dark hair, still damp from a recent shower.

Instead of rushing me along, he’d showered elsewhere. A muscle flickered along his jaw.

His gray eyes, pale and unreadable, met mine.

That was where it lived, the heat. Not in the flex of his chest or the subtle roll of his hips as he faced me, but in the way his gaze swept over me, slow and unflinching, as if he could see through the fabric I wore and into the thoughts I hadn’t dared speak aloud.

Admittedly, there weren’t many of those. Something about Bones made me happy to tell him off. I certainly seemed to throw things at him a lot.

Yet, there was restraint in the set of his mouth, in the way his arms remained at his sides, but in his eyes, that cold steel turned smoldering, and seemed to house a promise of everything he wasn’t saying.

As much as I might want to hear all the things he didn’t vocalize, I wasn’t going to force it. Not when we had so much to do. What had he said earlier? We couldn’t afford to be distracted. He didn’t step forward. He didn’t have to. The room pulsed with it anyway.

All the moisture in my mouth had dried up but I forced myself to wet my lips as I yanked my gaze off of him. “Something smells good.” At least that came out relatively normal without a squeak to betray me. I carried my clothes over to the bag and stuffed them into the side pocket.

“It’s soup, mostly,” Bones said. “A couple of sandwiches. Light but hearty.”

“Sounds good,” I said over my shoulder. “Smells good too. Just getting my things out for tomorrow.” Voodoo had brought me gear.

There was a vest for me too, but they hadn’t put it in my bag, it was in Bones’.

As if reading my thoughts, he set the vest down on the dresser next to my stack of clothes.

His nearness was so close, the heat of him brushed against me.

“Come eat,” he said, running his fingers down my arm.

Goosebumps raced over my skin at the contact.

The food was on a tray at the foot of the bed.

He’d moved over and pulled back the covers on the side of the bed farthest from the door. “This is you.”

“Okay.” The jittering of my nerves left me unsettled, but I tried not to focus on that. Instead, I climbed into the bed and he tugged the covers over my legs even as I pulled them up to sit cross-legged. Then he moved the tray between us as he took a seat on my side of the bed facing me.

As promised, there was soup and sandwiches under the domes. There were also two bottles of water. He loosened the first top then tightened it again before setting it on my side, then opened his own.

Beef barley soup, I hadn’t had this in forever, and grilled cheese sandwiches. The bread was thick and fluffy. I spread a napkin over my lap for crumbs, but still leaned forward to eat over the tray.

“Do you want to talk to me about anything before tomorrow?” Honestly, that wasn’t the question I intended to ask when I glanced up to find him studying me. Still, it was the question that slipped out.

“I should be asking you that,” he said.

Shrugging, I downed the last of the soup before reaching for my water bottle. I’d been a lot hungrier than I realized. “But I asked first, ergo, you get to answer first.”

His lips twitched, a vague suggestion of movement. “Has anyone ever mentioned to you whether or not stubbornness is an attractive quality?”

“No,” I said, recapping the water. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

His chuckle was so soft and unexpected, it floored me. Was I supposed to have seen this side of him? Was it an accident? Or had he really just let me in behind the walls he kept up? The chuckle itself was so low it seemed almost barely there but there was a warmth to it that wrapped me up in a hug.

The way it lingered in the air, Bones appeared almost surprised by it except…

Except his eyes were more molten steel than cold.

The chuckle itself was full of layers and I wanted desperately to have recorded it so I could keep it forever.

Yet, I wasn’t likely to forget this moment.

Fleeting as it might have been, it was going to stay with me.

As long as this moment lasted, holding us utterly suspended, he didn’t respond. So, I gave him an out after I wiped my mouth from eating the last bite of the sandwich. “Don’t think I didn’t notice your lack of an answer, there. But I’m going to do you a favor.”

“Are you?” He rose, removing the tray from the bed and carrying it over to the dresser. With his back to me, I could enjoy watching him move. There was nothing spare about him at all. Everything was just corded muscle and sinew.

“Yes,” I said, scooting down under the covers to hide the fact I’d been ogling. He shut off the lights, robbing me of the view. I would have complained except he was just there and sliding under with me. Man moved like a ghost.

“What favor is that?” He curled an arm around me and dragged me back against him until my back was snug to his chest and his hand spread against my abdomen. A full body shudder rippled over me as he slipped a finger beneath the waistband of my panties.

The fact he punctuated the question with his teeth scraping over my earlobe threatened to short-circuit my response. When he bit down on my earlobe, I ground my ass back against him. Need unspooled so violently, I thought I was going to come just from his fingers sliding down to stroke my clit.

“Fuck…” The word left me on a groan.

“You wanted an orgasm for sleeping,” he murmured in that decadently deep tone that seemed a caress all its own. “So let me do this for you.”

“I want to touch you.” It came out a protest with a hint of whining, but he just continued to stroke his mouth from my ear to my throat. The pressure of his bite had my pussy clenching.

“Not yet,” he said. “Give me this, darling, open your legs and let me have this.”

“You can have anything you want,” I gasped out each word as he increased the pressure of his fingers. There was no reticence in him, no teasing, he was sending me down an ever tightening spiral of pleasure.

“Good girl,” he practically hummed the words. “Give me your cries. Come for me.”

The man and his orders, but fuck if I didn’t ride a burst of pleasure that soaked his hand and my panties. That soft, decadent chuckle erupted out of him again and he cupped one of my breasts, tweaking the nipple almost painfully through the fabric.

The scrape of his teeth and the vise of his fingers added an edge that burst that first bubble, but he was already stroking me back up higher. Bones was relentless, every twist of his fingers against my body wrenched more feeling from it. When I came again, I floated on a drunken, sensual haze.

“What favor were you going to do for me?” Elements of laughter punched up his voice even if he was whispering against my ear. I wanted to hold onto the moment, memorize it, but I was already drifting back under.

“Something,” I promised and his body vibrated where he wrapped around me. Laughter, I hoped, but his fingers started to move once more. “I can’t come again…”

“You can,” he said, that snap of command back in his voice. “You will.”

Bossy.

So bossy.

But I let go of everything, because he wouldn’t let me drown. He told me to come and my body damn well did as he said before I slipped beneath the pleasure-drenched tide entirely.