Page 17 of Remade (Hillcroft Group #3)

July 7th, 2025

Bo Beckett

I grabbed on to the headboard and fucked him harder, well aware we had to get going soon. But fuck me, I wished we could stay at home all day. We met in a hungry kiss, and he dug his heels against my ass.

“Greedy boy.”

He sucked in a breath and groaned, and he raked his fingers down my shoulder blades.

Ripples of pleasure pulsed through me, only intensifying whenever he clenched down around me. He may have gotten better at composing himself at work, but I fucking loved how expressive he was for me. I saw how the pain and pleasure flitted across his face and made him beg for more.

With my free hand, I stroked his cock tightly but unhurriedly, and it didn’t take long for his begging to grow urgent. That was when he started whimpering and clinging to me.

“Will you take every drop I give you?” I murmured, out of breath.

“Always,” he moaned. “Please—I need it.”

I peered down between us, and I picked up the pace. Alex was already up. I could hear the cartoons coming from the living room.

Leighton gasped and threw his head back, and it was as if his orgasm came out of nowhere. Before I knew it, come spurted out of his cock, and it triggered me too. I gnashed my teeth, fucked him as hard as I could, and rubbed his release all over his cock.

His breathless whimpers threw me over, and the bliss crashed down on me. I groaned under my breath and clenched my jaw as I came deep inside him.

Jesus fucking Christ.

If there was one thing I’d discovered living with Leighton, it was that we didn’t need an abundance of furniture nobody used, trinkets, or shit on the walls. We had some, obviously. My sister was relentless. She’d been offended we didn’t have drapes before. But…fuck it. That nonsense had mattered to previous girlfriends; they’d said they wanted their homes to be full of character and memories. And I understood the concept of it. It wasn’t as if I minded it when something new ended up on our walls, usually at the request of Alex. But what it boiled down to…I didn’t need it. The relationship I had with Leighton breathed life into every room we entered, so I didn’t care where we spent the night or where we ate our supper. This little fucknut—and Alex—had become my home, as cheesy as it sounded.

I collapsed on top of him, and our hearts hammered in unison.

I swallowed dryly.

Then I shivered when he gently brushed his fingers across my back.

“Goddamn,” he whispered.

I nodded into the curve of his neck, and I kissed him there.

“Let’s shower,” he muttered.

“You go first.” I yawned and pulled out of him slowly.

“Or we shower together?” He frowned.

I smirked a little and bent down to kiss his knee. “We know how that goes. My ma will be here in half an hour.”

We were never on time when we showered together.

Leighton grinned slyly and pushed himself up on his elbow. “We can be quick.”

I laughed. “No, we fuckin’ can’t.” I smacked his thigh. “You go first since you’re stepping out.”

“Mouse, come eat breakfast!” I hollered.

Thick-cut bacon, eggs, steamed broccoli, and grilled tomato halves had become our regular breakfast, but Alex wanted her blueberry yogurt too. Milk for her, coffee for us. Well, with a fuck-ton of creamer and sugar in Leighton’s.

I carried the last shit over to our table, right in time for Leighton to return with my birthday donuts.

“Look at the one I got you, baby,” he chuckled and opened the lid. “It had to be a unicorn.”

I peered inside and laughed. Alex would get a kick out of that. She’d get her jelly donut; Leighton preferred regular glazed, and I wanted to be surprised. This one had chocolate icing and some unicorn built out of marshmallows.

“Perfect.” I grinned and tightened the towel around my hips. “Alex!”

“Oh my gosh, I’m coming! You don’t have to yell!”

Leighton and I exchanged a look. What were the odds of her new phase being over by the time we came home in a week or two?

Leighton set the donuts on our table and eyed Alex as she entered the kitchen. “You’re gonna be fun when you become a teenager, brat.”

Alex flipped her hair over her shoulder and got seated. “I’m a freaking angel.”

“Like Lucifer,” I muttered under my breath. “Where are my birthday presents?”

“Oh!” Alex widened her eyes, then bolted out of the kitchen. Presumably to get something special for me in her room.

Leighton leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Here’s your main gift.” He held out a small box, and then he brought out his wallet. “And here’s to the future.” He held up two folded fifties and popped them into our sparkly pink piggy bank in the window.

I smiled.

We’d get our house one day, but the three of us had a much more important goal first. We wanted an RV that we could travel the country in. So, our new tradition was to add some funds to the piggy bank every time we celebrated something. Alex donated a dollar of every allowance, and Leighton and I had become pros at celebrating everything from major holidays and birthdays to National Beer Day and World Nerd Day.

Give me a handful of assignments, and I’d throw in some savings and buy the RV hopefully before Leighton’s next birthday. There wasn’t a chance in hell I could wait until we had enough money in approximately forty-seven piggy banks, but it was a cute idea. If nothing else, we’d have the money to buy extra comfort for the RV. Alex had big plans for a purple nook where boys weren’t allowed.

I took a swig of my coffee before I unwrapped my gift from Leighton, and I grinned when I saw what it was. Hell, that boy knew me well. A gift card so I could buy my own smoker, a new wristband for my watch ’cause the old one broke, and…but this was sweet. It was a token from when we’d visited Mount Rainier last winter.

“I want us to collect them,” he admitted. “I ordered it online—two of them—and since it was the first park we went to together, I was thinking we could use them as good-luck charms during assignments. They won’t reveal anything about us.”

I nodded, loving the idea; plus, it was a nice tribute to his mom.

“It’s perfect, pup.” I dropped the token into one of my side pockets. “Inspired by your mom?”

“Sort of…? I do wanna keep visiting parks because of what she and I did, but the token was mostly because of the bottle cap Ryan and Darius sent me.” He pulled it out from his pocket and flipped it in his hand. “I kinda like little tokens like this.”

I smiled and cut into my bacon. I liked those tokens too. When we couldn’t show our affiliations in a more official manner, at least at work, it was nice to carry something that was special to us. The bottle cap from an Irish beer was a Quinn thing, I’d heard.

“By the way, I was thinking you could keep the smoker at your mom’s place,” he added.

Yeah, definitely. She had a backyard. And Ma would like it. We had Sunday dinners there when we could, and I wouldn’t mind trading her dry pork chops for brisket.

“Okay, I’m ready, Uncle Bo!” Alex came running back into the kitchen, holding a larger box wrapped in pink paper with a bunch of balloons illustrated on it. “Nugget helped me buy it, and he promised we’d get the junior version soon so I can play too.”

Junior version?

I accepted the box and shook it a little?—

“Eeeep!” Alex beamed excitedly behind her hands. “It’s the Jeopardy game!”

My eyebrows shot up.

“Aw, Lemon!” Leighton groaned a laugh. “You’re not supposed to say it!”

“I couldn’t help it!” she giggled.

Wait, so they’d bought the board game for Jeopardy ? Fuck me, that was awesome. Leighton had made me discover a game show nerd within me, and I fucking lived for that shit. We’d get heated and everything in front of the TV.

“We’re playing as soon as we get back,” I told him. “We’ll invite Danny and Em too. Not the Tenleys—River knows too much.”

Or he could be the host. Reese and Shay could play.

Alex was about to say something, but someone rang the doorbell, which meant Ma was here.

“That’s Grandma, mouse,” I said, holding up my gift. “Thank you for this. We’ll have a game night when Leighton and I come home, okay?”

“Yes! With junior questions for me,” she said, sprinting out of the kitchen to get the door.

“I think you mean answers!” I called after her.

“What!” She didn’t get it. But then she was busy. “Hi, Grandma! I’m almost ready. Come say happy birthday to Uncle Bo. You didn’t forget, did you?”

I chuckled around a mouthful of food.

“I promise, I didn’t forget, sweetie,” she assured.

“Ma, you want coffee?” I yelled.

She entered the kitchen a beat later and tsk’d at me. “I’m right here, honey. There’s no need to shatter my eardrums. And did you forget where your closet is?”

Well, fucking excuse me.

“I’m good on coffee, thank you.” She had two gifts for me that she dug out of her tote, and she walked over to us. “How are you, Leighton? You haven’t gotten tired of him yet, I hope?”

My boy laughed. “Not yet, ma’am.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” She extended the gifts to me, then ruffled my hair like I was fucking twelve, and she kissed me on the forehead. “Happy birthday, son. I hope we can celebrate you when you come back from your trip.”

“Thanks—yeah, definitely.” I pushed the soft package aside, knowing it was a boring sweater. “Did Kat call you yesterday? She asked us if we’d be home in August, and I said we’re heading to Washington.”

“She did call,” she replied with a nod. “She wondered when we’ll be getting wedding invitations from you two.”

Oh Christ.

“We’re in no fucking rush,” I told her. Damn, this box was difficult to open. I already knew the theme. She went through the attic every time we had our birthdays, and she gave us heirlooms and whatnot. Plus gift cards. We were definitely a gift card family. “We’re each other’s emergency contacts, and we’ve set up wills and everythin’.”

Leighton nodded for emphasis. We’d discussed it—we wouldn’t mind tying the knot down the road. Right now, we were happy with the way things were. Besides, Leighton was young—and my track record was shit. The day I popped the question, I wanted him to be more than ready. I wanted him to feel it was really time. Because if he said no for some reason, or said it was too soon…? That was gonna hurt, and it wasn’t the kind of pain we got off on.

“Romantic,” Ma noted dryly.

“We’re romantic like you wouldn’t believe,” I replied. “Did you see the birthday donut he gave me? I’m his unicorn, Ma. His unicorn .”

Leighton coughed to hide his laughter, and Ma just shook her head at us.

She didn’t get it.

Leighton Watts

Once we got to work, I gave my man a big kiss before we parted ways for a moment. I needed to get changed and run some errands within the building, and Bo had a briefing before our actual briefing.

In the locker room, I changed into a pair of jeans, a tee, and a hoodie.

Someone else came in too, and I smiled when I saw Tanner. “Hey, man.”

“Hey! You’re off today, huh?” He walked over and shed his sweater.

“Yeah.”

“Excited?”

I paused and thought about it. “Yes and no?” I chuckled. “Yes, because it’s my first official assignment. No, because I won’t get to do anything fun.”

Bo didn’t treat me unfairly one bit, nor was he here to do me any favors. So while he’d chosen me as the one junior operator on his crew, my job was going to suck. I was literally a guard dog for our pilot, and I’d be far away from any potential action.

“Dude, tell me about it,” he huffed. “I’m in training for my first op too, and my task is to go fetch a memory card from someone in an airport lounge in Mexico City.”

I shut my locker and furrowed my brow at him. “What kind of training do you need for that?”

He rolled his eyes. “Just a few days to profile the people involved and study the layout of the airport.”

Yeah, that made sense. Boring, but…this was our future for the first year or two. We had to get our feet wet with low-risk gigs.

“Don’t let Doc hear you complain, is all I’m saying,” I said. “I got a lecture from him about patience and not trying to walk before I can crawl.”

Tanner snorted and shut his locker too. He’d changed into workout clothes. “Sounds like Coach. He told me to get ready for a year of boredom.”

Funny how they hadn’t really told us that during training.

“I’m out. Pizza when you get back?” He held out his fist.

I bumped it with mine and nodded.

After I’d completed all my tasks, I headed to the elevators and ran into Coach on the way.

He was carrying a big stack of printouts and didn’t look happy.

“Hey, sir. What’s that?” I asked.

“Applications,” he yawned.

Oh. Right. New recruits coming in August.

I tapped my card in the elevator and pressed the button for the fourth floor.

It was bizarre to think about. A year ago, my name had been in that pile. I’d been nervous waiting for their call. I remembered the interviews and how I’d done my best to come off as…well, a living person.

I wasn’t that man anymore.

So much had happened.

I hadn’t felt dead since Fredericksburg, and I’d come out on the other side with a boyfriend, a prosperous future, and a whole new family.

Fucking nuts.

I smiled a little to myself.

I had purpose now. And everything to fight for.

“You off on your briefing?” Coach asked.

“Yessir.”

The elevator stopped where he was getting off, and he stepped out and looked back at me. “Welcome to the rest of your life, kid. It’s one briefing after another.”

I grinned and nodded with a dip of my chin. Maybe he’d meant that as a joke, considering most seemed to find briefings boring, but I suddenly had so much excitement in my stomach that I didn’t know how to contain it.

This was my life now. I was a Hillcroft operator, and I had a briefing to go to.

It’d taken months and months of groundwork to ensure Omar Said’s whereabouts next weekend. Not only that, but the op was being funded by the CIA—on the condition that we took care of two of Said’s closest, too. So, there’d been a lot of dominoes that needed to fall perfectly to make this happen, even more so because nobody wanted this to go down on US soil.

Another operator came in, looking like he was clinging to his Monday vibes by inhaling coffee.

We exchanged a chin nod before he tapped his card and pressed the top floor.

’Sup. I have a briefing to go to. What about you?

I suppressed my snicker and shook my head. I could be such a dork. But whatever. The elevator stopped again, and it was my turn to get off. ’Cause I had a briefing.

Welcome to the rest of your life, kid.

I scrubbed a hand over my mouth to hide the grin.

This was it.

This was the rest of my life.

Minutes later, I was sitting in a conference room—or briefing room? I took my spot at the oval table, and I said hello to Kyle Finlay, our pilot, and I was introduced to our logistics coordinator for the case.

“All right, everyone have a seat,” Bo said. “Let’s get started.”