Page 13 of Riggs (The Maddox BRAVO Team #2)

We exit through the side gate while Lucas runs blocker at the front, Rae freezes frames and Jaxson peels MAC addresses off the pop-up’s dusty router like stickers.

I keep my chin up, shoulders loose, fingers brushing Riggs’s.

The crowd’s cheers turn to a wave of blessings— you two are so cute , kiss again , OMG goals —and I want to laugh and cry at the same time, because the paradox of my life has never felt this sharp.

In the SUV, door shut, world muted, he tips my face toward his with two fingers. “You good?” It isn’t a question that wants a brave answer.

“I’m mad,” I say. “I’m tired. I’m…happy you kissed me.” The last bit falls out like it’s doing parkour.

His mouth curves. “I am too,” he says.

“Both?” I ask, needing the joke, needing the truth.

“All three,” he says. He texts Dean a crisp summary— note at POS, “too easy”; bagged; likely K. Stevens; pushing to Turner; —then sets his phone facedown and threads his fingers through mine like we didn’t just do that in public. Like it always belonged here.

We watch the city glide by. My hand fits in his. The line between cover and want thins to something we both can see through. Maybe I should be more afraid of that.

I’m not.

Back at the hotel, in the quiet after the elevator dings, he leans his forehead to mine for a beat, our breath looping. “I need you.”

“Are you sure?” I ask him, wanting to make sure he doesn’t have the regret I saw written all over his face this morning.

“I broke my own rules last night. I never should have allowed that to happen.” He stands statue still.

“But you did,” I interrupt.

He nods. “And now, I don’t think I know how to exist without you in my arms.”

I melt at his words, but there’s a part of me that wants to make sure he’s not going to ghost me the moment this mission is over. “And you’re okay with breaking your rules again?”

“I’ve made new rules.”

“I’m curious,” I tell him as we walk to our room together.

“I need you too,” I whisper. “But, I don’t want you to feel obligated to me. How about this… no rules. No talk about the future.” I feel like I’m grasping at straws to keep him here. “We just exist… together.”

He nods once, like I've said everything right. He doesn’t answer, but instead folds me into his arms and kisses the top of my head. “Yes,” is his single-word answer. He spins me in his arms, and kisses my mouth.

He smiles as he uses the keycard to open the door. He goes through his usual routine, checking the room, wedging the door, and making sure all is right in the world before he finds me, waiting by the floor-to-ceiling window. “I need you so badly.”

His mouth finds mine and the world tips, soft and certain.

The kiss is unhurried—like he’s tasting the word yes right off my lips—until I make a small sound and he answers with one of his own, deeper, rougher.

His hands bracket my hips, anchoring me, then slide up my spine in a path so careful it makes my knees go weak.

“No rules,” he breathes against my mouth.

“No future talk,” I whisper back, though the way he looks at me feels suspiciously like one. “Just… us.”

“Now,” he says, and it’s a vow.

He backs me toward the bed one measured step at a time, kissing me between heartbeats—jaw, cheek, the hollow beneath my ear—each press a promise to keep me here in the warm circle of his body.

I thread my fingers into his hair and tug lightly, and he groans, palms smoothing beneath my shirt, heat blooming everywhere he touches.

Fabric skims skin. Air cools what his hands warm.

We laugh once, a quiet, breathless sound when I fumble a button and he stills my hands, patient, then helps me, just as slow.

“What are you doing to me?” he asks, foreheads pressed together.

“Same thing you’re doing to me,” I answer, and mean it. “I want you.”

He kisses me like he believes me. We tumble to the mattress and the room narrows to breath and heat and the soft rasp of his stubble against my throat.

He roams my body with his mouth, careful turning hungry, tracing a line down my sternum with reverence that undoes me.

I learn the planes of his back with my palms, the flex and release of muscle under skin, the shiver that runs through him when I drag my nails lightly along his shoulders.

“Vanessa,” he murmurs, my name a prayer and a plea. “I don’t want this to ever end.”

“Same,” I whisper, pulling him closer.

Clothes become an afterthought, a trail we don’t need to follow back. There is only the slide of his body to mine and the perfect fit.

“You’re mine,” he says, determined as he slides his dick deeper inside me. “All mine .” He thrusts his hips, our bodies finding a perfect rhythm.

We move together—easy, learning, a tide that knows which way is home.

The world outside the window goes quiet and vast. But inside, it’s the small, electric details: his thumb stroking my hip, the way he says my name when I arch, the hitch in my breath he chases with his mouth.

Every time we rise he steadies me, and every time he falters I anchor him.

“Just us,” I say, fingers curled at the nape of his neck.

“Just us,” he echoes, voice wrecked and silk.

When we finally break, it’s only to find each other again—kisses turning lazy, foreheads touching, hearts settling into the same rhythm. He pulls the sheet over us and gathers me in, one arm heavy and sure around my waist, his nose tucked into my hair like he’s choosing a place to live.

“No rules,” I remind him, smiling against his throat.

He kisses my temple. “Except this,” he says, tightening his hold. “We exist. Together.”

“Together,” I echo, and let the rest of the world fall away.