He watched my face, stopping when my fingers bit his shoulders, waiting until the shock settled into a deep, insistent fullness, until my nails loosened and my legs lifted to bracket hiships tighter, hungry. He pushed the rest of the way with a curse that sounded like my name.
We stilled. The room did, too. I could hear the ocean. I could hear the house. I could hear us, breathing.
“Hazel,” he said, like he couldn’t help it, like there was worship in it, like there was warning. “You feel—” He didn’t finish, and the unfinished was better than poetry.
“Move,” I said, because patience had turned to ache.
He did, and I learned a new thing about him: he could be slow while being thorough, unhurried while being relentless. He set a rhythm that felt like a path my body already knew, hips rolling, the length of him gliding in and out with a friction that made stars pop at the edges of my vision. He found an angle that grazed something inside me that had me clutching at him and biting his shoulder to stay quiet.
“That,” he hissed, adjusting to hit it again. “There?”
“Yes,” I gasped, shameless now. “There.” The word dissolved on a moan when he obeyed.
He dropped a hand to my thigh and lifted it, knee bent, opening me wider, and the change in depth was obscene. I arched off the bed, and his arm wrapped around my back, hauling me to him like he thought I might try to leave my own body without permission.
“I’ve got you,” he said into my mouth, into my skin, into my bones. “Don’t run. Stay with me.”
“I’m here,” I promised, though I wasn’t sure how long that would be true if he kept doing that with his hips, that measured, expert ruin. My orgasm sluiced back like a tide returning faster than anyone expected. I clutched his hair, his shoulders, the sheet, anything, everything. “Gideon?—”
His hand slid between us, finding my clit with unerring aim, thumb pressing in rhythm with his thrusts, and precision turned to overwhelm. I shattered around him, the sound that ripped outof me reckless and real. He cursed, low and filthy, hips punching once, twice, again, chasing me as I closed convulsively around him. “That’s it,” he gritted, a thread of control fraying at last. “Take it. Fuck, you’re?—”
I dragged him closer, teeth at his jaw, nails scoring his back like I wanted to keep proof. “Come,” I told him, unfamiliar with being generous and drunk on it, anyway. “Come in me. I want to feel you.”
He faltered, the command hitting like a strike. “Hazel,” he said, ragged, like I’d done something to him that rewired time. He thrust once more, deep, and let go. The groan he made against my throat was the kind of sound you don’t plan, the kind that tells the truth whether you want it to or not. He pulsed inside me, body dropping an inch heavier, the weight of him not a burden.
We lay there while the world reassembled—his breath gusting against my collarbone, my pulse in my ears like surf. He kept most of his weight on his forearms, considerate even wrecked, and kissed the hollow below my ear like thanks offered to an altar.
When he finally slipped out, both of us flinching at the hypersensitive aftershock, he rolled to his side. He hooked an arm under my shoulders and dragged me against him, skin to skin, a gather I didn’t know I’d needed until I made a small sound and felt him smile against my hair.
“Okay?” he asked into my crown.
I nodded, throat tight, then realized he couldn’t see that. “Yes.”
“Good.” He was quiet for a beat that felt like a heartbeat stretching into something else. “You didn’t ruin anything.”
I huffed a laugh that had too much feeling in it. “I noticed.”
He stroked his palm down my back once, heavy and slow, like he was smoothing temper from metal.
He tipped my face up with a knuckle and kissed me again—quiet now, grateful. When he pulled back, his eyes were clear. “You tell me when you want more,” he said. “Or less. Or different. I’ll listen.”
12
GIDEON
The crunch of tires on gravel hit my ears like a gunshot.
Maude's sedan, rolling up the drive with the leisurely confidence of someone who had no idea what she was interrupting.
Hazel's eyes went wide, pupils still blown from what we'd done, cheeks flushed pink. "Oh, God," she breathed, scrambling upright. "She's back."
I should've been calmer. I'd infiltrated compounds guarded by men with automatic weapons and night vision. I'd extracted targets from buildings wired to explode. But the thought of Maude walking in to find us tangled in sheets, the room thick with sex and sweat, sent a jolt of panic through me that was frankly embarrassing.
"Go," I said, hauling myself up and reaching for my jeans. "Shower. I'll—I'll stay here."
She was already moving, gathering clothes with hands that shook just enough to make me want to pull her back to bed and forget about propriety entirely. Her T-shirt was inside out. Herjeans were wrinkled beyond redemption. She clutched them to her chest like a shield and darted for the door.
"Hazel," I called.
