She sucked him deeper, steady and strong, until his breath fractured. Until his hips jerked and his mouth finally cracked open on her name, half gasp, half prayer. “Bailee…”
The sound wrecked her. It was the first time he’d said her name like that, full of awe, and pain, and need.
She held him in her mouth, her jaw working, her tongue tracing every inch of him with silent reverence. This wasn’t power. It wasn’t surrender.
It was belonging.
When he finally spilled into her, his whole body bowed up, a shudder tearing through him like lightning through bone. She drank him in, slow, like she was tasting the center of his soul.
He finally sagged back, and, trembling, she rose. She didn’t speak. Just slid heavily back up his body, reveling in the feel of his damp, delicious skin, kissed the center of his chest, and lay her head there.
His heart was pounding. Wild and alive.
Bailee lay against him, her face snuggled into the curve of his throat, her breath shallow, her thoughts anything but still.
She’d given him everything, her body, her truth, her tears. But one thing still pressed against her ribs like a blade.
She swallowed hard, then said into the quiet, “I love what I do with you guys. The intelligence, the support, the takedowns. It’s everything I thought the CIA would be, but I didn’t join for this.”
Bear shifted beneath her, met her gaze as she looked up. “We all have our reasons for what we do,” he said. “Doesn’t make it shameful, Bailee.” His hand found hers beneath the sheet and laced their fingers together.
“I mentioned my cousin, Taryn. You also know she disappeared, but you don’t know that I was devastated, the voices of the ancestors were silent, not only in my medicine woman path, but in my cousin’s abduction. She was only fifteen. Beautiful, stubborn. Wild spirit. When she vanished, no one outside Cheyenne River even blinked. The police filled out a form, and that was pretty much it.”
Bear exhaled through his nose, a sound weighted with understanding. She knew it stirred something in him, his own ache over Ayla, but she needed him to know all of it now. She couldn’t hold anything back.
“I thought…if I could get inside the system, I could find her. I used their resources, every connection I forged, and every clue I could find, and pushed.” He reached up, cupped her face in his warm palm, tilting her chin so her eyes met his. There was nothing but compassion in his gaze. That, and the shadow of his own pain. “Her trail ends across the border in Cordillera Verde. The CIA classified this territory years ago because it sits over a labyrinthine cave system, ideal for trafficking routes, ritual sites, and covert installations.”
Bear’s dark eyes stayed locked on hers in the hush between them.
Bailee let the silence stretch between them for a breath. Then another.
“I wish I could make a difference.”
“You’re making a difference. You’ve given us some powerful target packages, and we’ve taken them down.”
She looked away. “I know. That is satisfying, but I can’t help but wonder what kind of impact I could make if I used my voice differently.”
The words lingered. Heavy. Hopeful. An answer in a storm of questions.
She breathed in, slow and deep, the shape of a new truth forming.
“I’ve thought about the MMIWG task force,” she whispered. “About what it might mean to be part of something that doesn’t forget their names.”
Bear didn’t speak right away. Just brushed his thumb across her cheekbone, reverent. “There’s merit in choosing your path, Bailee, and power in knowing when it’s time.”
She blinked back fresh tears. Then nodded. The idea of change no longer felt like betrayal. It felt like coming home to something she’d always known.
He pulled her higher, kissed her softly. “Now tell me again,” he murmured. “That you love me.”
Tears welled again, but this time she let them fall.
No hiding.
No shame.
She curled into him, their foreheads pressed together, his body steady against hers like a prayer not meant for answers, only for witnessing.
“I don’t want you to get a big head,” she whispered.
