The intensity of his orgasm left him gasping for air. His body was taut as he pressed as far as he could into her. Only when the last of his seed was spent did he collapse, twisting at the last minute to pull her with him as he rolled them so she was on top. He didn’t know if he had the strength to hold himself up to keep from crushing her.
They lay tangled in silence, her head resting on his chest, their legs twined together in the tangled sheet.
He stroked her back, breathing her in. He felt weak as a kitten as he pressed a kiss against her temple.
“You’ve ruined me, Kiki. There’s no going back now,” he murmured. “I hope you know what that means.”
Her hands tightened around him.
“You’ve ruined me, too. I guess I’ll just have to keep you around forever now,” she chuckled, rubbing her cheek againsthis chest.
New York City
Eric’s lips curved, a slow, humorous arc that for once reflected in his eyes.
The van was gone.
The obnoxiously painted, hippie-drenched monstrosity—Rose Kallistratos’s pride and joy—had vanished from the parking space where it had squatted like a grinning cartoon toad.
It had taken little a digging to uncover the vehicle. Fortunately, Rose’s friend, Kerry, had posted several images of it on her social media, including one with Nikos Aeto in it, otherwise he probably never would have known about it.
He had almost dismissed the idea when he saw the van. It seemed implausible that Aeto would be foolish enough to use such an easily traceable vehicle, before he chuckled and decided the man was brilliant enough to do just that.
A search of traffic cameras had followed Aeto’s exit from Kiki’s apartment building to this long-term storage garage. Within minutes, they had located the vehicle they had been searching for—in the spot where Rose’s van had been.
He stood motionless, hands in his coat pockets, eyes scanning the garage like it still echoed with the voices of the two men and the woman who had been there hours earlier.
Nikos Aeto never did anything half-assed. He would have a plan. He also had resources most could only dream of—dangerous friends among them.
Footsteps echoed on the concrete behind him. Lyle’s heavy tread. Predictable, impatient.
“We’ve got a fix,” Lyle announced with a frown. “The van turned off Route 9 about an hour ago. Headed north. They could be going anywhere. Hell, they could be heading to Canada for all we know.”
Eric didn’t reply. He had already anticipated their destination the moment he knew they had taken the van. It was not your classic get-away vehicle.
Just like eight years ago, Nikos would pull a team together. One member owned a cabin on a lake in Upstate New York about five hours from them.
Angel Vaziri. Vaziri was a master sniper, security expert, and not someone to be underestimated.
The cabin was the perfect location. Remote. Defensible. Strategically smart. The perfect place to gather a team before launching an offensive.
Which meant Nikos wasn’t planning to run.
He was planning to fight.
And he knew about Kiki—which meant he knew about Brie, him, and the Founders.
Life is about to get very interesting.
Lyle kept talking, oblivious to his silence. “Question is, how the hell did Aeto know we were after him in the first place? You think he’s got someone working on the inside?”
Eric almost rolled his eyes at the stupidity of the question. His gaze flicked across the pavement, then toward the distant mouth of the underground garage. The chill in the air washed over him.
No… not someone inside.
Someone with a gift she had kept hidden from the Founders.
He breathed deeply as a new, unsettling realization sank in.
