“You’re gonna come for me again,” he pants. “Right here. On this fucking counter.”
“God—Knox—I’m gonna—”
“Do it, darlin’.”
I shatter. Loud and wild, clenching hard around him as the orgasm slams through me, stealing my breath, making my whole body quake.
He curses, thrusts faltering as he buries himself deep and spills inside me with a broken sound.
For a moment, the world goes quiet. Just the sound of our breathing. My skin slick with sweat. My thighs trembling where they’re still wrapped around him.
He presses his forehead to mine, still inside me, both of us wrecked.
“Worth getting up at five a.m.?” he murmurs, voice thick with satisfaction.
I laugh, dazed and breathless. “Best coffee substitute ever.”
He grins and kisses me again, this time soft, slow, almost sweet.
“You’re trouble, darlin’.”
I smile against his mouth. “You seem to like trouble.”
His grin deepens. “Damn right I do. Don’t forget you’re mine. Mine alone.”
“Yours,” I breathe.
Chapter 8
Sierra
Thenexttimeitfeels like I actually have a body again, the sun is higher and I’m standing in the middle of The Ranch with my hair in a messy knot, yesterday’s reality still sitting heavy in my bones.
We brief Gray in his office first.
I tell him everything I didn’t say last night. My father’s box. The photo frame. The hidden compartment. The flash drive. The break-in.
The rest, he already knows.
Gray’s office isn’t sleek or shiny. It’s functional. Maps on the wall. A couple of monitors. A locked cabinet. A desk that looks like it’s been through a few wars and won. Gray sits behind it like he was born there, coffee in hand, eyes sharp enough to cut.
Knox stands behind me, close but not crowding. That’s his thing. Presence without noise. Like a shadow with a pulse.
When I finally pull the drive from my bag, my fingers shake. I hate that. I hate that my hands can’t keep a secret even when my mouth does.
Gray doesn’t take it right away.
He studies it first, expression going flat in that focused way.
“This isn’t a regular flash drive,” he says, turning it carefully in his hand. “It’s encrypted, and it’s the kind that can punish you for being careless.”
My stomach drops. “Punish me how?”
“By lighting up your location if you plug it into the wrong machine,” he says.
Knox’s voice is low behind me. “So, we don’t do it on a normal laptop.”
“No,” Gray agrees. “We do it on mine.”
