“Oh yeah. Everything’s real damn good, ma’am. Though I think you’re gonna need regular maintenance checks from here on out.”
“I sure hope so.” I nip at one of his cheeks and squeeze his shoulder, and then I remember his sprain. “Is this okay, with your injury?” I rub my hand over the spot I’d taped not that long ago.
“Whole thing could fall off and I’d still feel good right now.” A few pointed thrusts of his hips lend credence to his words.
I laugh as he starts to bounce my body on his cock, but my laughter turns to moans as he taps a spot inside me, over and over. I quickly build up to another orgasm, and when I shatter, Boyd is right with me, his hold firm on my hips as he empties himself inside me with long, deep thrusts.
Afterward, he cradles me in his arms under the covers, and I drift off to sleep like someone who doesn’t have a care in the world.
CHAPTER 34
VIPER
After Vaughn’s press conference, the compound seems to operate at its usual rhythm. Except it doesn’t.
The three of us stay on top of Sentinel projects throughout the week. Alongside that work, I gather intel and feed selected pieces to the appropriate channels. The routines hold, but something’s off kilter.
Nothing obvious. Not some soap-opera mess. Only a shift in familiarity that changes the temperature.
At breakfast, Kira moves through the kitchen wearing one of Andrew’s old hoodies. The big sleeves are pushed up to her forearms, and her hair is twisted up the way it is when she works around the stove.
Boyd stands behind her at the counter, one hand wrapped around his coffee cup, the other spread over the curve of her belly like it belongs there.
Andrew comes in from outside and kisses her, like it’s the simplest thing in the world to lower his mouth to hers,linger, then brush his knuckles over her cheek before he heads back out.
She smiles after him. Not overly bright. Natural.
My chest constricts like a muscle cramp.
Protective instincts,I tell myself for the hundredth time.
The lie isn’t working this week.
It isn’t the threat outside the fence that has me watching the room from the shadows. It’s the way Andrew’s hand sets at the small of her back, and the way Boyd runs his fingers through her hair. The way she leans into both of them like she’s found the kind of comfort she’d been starving for.
But the worst part isn’t the jealousy.
It’s the assumption.
The one that sits in the air, unspoken. They all made space for each other, and now I can simply … fall in line.
I refuse to be an accessory.
I do even worse withwantingto be one.
So I bury myself beneath the clean certainty of intel. Monitors, encrypted channels, time stamps. This world never asks how I feel, only whether I’m right.
I have three active threads this morning.
One, a regional scanner feed and social chatter, filtered for anything that even resembles Kira’s name, description, vehicle,or the senator.
Two, federal contacts who want me to hand them the whole damn thing neatly wrapped in a bow, so they can march it into a courtroom.
Three, keeping the first two from ever touching the mountain.
A secure call comes in on a channel that doesn’t exist on paper, and I accept it. “Go.”
“You’re feeding us crumbs, Mercer.”
