“Maybe that would be a good idea,” she says with a nervous, broken laugh.
“No.” I frame her face with my hands. “Listen to me. You are safe. No one is getting into this hotel. And tomorrow you stay with Viviana at the Callaghans’.”
She nods. “Right.”
A tiny, trembling smile.
“Good girl,” I whisper, brushing my thumb under her jaw.
I let her go slowly, making sure her breathing is steady before I step back. “We need to sleep. The next few days are going to be complicated.”
I walk to the bathroom and close the door behind me.
The silence hits like a punch.
I strip off my suit jacket, my shirt, toss them aside, then I face the mirror.
The Celtic tattoo covers my chest, dark lines twisting over muscle, and there, threaded into the ink, her name.
Autumn.
She doesn’t know it yet.
I drag a hand down my face, chest rising too fast, the reality pressing in.
If I die in these next days…
If this war burns us all to ash…
I’ll carry her name across my heart.
Forever.
Chapter Thirty
Autumn
Ican’t sleep. Every ugly thought crashes in at once, sharp little knives behind my ribs. Breathing hurts. There’s a cold, twisting knot low in my stomach that won’t loosen no matter how tightly I curl into myself. The sheets feel thin, the blanket useless. Nothing is warm enough.
I turn my head, and there he is, Flynn, shirtless, lying on his side with his broad back to me, breathing slow and deep. Moonlight spills over the inked skull tangled in Celtic knots that spans his shoulder blades, every line of muscle shifting when he exhales. God, he’s beautiful even asleep. Terrifyingly beautiful. The kind of beautiful that makes the ache worse and better at the same time.
I shouldn’t wake him. He needs rest. But my body decides for me.
I slide closer until my bare breasts press flush to the heat of his back. My arm slips around his waist, fingers sneaking beneath the waistband of his black boxers. He’s soft, heavy, resting against his thigh. Not for long, I think, and the thought alone makes me throb.
I wrap my hand around him and stroke slow. Velvet over steel, he swells instantly, thickening against my palm. A low, sleepy groan rumbles outof him. “Autumn…”
I don’t answer with words. I answer with my teeth, little bites along the slope of his shoulder while my hand pumps harder. My free hand slides into his messy hair, gripping at the roots, tugging until his head tips back toward me.
“I need you,” I whisper against his skin, my voice small and cracked open.
He makes a rough sound and covers my hand with his much larger one, forcing my grip tighter. “Like this, baby. Hard.”
His hips start to rock into my fist, lazy at first, then greedy. I feel the veins along his cock pulse under my fingers, feel him grow impossibly thicker. My mouth waters.
Finally he rolls over. Those sleepy green eyes find mine, heavy-lidded and already dark with sin. A slow, wicked smile curves his lips.
He moves over me like a storm, settling between my thighs that fall open for him without shame. One rough fingertip traces my slit. “Not wet enough,” he murmurs, voice gravel and smoke.
