Outside, the sunlight hits hard, warm against my skin, dazzling off cars and pavement. I tip my head back, eyes closing as a slow, sharp grin pulls at my mouth.
A clean pursuit. A flawless catch.
And damn, she only makes me crave the chase more.
Chapter 24
Laurette Devereux
This isn’t longing.It’s withdrawal.
It’s been days since his hands were on me, since his breath slid over my neck, since his voice wrapped around me. And I’m still wrecked from the inside out.
I sit at my desk, elbows braced on the wood, fingers pressed hard to my temples as I stare at the Evan Lemaire file. The pages blur, my notes half-scrawled. My mind should be here—on this, on the case, on the girl who deserves every ounce of fury and precision I can summon.
But underneath it, winding through every sharp edge of me, is him.
Bastien.
The ache for him lingers in the softest, cruelest places. My throat, where his hand pressed. My hips, where his fingers left those faint, possessive bruises. Between my legs, where I can still feel the stretch, and fullness, and ruin.
I shift in my chair, crossing and uncrossing my legs, as though I could ease the memory of him with something as small and useless as that.
My burner phone’s right there, screen dark, mocking me with its silence. It’s never out of my reach. Not for a second. Pathetic, maybe, but it’s a compulsion I can’t shake no matter how hard I try. The want doesn’t stop.
What do you do when the man who lit you up from the inside leaves you in the dark?
You wait, stare at your phone, breathe, bury yourself in work, and pretend it doesn’t hurt. Because reaching out means you’re desperate. And you can’t let him know his silence makes your chest ache.
I twirl a strand of hair between my fingers, exhaling slowly, pretending it’s stress. Pretending it’s not him.
Pull it together, Laurette. You’re not that girl. You don’t chase.
The office hums around me. Phones ring. Footsteps click against polished floors. Voices thread through half-cracked doors.
Case files pile higher by the hour in New Orleans. Toxicology reports. Victim statements. Witness prep that runs late and leaves me hollow-eyed, shoulders stiff, and adrenaline still humming even when the clock slips past quitting time.
This is where I thrive—through structure, strategy, and control. I’m sharp here. And efficient. There’s no room for softness or mistakes.
No room for him. But still, he lingers—under the surface, between the cracks, in the silence between emails and the breath between questions. Every time my mind drifts, it finds him—the memory of his mouth and the way he said my name.
And his hands marking me like he meant it. Like I asked for it.
Because I did.
He devoured me in that closet. Left me shaking, thighs slick with him. And then he walked away.
I drag in a deep, cleansing breath, and reach for the next file. Not the Lemaire case, but the one beside it. A witness statement. I stare down at the words, but they blur behind the ghost of his touch.
“Ms. Devereux?”
I glance up, blinking back from the haze of paperwork andthoughts I shouldn’t be thinking. My assistant, Sarah, stands in the doorway, tablet clutched tight to her chest.
“There’s someone here to see you.”
I sigh, already half-dreading whoever’s about to pull me out of focus. “Who is it?”
She hesitates. There’s a shift in her stance and a tightening around her mouth.
