Holy shit.
It’s an intense, all-consuming release that leaves me gasping for breath, my heart pounding in my chest as my body arches off the bed, and I spill myself inside her.
When the world finally comes back into focus, I find Amelia leaning over me, her expression filled with tenderness. “Perfect,” she whispers, pressing a gentle kiss to my lips.
When she tries to sit up again, I grab the back of her head and pull her back down to me. “I love you,” I whisper against her lips before kissing her again.
The words feel inadequate to express the depth of what I feel for her, but they’re all I have.
All I feel.
Us.
NINETEEN
The aromaof cafeteria spaghetti wafts through the air as we sit at our usual table. My nose wrinkles, and I wonder if it will taste as mediocre as it usually does.
Grey sits across from me, absently twirling his fork in his pasta, his eyes distant and unfocused. I can almost see the gears turning in his head, still trying to solve our impossible puzzle. Oliver and Amelia are over by the food counters, deliberating about what to eat.
The guys and I spent all morning trying to figure out where Hendricks went without having to hack into the government database. Hours of brainstorming, researching, and hitting dead ends have left us all feeling drained and irritable.
“This would take two seconds if you’d let me,” Grey mutters, breaking the silence. His voice is low, but there’s an edge of impatience in it.
He’s not used to following rules he didn’t set.
I lean in, my gaze steady as I reply in a low, firm tone, “We can’t do that. If somebody finds out, we’ll be locked away as fucking criminals.”
“Nobody will ever find out.” Grey huffs, his eyes narrowing. His gaze is full of determination and the confidence that comesfrom years of successful hacks. But this time, the stakes are too high.
“Can you guarantee that?” I press, holding his gaze. I need him to understand the gravity of what he’s suggesting. But he just sighs, his fork stilling in his hand. “Grey, man. Okay,fuckwhat happens to us. But can you picture Oliver in a fucking prison? Or Amelia when they charge her for aiding and abetting?”
The images flash through my head—Oliver’s kind eyes dulled by prison bars, Amelia’s brilliant mind wasted in a cell.
Not going to happen.
“You guys wouldn’t go to prison. If anybody would be locked away, it would be me,” Grey states, seemingly frustrated.
“You don’t know that. I don’t know the laws, and I would like to keep it that way.” My hands clench under the table, betraying my own frustration.
This is all a big pile of shit.
“Amelia has a whole damn family of lawyers that could bail her out,” Grey counters, taking on a defensive edge.
The mere mention of Amelia’s family sets my teeth on edge. “And you would risk her getting back into their claws because of that?” I snap back, unable to keep the anger from my voice.
“Grandpa is a lawyer, too, you know,” Grey adds. I can see the conflict in his eyes, the desire to protect Amelia warring with his need to resolve the situation for her.
“That is so not the point,” I say, shaking my head. I have to take a deep breath, trying to center myself. We’re all so on edge because this has never happened before.
We’ve never had a situation we couldn’t solve with brainpower.
“Fine, we keep it as a last resort, but damn, I’m so close to crossing that fucking line because, honestly, I don’t know where else to look,” Grey admits, leaning back in his chair.
“Me neither, but maybe we need to take a step back and think about something else for a minute. Maybe when we get back to it, we’ll see the issue. We had that happen so often with Jamie.”
“You do that,” Grey mutters, clearly still agitated. His tension is visible in the tightness of his shoulders and the way his fingers drum restlessly on the table.
“Speaking of Jamie, we probably should get back to it, man. I don’t know how long Elysium will tolerate us pushing the deadline after we told them we would be quicker at first,” I remind him.
