Angling her body, she hitched her thigh high on his hip, bringing them even closer.
“Fuck. I’m…right…there!” He pounded into her hard and fast as his release hit. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, guiding him through the flames that licked at them both.
His muscles flexed under her hands and began to slow.
After they came to their senses, he gathered her close. She rested her cheek against his chest, listening to his heartbeat under her ear.
The dark, quiet room closed in around them, making her feel like they were an island in the storm that was raging in the world. She listened harder and found the base was quiet too, as all the people who belonged to each other closed their own doors to outsiders.
She closed her eyes and tried to organize what she felt for Angelo into something she could work with. A ledger. Two clean columns.
What this is.What this isn’t.
Relief belonged in the first column—that much was certain. Enormous relief after waiting on pins and needles.
He was here. He was breathing. The heartbeat under her ear was slow and steady.
She understood checks and balances. And if he hadn’t come home—
She didn’t finish the thought.
There were things she should tell him that were far more important than her catching feelings for him. Like the fact that she had a personal stake in Cipher’s game, and she would do anything and everything it took to find the terrorist, and hopefully Archer too.
With each throb of Angelo’s heart beneath her ear, she relaxed. He was safe. The whole team was.
The man in her arms stirred like he could hear the thoughts tripping through her mind. She felt him settle into sleep with his arm a solid anchor across her back.
She curled closer and let her eyes close.
The ledger in her head stayed open. The second column—what this isn’t—was blank.
But her heart, the completely un-analytical thing, had already written its own report on the matter for her to examine later.
TEN
Ash added two more forty-five-pound plates to the lifting bar and stepped back with a satisfied grunt. He rolled his neck once, stepped up and lifted the steel off the rack.
The pressure settled across his shoulders. This he understood. Weight. Force. Pushing himself to muscle failure.
He dropped into the first squat. Up. Down. Up.
The burn built fast, and he let it chase out the last few days—the handoff to the FBI at the bank, the new intel, all of it.
They’d chased threads that ran into dead ends, and Con finally called the meeting when Mason snapped at Sinner for cracking his knuckles too loud.
After breaking for the night, Ash’s urge was to find Ellory and work off this wired feeling in between her thighs. But he wouldn’t use her like that. She deserved better, and hell, whatever was building between them deserved a chance.
Instead he’d hit the gym, seeking the burn that would tire his body, and with any luck, calm his mind in the process.
He shoved up hard from the bottom of the rep, jaw tight. Usually when he hit the weights, his mind settled enough to see information more clearly. He expected his brain to keep chasing the twisted pathways through Cipher’s network…but it kept snapping back to Ellory.
She hadn’t been in the war room with them, and he hadn’t seen her all day. That alone had been enough to distract the hell out of him.
He racked the bar and added more weight. The next set was slower. His thighs shook halfway through, sweat rolling down his spine as his mind swayed to Ellory again.
How she looked standing at the top of the stairs when they came in, waiting like she wanted him but didn’t know if she had a right to.
He drove up from the bottom harder than necessary. Thighs screaming, he racked the weight and took a few minutes to walk the perimeter of the gym before hitting the shower. He even finally took the time to run the clippers over his hair and rid himself of those stupid curls.
