She comes with a full-body clench, her back arching off the mattress, her arms tightening around me, a sound that’s half breath, half cry, pressed into my shoulder. I feel her pulse everywhere, around my cock, in her throat where my mouth is.
Following her, I just let go. I come inside her with my face in her neck and my arms around her. It’s pure release, raw and graceless, my body against hers.
Her hand moves up my spine. Slowly, tracing the bones. I’m still inside her, still heavy on top of her. She doesn’t ask me to move and I don’t want to.
“That was different,” she says after a while.
“Yeah.”
“More of that.”
“Okay.”
She laughs, her breath against my skin. I almost say something else. Almost say three words that have been haunting me for longer than I want to admit but don’t, and not because I’m afraid. Because the timing isn’t right. Not tonight.
But soon.
I roll off her and she curls into my side.
Her breathing slows. She’s drifting. I’m not.
Somewhere in this building, Rogue is planting false information with Mara. Somewhere, Tommy is going about his routine, not knowing we’re closing in. Somewhere, the truth about Mayor Renner’s six-week gap is sitting in the evidence, waiting to be found.
I told Vi my truth about her father tonight. I haven’t told her the rest.
Tomorrow. The rest comes tomorrow.
61
VI
Sting findsme in the work hub the next morning and walks straight to my station. He stops in front of me, looks me in the eye, and says, “We need to talk. All of us. Skylight Room. Now.”
The “we need to talk” from last night, in my room, meant something different. Last night, it was about us. This morning, his voice has an edge I recognize. Something’s happening.
“What’s going on?”
“Skylight Room, like I said,” he repeats, gesturing with his chin.
He walks away and I follow because whatever put that look on his face is something I want to know about. And also because he told me to.
The guys are already there, with Armen at the table, hands around his coffee and Rogue on the couch, elbows on his knees. The room is heavy with something very serious.
Sting closes the door, sits across from me, and puts two pieces of paper on the table, side by side.
“Look at these,” he says.
The left page is from Dad’s documents and I recognize it immediately. It’s a property transfer approval, signed at the bottom by an L. Fischer, the city development officer whose signature shows up on both sides of every corrupt deal in Rothwell.
The page next to it is a trade requisition form, just standard Rot paperwork. It’s dated about a week ago and signed at the bottom in neat handwriting by Tommy.
Huh?
I look at both signatures, my eyes zipping back and forth. They’re similar, too similar, with their slashed sevens, strange fours, and an aggressive lean on every capital letter.
My stomach flips. “This handwriting, it’s…”
I want to finish my sentence but I can’t.
