“Don’t stop looking at me,” she says.
I don’t. I hold her stare as the pace increases, her breath gets ragged, and her grip tightens on my shoulders. I reach between us and press my thumb against her clit, making her pussy clench around my cock hard enough to blur my vision. She’s close, and the tension building in her body mirrors what’s building in mine.
“Harder.” She digs her nails into my back, and the sting of it sharpens everything. I thrust deeper, angling my hips to hit the spot that makes her back arch, and she gasps and grips the sheets with one hand while the other claws at my shoulder.
She comes with a cry that she muffles against my shoulder, arching her body under me as her inner walls grip my cock vigorously enough that I have to stop moving to keep from finishing. I give her a moment to ride it out before I start again, harder now, chasing my own release while her sheath still pulses around me.
I come inside her with a low, raw sound, stripped of every defense I usually maintain. She holds me through it with her arms locked around my neck, and her forehead against my temple. Neither of us moves for a while after.
Finally, I roll to the side and pull her against me. She rests her head on my chest, and I keep one arm around her while placing my other hand on her stomach. We lie in the dark with the dock lights shifting patterns across the ceiling and the water sounds filling the silence as I let myself believe the future I described to her tonight is possible.
“I owe you a correction.” She says it to my collarbone. “About the argument.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“I do, and I’m going to give it to you, so stop being noble.” She shifts her head to look at me. “You didn’t sound like Eric when you talked about vetting my campus. You sounded terrified of losing something you just found, and I should have heard that instead of hearing the past.”
The words reach a place I’ve been guarding since the night she closed the bedroom door, and I pull her closer. “You never have to apologize for protecting yourself.”
“I know, but there’s a difference between protecting myself and punishing you for someone else’s crimes. I crossed that line, and I’m telling you I see it.”
“You still protect yourself, and that means you’re paying attention. I’d rather you stay sharp than stay comfortable.” I press my lips against her forehead. “At least until the danger passes.”
She smiles softly. “After?”
“After, you can be as comfortable as you want, as much as a set of twins will allow. I’ll make the espresso at that point. We’ll probably be living on caffeine.”
She laughs against my chest, and the sound vibrates through me. I hold her tighter and close my eyes.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand. Part of me wants to ignore it, but with the danger ever present, I can’t afford that luxury, so I reach for it with my free hand and read the screen.
Viktor:Sketch artist confirmed for tomorrow at 10. Grigor identified the sedan from today’s surveillance. Registered to a shell company linked to Karpov’s port operations. Still no confirmation whether Hayes is connected or operating independently.
I set the phone face down and pull Aurora closer. She’s already half-asleep, and her breathing deepens against my skin. The sedan ties the watcher to Karpov, but it doesn’t tell me if Eric fed Karpov her location or if two separate threats are converging onthe same target by coincidence. Coincidence is a word I stopped trusting years ago.
21
AURORA
Iwake at the waterfront house feeling steadier than I expected. The argument with Adrian hasn’t vanished, but last night clarified something I’ve been circling for weeks. He’s afraid, not manipulative, and the difference matters enough to build on.
Adrian leaves early for an urgent meeting tied to Karpov’s port activity. Before he goes, he sits on the edge of the bed and tells me exactly where he’ll be, when he expects to return, and what security changes Viktor put in place overnight. He runs through each detail without prompting, and the transparency calms me more than the armed men outside the door ever could. He’s learning. He heard me.
He kisses my forehead and leaves. I lie in bed for ten more minutes, press my hand against my stomach, and let myself imagine a morning where the biggest decision is what to eat for breakfast.
Fedor brings the sketch artist at ten. She walks in wearing torn jeans, a black tank top, and combat boots that have seen actual combat with pavement. She looks like she’s sixteen. She says she’s nineteen. Neither of those numbers is probably accurate.
“I’m Gallows.” She drops a battered messenger bag on the kitchen table and pulls out a tablet and stylus that look significantly newer than anything else she owns. “Where’s the face I’m drawing?”
“I’m the face.” I sit across from her. “I mean, I’m the person who saw the face.”
“Right.” She pulls up a blank canvas on the tablet. “Start with the shape. Round, square, long, or heart?”
We spend forty-five minutes building the composite. Gallows works fast, adjusting proportions and features as I describe them, and she has an instinct for asking the right questions at the right time. When I hesitate on the jawline, she offers three variations and watches my reaction to each one before I speak. When I correct the spacing between his eyes, she makes the adjustment before I finish explaining.
“You’re good at this.”
“I’m good at faces.” She doesn’t look up from the tablet. “People are harder.”
