He laid her down and followed, and she pulled him close, her hands in his hair, his mouth at her throat, the warmth of him settling over her like something she had been cold without for fifteen years without fully understanding the source of the chill. No. She knew the source; there just wasn’t anything she could do about it.
Once they had both stripped and he had slipped a condom on, he took his time, entering her with a slow thrust as he kissed her. She felt her eyes go wide, felt her back arch slightly as she tightened her grip on his arms.
He paused there, buried deep, letting her adjust, to feel every inch of him stretching her open once again. His forehead rested against hers as his breath came out in ragged gulps, his eyes locked on hers in the dim light. “Still with me?” he murmured, his voice low and rough.
She answered with her hips instead of words, rolling them up to meet him, taking him even deeper. A soft, broken sound escaped her throat, half moan and half relief. He groaned in response, the sound vibrating against her lips, and then he began to move.
Slow at first, deliberate strokes that dragged against every sensitive place inside her, building pressure with each measured withdrawal and return. She wrapped her legs around his waist, digging her heels into the small of his back, urging him closer. She felt him slide a hand between them, fingers finding her clit with unerring accuracy, circling in time with his thrusts.
Her breath hitched, turned shallow and fast as she clutched at his shoulders, nails biting skin, as the slow burn inside her coiled tighter and tighter. He dipped his head, mouth closing over one nipple, tongue flicking, then sucking hard enough to make her gasp his name.
The sound of it, his name on her lips after all these years, seemed to snap something in him. His control frayed, and thenext thrust came harder, deeper, rocking the headboard against the wall. She met him stroke for stroke, hips rising, thighs trembling. The wet sounds of their bodies meeting filled the room, obscene and perfect.
He shifted his angle, grinding against her clit with every forward roll of his hips, and that was it—she shattered. Her orgasm hit like a wave breaking, sudden and overwhelming, her inner walls pulsing around him, milking him as she cried out, back arching off the mattress. He kept moving through it, drawing it out, stroking her through every aftershock until she was shaking, gasping, clinging to him like he was the only solid thing left in the world.
Only then did he let himself follow. A low, guttural sound tore from his throat as he drove deep one last time, spilling inside her with hard, pulsing jerks of his hips. He buried his face against her neck, breathing her in, shuddering through the aftershocks as she held him there, arms and legs wrapped tight, unwilling to let any space come between them.
For a long minute they stayed like that: sweat-slick, their hearts hammering, limbs tangled together on the wrecked sheets. Neither of them was willing to move first, not ready to let the moment end.
She lay against him in the dark, her head on his chest, his heartbeat steadying under her cheek. She felt his hand toying with her hair, slow and without agenda, and she was able to relax into him as she listened to the city as it passed by outside. In the distance, a church bell marked the hour, and she found herself not even caring.
“I forgot what this felt like,” she whispered, nuzzling into him even more.
His hand paused in her hair, strands slipping through his fingers. “Which part?”
“Not being alone,” she said. “Being with you. Getting lost in us.”
“I’ve always loved being lost in you.” He pressed his mouth to the top of her head and said nothing, which was the right answer.
She closed her eyes, thinking she might actually sleep, knowing she had never felt safer than she did right at that moment, with him tucked around her, his breathing a steady rhythm in her ears.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
WHEN ELVIS ARRIVED DOWNSTAIRS at first light, he found Blaze already at the table with two laptops open and the particular energy of a man who had found something worth losing sleep over. Donovan sat at the kitchen window with coffee, watching the back courtyard with the patient vigilance of someone used to standing watch.
Delaney already sat across from Blaze with both hands wrapped around a mug, her eyes on the laptop screen, her shoulders tight with tension once more.
Elvis read the room in one sweep and poured himself some coffee, already assuming he’d need it. Turning and leaning back on the counter, he glanced at GSI’s young computer tech. “All right, talk to me.”
Blaze spun a laptop toward him without preamble. The footage was from the camera installed on the Bay Street address they had used for Julia Moretti’s resurrection. The timestamp burned white in the frame's corner, showing that at four fifty-two in the morning a sedan differing from the one he had tagged as Leon’s drifted by the address. Blaze had drawn a red marker around the driver’s window.
“Different vehicle, but the man inside has the same build,” Blaze told him. “Now watch the mirrors.”
Elvis focused on the screen, particularly the driver’s side mirror, which someone had adjusted twice in quick succession, angling back toward the building’s entrance rather than toward the street.
“Well, he’s obviously not watching traffic,” Elvis said as he lifted his coffee to his lips. “Not that there’s any traffic at that time to watch. Or on the sidewalk.”
“Nope, he’s not,” Blaze confirmed. “His eyes are on that door. Then he sat there for forty minutes, just staring at it before leaving again. I picked him up on two more cameras heading back toward I-16.” He cocked a brow as he stared across the room at Elvis. “Reconnaissance would be my guess.”
Elvis gave a curt nod as he lifted his cup once more. “Mine too.”
He then glanced at Delaney, not surprised to see her already looking at him. Behind her eyes, he saw the calculation running, the same one he had going through his head. He knew they’d arrive at the same place. They always did.
“So we go about our day with me showing up there as if I did it every day, right?” she asked. “He needs to see me at that address, think I’m careless. Just getting on my with my life.”
Donovan turned from the window, his arms over his chest, concern etched on his face. “I don’t think?—”
However, Delaney cut him off. “He needs to confirm I’m real and that this isn’t a trap.” Her words carried the tone of a woman who’d already worked through every objection before anyone else in the room had woken up. “It won’t be good enough for him simply to see the office. He needs to see me, or he won’t believe it’s real.”
