Page 185 of Reckless

So sure of it.

Growing up, the only sentences with my name in them were clinical—provided for, case managed, aged out. Nobody’s file ever had ‘proud of him’ written in the margin. And there were exactly three people whose opinion should have mattered enough to write it, and not one of them ever thought to check.

Twenty-three families kept their homes. Sage kept Unsilenced. Some kid in a room a lot like the ones I grew up in is going to live in a system that’s marginally less willing to eat him alive, because the woman I love decided to fight for it, and I decided she wasn’t doing it alone.

That’s as close to paid as a debt like that ever gets.

I stare at her for a second, completely unprepared for how much those four words undo me.

“You should probably stop saying shit like that,” I murmur.

One corner of her mouth lifts. “Why?”

I lean forward until my forehead rests against hers. “Because I’d tear apart the world to hear you say it again.”

She smiles a dazzling smile and leans in, pressing her lips to mine tenderly. My cock jerks in response, my fingers instantly lacing through her hair to pull her closer.

I need this right now.

I need her.

So, I deepen the kiss, my free hand sliding down to her hip and pulling her. She giggles as I lift her over me, her body straddling mine. My cock has absolutely no issue with her riding me right now as he appreciates her pressing down. I growl into her mouth, and she giggles again, pulling back slowly, breaking the kiss. “Okay, ease up there, cowboy, I’m not done with our conversation yet.”

I raise my brow, glancing down at my erection pressing against her. I grip her hips and grind her down on me. “Fuck, baby, I’m so done talking,” I say, moving in to lift off her pajama top.

She smiles, her hands sliding to mine, and she halts me from taking off her top. My head falls back against the headboard, my cock pleading with her to reconsider.

“All in good time. You didn’t tell me you were taking Slate and Static with you to meet Travis?” she says finally.

I raise my brow at her. “You really want to keep talking right now?”

She smiles wide. “Yes, I want to continue our conversation. You can wait a little longer, caveman.”

Groaning, I try to rein in my indecent thoughts and focus. “Okay… I made the call after Church. There wasn’t time to loop you in before it mattered.”

“That’s not what I meant.” She tips her head toward the small black lens mounted above my monitor, the one she noticed for the first time two weeks ago and has been circling back to ever since. “You’ve had a camera on this desk the whole time, and you never told me that either.”

I don’t flinch from it. “It records the workstation. Nothing else.”

“That’s not the point, Ghost.”

“I know.” And I do. I’ve turned this over more than once since she first spotted it. “I don’t tell people things until I’ve confirmed them. It’s how I stay alive in a room most people wouldn’t survive.” I hold her gaze. “It’s not how I want to be with you.”

Something in her face loosens, the argument bleeding straight out of it. She rolls her hips on top of me, making my cock liven up again, my hand sliding into her hair as she kisses me, slow at first and then not slow at all, and every sharp thing sitting in my chest tonight settles into something else entirely.

Then with enough determination to make every sharp edge I’d carried home tonight dissolve beneath her mouth.

I lose track of time.

Lose track of everything except the woman stretched over me.

And then, she pulls back.

I frown. “What?”

She smiles, that dangerous little smile that usually means I’m about to lose an argument I didn’t realize we were having.

Without a word, she swings one leg off the bed and climbs to her feet.