Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 77051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
His mouth maps my jaw, my throat, the soft place below my ear he seems to have known before he ever put his mouth there. His stubble scrapes a burn I’ll wear like a secret tomorrow. I tug his hoodie up and his shirt goes with it. Skin meets my palms—hot, smooth over hard—and the noise he makes is helpless and grateful and filthy.
“River,” he says again, like he can’t stop saying it. His hands slide under my hoodie and find my waist, my ribs, the swell of breath I can’t steady. He doesn’t rush. He learns. He listens. He waits for the hitch that sounds like yes and when he hears it he answers with his mouth.
I drag his mask the rest of the way off and toss it somewhere stupid. “I hate this thing.”
“I know,” he laughs, and the laugh gets lost because I bite his lower lip, gentle, and he swears, gentle, and our gentles turn into something less and more.
“Tell me what you want,” he murmurs into my skin.
“You,” I say, too fast to be coy. “Just—you.”
He snakes a hand down my yoga pants, past the waistband of my panties, until he’s there. Right there. Yes.
“You’re soaked for me. I knew you would be,” Gage whispers.
“You’ve thought about this?” I ask him, eyes wide.
He gazes into my eyes, a pained expression there. “I always think about you, River. I have for years.”
Years?
He pushes his thumb against my clit, and my eyes close on instinct.
“Yes, there,” I moan out.
“I’ve wanted to feel your pussy for a long time.”
He finds a rhythm that feels inevitable. The table creaks. The router blinks like a voyeur. His thumb draws circles at my clit that make my vision go pure white noise. When I roll my hips, he curses again, softer, like he’s talking to God and losing.
“Slow,” he warns himself more than me. “I promised myself slow.”
“Then break a promise,” I say, because I’m losing, too.
He doesn’t. Not that one. He drags it out until heat is the only language I have, until the ache is a sweet problem I don’t want solved. He keeps playing, exploring, as my body grows needy with desire. He brings me to the edge. I’m so close, and he presses the heel of his hand against my clit and pushes two fingers inside me.
“Come for me,” he whispers like I can have an orgasm on demand. However, I do. Just for him, like my body obeys his every command. Heat rushes through me as my body explodes in bliss.
When he finally eases back, both of us are shaking. He presses his forehead to mine and laughs a little. Like he’s completely wrecked. “I’m going to need a new operating system.”
I’m smiling before I know it. “You say that like you didn’t write the last one.”
“I made a lot of compromises in version one,” he says, and the smile slips because the truth lives under every joke.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, quieter. “Before. When it started.”
He exhales, hands still on my waist like he’s anchoring us both. “Because we were getting close to people who don’t play by rules you can see. Because if you knew it was me, you might let your guard down in rooms where I couldn’t protect you fast enough. Because I wanted you breathing more than I wanted you to forgive me.”
“Don’t make it pretty,” I say. “You decided for me.”
“I did.” His eyes hold mine, unflinching. “And I’m sorry. Not the kind that asks you to fix it for me. The kind that means I will spend as long as it takes giving you back choices I took.”
The room is warm. I run my fingers along his jaw because I can, because tonight I want softness to coexist with fury, because life never gave me the rule that it had to be one at a time.
“I’m still angry,” I tell him.
“I know.” He kisses the corner of my mouth—brief, obedient, wanting. “I can live under that.”
“Don’t,” I say. “Don’t live under anything. Stand next to me.”
His eyes shine, sudden and open. “Deal.”
He helps me off the table like I might shatter, which is ridiculous because we both know I’ve been glass and fire for months and somehow did not die. I tug his hoodie straight. He smooths my hair like I didn’t just wreck it with both hands.
“Team?” I ask, grounding us. “Lead?”
His face sobers. He nods toward the hard case. “We think the leak’s coming from someone close. We’ll move fast. Until then—no confidences at the office. Not even jokes you think are harmless. Not even with… people you used to trust.”
I think of Tasha’s muffin with the heart on the bag. A cold thread snakes through the heat we made. “Okay.”
“And River?” He hesitates, then says it anyway. “No heroics. If I say run—”