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)
She stares at the screen, then up at me.
“You think it’s Tasha?”
“She’s the only one who’s ever suggested there was something between us. And she had access to your employee file. Your image database.”
River breathes out. “Then she’s the leak.”
“Or she’s being used. Or manipulated. But someone is trying to destroy you.”
“Trying to break me down until I resign,” she says quietly. “Until I vanish.”
I grip her shoulders. “That’s not happening. Ever.”
Her eyes meet mine, shining. “I’m so tired of being scared.”
“Then let’s burn them first.”
She nods, fierce. “What’s the plan?”
“We flip it,” I say. “We bait them next. Let them think the deep fake worked. And then we bring everything to the surface.”
I pull her close again, my voice low in her ear. “But not tonight. Tonight, I just want to hold you.”
“I want that too,” she whispers.
THIRTY-SEVEN
RIVER
We turn the lamps off one by one until the safe house exhales—hushed and warm, a place that feels borrowed and somehow already ours. The heater ticks. The fridge hums. Outside, the river moves like a dark ribbon through the city. Inside, Gage threads his fingers through mine and the noise in my head quiets as if he’s pressed a gentle hand over panic and said, softly, enough.
“Come to bed,” he murmurs, voice low and coaxing.
It shouldn’t undo me the way it does. But tonight I’m a constellation in his palms, and every touch draws a line I didn’t know I needed.
We don’t rush. There’s ceremony to the ordinary—teeth brushed shoulder to shoulder, his hip bumping mine in the mirror, my hair twisted up while he watches like he’s cataloging a thousand secret angles. He steals my towel to dry my hands even though I’m perfectly capable. I steal it back and he grins, unrepentant. Before we leave the little pool of light, he catches my wrist and kisses the spot just below my thumb, the one you can feel your pulse through. His mouth is warm. I swear he steadies my heartbeat with his.
In the bedroom he stops at the edge of the mattress, one hand at my waist, the other hovering at the zipper to my dress.
“I need you,” he whispers, unzipping my dress. He pushes it off and it pools at my feet.
“I need you too.”
He searches my face like there’s any chance I could be unsure and, finding none, he exhales. He doesn’t stare, he looks, and the difference makes my throat tight. His gaze is awe and want layered over a kind of care I’ve only ever read about. His hands find my shoulders, skim down my arms in a slow drift that asks without demanding. Every inch he touches feels… claimed, but only in the way I want to be.
“Tell me what you need,” he breathes, like a vow.
“You,” I say, unashamed. “All of you.”
The smile he gives me is wrecked and boyish all at once, like I’ve just handed him the thing he was afraid to ask for.
I reach for the buttons of his shirt. He stands still while I work them loose, patient as a tide. Warmth spills over my knuckles when I slide the fabric off his shoulders. He’s solid under my hands—heat and muscle and a map of quiet stories. I trace a faint line on his ribcage. “What’s this one?”
“Kitchen chair versus six-year-old me,” he says, sheepish. “Lark dared me to jump on it like a skateboard. Chair won.”
I laugh into his shoulder. “A heathen from birth.”
“Reformed heathen.” His mouth curves against my temple. “You fixed me.”
“I did not.”
“You did,” he insists. “Or maybe you just… tuned me. Like code. Same function, better outcome.”
“Now you’re flattering me in my native language,” I say, and kiss him because I can.
The kiss starts soft—gratitude, relief, the gentlest press of hello. Then it deepens, grows greedy and slow, like we’re tasting the whole day off each other. He kisses like he knows what I need and still asks. My hands slide into his hair and he breathes my name against my mouth like it’s a sacred word. I feel it everywhere.
We tip onto the bed, sheets cool against my back, him warm and heavy above me. He props himself on an elbow and takes his time, mapping the line of my jaw with his mouth, the hollow of my throat, the place just beneath my ear that makes me arch before I can think. He pays attention. When I gasp, he notes it. When I hum, he lingers. And when I clutch at him, he gives me more. Questions become touches. Answers become movement. We build a language out of breath.
“You need this cock?” he asks into my hair.
“Yes. Oh, Gage. Yes..” I tip his chin up so he has to see it. “I dream about it.”
He threads our fingers together and sets our joined hands over his heartbeat, a steady drum I can count to. “I always dream of you.”