Chapter 23
Harper
The library in the penthouse wasn’t really a library, more a shrine to unread books and oversized armchairs.
At midnight, it felt like a train station at the end of the world: silent, cold, with every surface made for people who didn’t intend to stay.
I’d staked out the biggest table by the balcony, the Paris skyline slicing blue neon into the glass, and spent three hours arranging our maps and tablets just so.
Jess had said to get some sleep, but I couldn’t even remember what that felt like. The plan was all I had.
He materialized in the doorway, arms folded over his chest, watching me with that perfect stillness that always made me nervous. In the low light, he looked more shadow than man. The kind of shadow that could hurt you or save you, depending on the day.
“Come to bed,” he said, not moving from the threshold.
I didn’t answer. I was tracing the route from the gallery to the bridge to the safe house, over and over, the way a child might rub the edge of a favorite blanket.
My finger left little oil stains on the paper.
If I did it enough, maybe I’d wear a groove and Brie could just follow it straight out of the city.
He let the silence stretch for a full minute before he came over, boots whispering on the rug. He looked at the map, then at me, and in a single motion dragged a heavy chair beside me and pulled me into his lap.
“I can’t focus when you’re so far away,” he murmured into my hair.
I stiffened, but he just wrapped his arms around me and leaned back, tipping the chair until we hovered on the edge of falling. I wondered if he’d let us crash to the floor just to see if I’d scream.
“Talk me through it again,” he said. “One more time.”
He didn’t mean the plan. He meant the part I was scared to say out loud.
I closed my eyes. “If she runs, we’re dead.”
He grunted, which was Iron Valor for “you’re right.”
The maps on the table showed three rings: our approach, the fallback route, and the outer perimeter covered by Wrecker and the Paris wolves. There were backup plans, of course—there always were—but none of them worked if Brie didn’t come willingly. Or if she tried to play hero.
“She never believed in monsters,” I said. “Not even when we were kids. She’d tell me, ‘Monsters are just things people haven’t met yet.’”
“Did she believe you when you called from the club?”
I shook my head. “She couldn’t believe that Dad would do that to me. He’d never done anything to hurt her in her life. Until he ruined the family, and I still don’t think she’d take that personally.”
Jess’s hand slid under my sweater, not for heat, just for the skin-to-skin contact. The touch made my heart slow, like a sedative. “What about your mom?”
“She’ll listen to Brie,” I said. “She always did.”
He nodded, accepting it as gospel.
“Enough of this,” He said with a finality I couldn’t argue with as he stood and held out his hand for me to take. He led me to our room, which was lit only by the bedside light. It gave a glow that offered comfort and hid secrets. But he didn’t stop at the bed; he continued to drag me further.
The hotel bathroom was ridiculous. The floors were heated, the towels the size of blankets, the marble counter littered with tiny French bottles I’d never have touched on my own.
He planted me in front of the mirror and peeled off my clothes, folding each piece as if it were mandatory they be neatly stacked.
He caught my eye in the mirror. “Still with me?”
I nodded, but my reflection betrayed the lie: hair wild, dark crescents under my eyes, shoulders pinched in like I was bracing for a punch.
Jess reached for my hand, tugged me under the rainhead shower, and turned the water on full. The instant heat made me gasp. He waited until I acclimated, then stepped in with me, his body a wall between me and the world.
He poured a dollop of something expensive-smelling into his palm—jasmine and green tea and a note of citrus so pure it made my eyes sting.
He started with my hair, massaging my scalp with fingers meant for pulling triggers, not making someone feel worshipped.
The lather slid down my neck, over my shoulders, and Jess followed it, working the soap down my spine in slow, precise spirals. My knees threatened to buckle.
“Let go,” he said, low. “Just for a little while.”
So I did. I let my head fall forward and my arms hang limp, and when he turned me to face the spray, I barely noticed the water in my eyes.
He tipped my chin up, kissing the salt from my lips, then worked his way down—my throat, my collarbones, the notch at the base of my neck where he sometimes pressed his nose and breathed me in.
The world shrank to water and heat and Jess’s hands mapping every inch of me.
He washed my breasts with the same care he used on my scalp, fingers slow and unhurried, thumbs tracing circles around my nipples until I forgot my own name.
He cupped them in his hands, weighing them, then let them go as if giving them back.
His hands slid over my stomach, my hips, and he knelt so he could rub my thighs, calf to ankle, as if he was searching for secret compartments.
I closed my eyes. I could feel his breath against my skin, his lips ghosting over my belly and lower, but I didn’t move. I was past moving.
When he stood, I felt the hard line of him pressed to my belly, and I wanted him so bad it hurt, but he wasn’t in any hurry.
He spun me so my back was to his chest, cradling me there, water sluicing over both of us.
His hands explored the front of my body: up to my breasts, down to my stomach, then lower, until his fingers parted me and slid between the folds of my pussy.
I whimpered, the sound embarrassingly desperate, but he shushed me, burying his mouth in my wet hair.
“I need you,” I said, barely audible.
“You have me,” he answered, and his hand circled my clit, the same slow, deliberate pressure he’d used on the trigger of his favorite rifle.
My hips bucked. He anchored me, one arm wrapped tight under my breasts, holding me up as he worked me harder, two fingers slipping inside and curling with ruthless precision.
I came so fast it was almost embarrassing; the kind of toe-curling, stomach-clenching climax that left my legs useless and my lungs on fire. I sagged against him, and he kept his fingers inside me, gentling the rhythm until the aftershocks faded to tremors.
He pulled out, washed his hand, then spun me to face him. I saw the hunger in his eyes, the wolf and the man both clawing at the surface.
He kissed me hard, his tongue filling my mouth with insistence. “You want me to stop?”
“No,” I said, desperate for more.
He smiled, just a flash of teeth, and pinned my wrists to the cool marble tile.
His other hand found my hip, yanked it forward, and then he was inside me, all the way, in one brutal, perfect thrust. I bit his shoulder to keep from crying out, and he fucked me slow, methodical, like he had all the time in the world.
The water roared overhead. The world dropped away.
I wanted to memorize every second: the flex of his arms, the way his jaw clenched, the hitch in his breath when he started to lose control.
My whole body lit up, every nerve ending tuned to his, every bit of pain and pleasure the same electric current.
He lifted me, pressed my back to the wall, and drove into me until I forgot why we’d ever been apart. I clung to his shoulders, nails digging in, and let myself go a second time, shattering against him as he came inside me with a growl that made my insides shudder.
We stood there for a long time, breathing each other in, until the water ran cold.
He wrapped me in a plush towel and sat me down on the vanity stool.
He blow-dried my hair, the motions as careful as everything else he did.
When it was half dry, he took my brush and curled the ends, the way I liked them, twisting each lock around his finger. I let him. I let him do all of it.
When he was done, he kissed my forehead and carried me to the bed. He gently laid me on my pillow and pulled the blankets up around me, tucking me in like a child.
He got in beside me, gathering me to his chest, and the last thing I heard before sleep took me was his voice, low and certain.
“I’m so thankful I found you again, bluebonnet. My life had no meaning without you,” he whispered. “I thought I’d always be alone, that love and happiness would always be just out of reach. I’m so glad I was wrong.” His lips were soft as I kissed him lightly.
I drifted into sleep, muscles warm and heavy, and didn’t wake until the sun was already painting stripes across the hotel’s velvet curtains.
The morning was cold and absurdly bright, the kind of blue that made the river look less like water and more like a mirror splitting the city in two.
I pulled the beanie lower on my head, adjusted the strap of the canvas bag on my shoulder, and kept my chin down as I crossed the Pont de Bougival.
The dew hadn’t burned off yet; everything was slick, the flagstones shining underfoot.
My shoes squelched, and each step sounded way too loud.
According to the plan, I was supposed to blend in with the other artists.
That was why we’d stopped at the supply store on Rue Cler, why Jess had insisted on a battered wooden easel, a fistful of graphite pencils, and a block of heavy paper that smelled like it had been milled in the last century.
Even the paint-stained smock I wore was supposed to make me invisible.
It was laughable. The minute I stepped onto the river walk, some eyes landed on me—either because I looked American or because I was one of only a few people out there before eight a.m.