Chapter 44
The first light of dawn was just beginning to filter through the blinds of Blair’s cabin, casting soft stripes across the rumpled sheets.
The air was cool and still, carrying the earthy scent of pine from the woods outside.
The mattress dipped as Breakneck moved, and she smiled at the kiss he pressed to her cheek, his lips warm against her sleep-cooled skin.
“Go back to sleep, beautiful. PT first, then breakfast.”
She cracked one eye open, the world a hazy blur of gold and shadow. “You’re crazy. Aren’t you still recovering from yesterday?”
He slapped his flat, rippling abs, the sound a soft thud in the quiet room. “It’s not a choice. Ice and the guys are PTing right now, and if I slack, believe me, he will know it.”
She grunted, the pull of sleep too strong to argue, and let her eyes drift closed.
The next thing she knew, the rich aroma of coffee and scrambled eggs drifted to her nose, a siren call of comfort and domesticity.
She opened her eyes to see him standing at the foot of the bed, a tray in his hands.
He’d pulled on a pair of sweats, and his bare chest was a masterpiece of hard muscle and fading bruises.
He was watching her sleep, a look of such focused, domestic care on his face that it made her heart ache.
The intensity in his gaze was a stark, beautiful contrast to the gentle morning ritual.
“Stalker much?” she said, her voice a husky, snarky murmur, but all she could feel was a sweet, liquid heat, thinking about how accessible he’d been last night and how much she loved it.
She wanted the opportunity to jump him in the middle of the night and wake up to his handsome face in the morning.
He huffed out a laugh, a low, warm sound. “How about I don’t mention all those times you stared at me, and let’s not bring up the way you ogled my gym photos. I know you want to see me in tights, you creepy ballerina.”
“My goal is not to get you into clothing, my muscly babe,” she shot at him, gesturing him closer with a wry smile on her mouth.
He closed his eyes and laughed, a genuine, deep rumble that she felt in her own chest. “Now who’s incorrigible?”
“Stop stalling and get your sweet ass over here with that food.”
He chuckled and moved toward the bed, but before he could set the tray down, the shrill ring of her phone on the nightstand shattered the quiet. The sound was an intrusion, a jarring reminder of the world outside their bubble. Her smile vanished, her body already shifting into operational mode.
She was moving before she was fully awake, snatching the phone. “Brown.”
“Blair, it’s Tyler.”
She sat up straighter, the sheet pooling around her waist as she processed his tone. “What’s up, Tyler?”
“Darrow wants you in his office in forty-five minutes.”
Her breath caught in her throat. “Why?”
“Desjardins is on his way.”
“From Ottawa?” she asked, her mind already racing through the possibilities.
“Yes. Darrow’s got that cat-ate-the-canary look I don’t like,” Tyler responded.
“I’ll deal with him and the Desjardins,” she said, a knot of unease tightening in her gut. Whatever was happening. She would weather it like she always did with Darrow’s shenanigans.
“Tell him I’ll be there.” She hung up, her stomach twisting. She looked up and saw Breakneck standing by the bed, the tray still in his hands. A faint, wry smile touched his lips, though his eyes were sharp with understanding. “I guess this breakfast is going to go to waste.”
The professional mask she wore dissolved at the sight of him.
He was here, he was safe, and the night was over.
“I’m sorry,” she said, the apology genuine.
She slipped out of bed, letting the sheet drop, partly with her mind on business, but mostly with her senses on him, a deliberate, mesmerizing distraction.
“Let me make it up to you in the shower.”
His gaze flared over her body, a hot, possessive sweep that started at her breasts and ended at the curve of her hips.
She felt it like a physical touch, a spark that ignited the low-banked embers of their earlier encounter.
She slipped her hand into the waistband of his sweatpants and tugged, the fabric sliding down over the hard muscle of his thighs.
God, he was so good to look at. Every line of him was honed for a purpose, a landscape of scars and strength that told a story of survival and discipline.
His abdomen was a tight, ridged plane, his hips tapering into powerful legs.
But it was the way he looked at her, with a raw, unguarded hunger that was just for her, that truly undid Blair.
He was a beautiful, lethal weapon, and right now, he was completely and utterly hers.
She turned and walked toward the bathroom, the sway of her hips a deliberate invitation. She paused in the doorway, looking back at him over her shoulder. "You coming?"
He gave her that cocky grin, the one that was equal parts challenge and charm. "Are you leading me around by my dick?"
She chuckled, a low, throaty sound. "I don’t think you do anything you don’t want to do, Kelly."
The use of his real name landed with a different weight this time.
It wasn't a weapon. It was a truth. His smile softened, the cockiness melting away to be replaced by something deeper, something raw and real.
She saw the understanding dawn in his eyes, the acknowledgment that this was a choice, a surrender he was making freely.
He stepped out of his sweats, closing the distance between them in two long strides. He followed her into the bathroom as a man who knew exactly where he belonged.
He turned on the shower, the sound of the spray a sudden, rushing roar in the small bathroom.
But before she could step inside, he was on her, his hands on her hips, pushing her back against the cool, hard porcelain of the sink.
His breath was hot against her neck, a sharp contrast to the chill that seeped through her skin.
His hand slid down, finding her hot and wet, and he groaned, a low, guttural sound as he rubbed himself against her.
Blair pushed back against him with a cry of her own as his thumb circled her clit, and he entered her from behind, slow and deep. “Watch,” he whispered against the side of her neck.
Her eyes fluttered open to find herself staring into the rapidly steaming mirror over the sink.
Her gaze locked with his as he pulled her hips back.
His pupils were blown, making him look wildly primal, and her ache for him intensified.
The sound that slid from her was deep and guttural as he pushed fully into her.
She was so ready for him, and she pushed back onto him, taking him deeper.
His strokes were slow, controlled, and oh so deep.
She braced her hands on the sink as he leaned over her, nipping at her ear, while his hands slid up her torso, streaking her skin with heat.
He toyed with her nipples, wrenching groan after groan from her, but nothing matched the low shout of pleasure he wrung from her when he slid one hand between her thighs.
She crested quickly, almost violently, and he kept his fingers there, slick and clever, kept her quivering and shuddering, until he was shaking with the effort to stave off his own imminent climax.
She pushed back against him, needing more of him somehow, and yet feeling so completely full of him, she wasn’t sure what more there was to have.
His hands slid back to her hips, his fingers digging in tightly as he began pumping harder, faster.
She met him thrust for thrust, her hands slipping on the porcelain of the sink as she fought to keep her grip.
The mirror had fogged completely over at some point, but she didn’t need to see him now.
She felt him so thoroughly, it was as though she was part of him, as he was part of her.
His climax, when he finally let it overtake him, was almost mindless in the frenzied way he drove into her, body slapping against body, animal grunts filling the steamed air.
He collapsed over her, and they both fell over the sink.
Blair braced their weight on the mirror, leaving handprints on the steamed glass, as he wrapped his arms around her waist and held her tightly to him, his body still shuddering in the aftermath.
It was hard to breathe in the thick air, the shower still pumping out more steam as their hearts raced and their bodies quivered. She had no idea how much time passed before he finally lifted her up and turned her around, saying nothing as he pulled her into his arms.
He shifted, resting his weight against the sink as she leaned into him, oblivious, still trying to slow her pulse, breathe. He seemed to be doing the same as he stroked her hair, pressed his cheek against the top of her head, and just held her.
Her heart seized when she thought how close they were to the end of this operation.
She couldn’t let him go. Then she felt him press a kiss to her hair, and her heart bloomed so swiftly it made her eyes burn.
She knew then just how far she’d fallen, letting him in at all.
She had been helpless. She wasn’t going to sugarcoat it, not even for herself.
She clung to him, and he seemed to absorb her, reveling in the way she touched him.
“Blair,” he whispered. “Babe, I….” He slid his fingers beneath her chin, and she let him see what was there.
Breakneck missed nothing. Even if he was unprepared for what he might find, she would never give him less.
Selfishly, she wasn’t ready to let this go yet, to let him go.
If she was going to risk it all like that, lay her heart out like that, nothing but stark honesty was what he deserved.
But then, she already knew there wasn’t going to be any getting enough where Breakneck was concerned.
“What’s going on in there?” he said, his voice hardly more than a gravelly rasp.