Chapter 25
Chapter twenty-five
Noah
I heard the key in the door and looked up from the book I’d been attempting to lose myself in. I’d never been as big a reader as Jackson was, but a guy could only watch so much television without losing his mind.
The meeting had been at eight. Four hours was a long time for a strategy session, and I’d spent most of those four hours not thinking about what that meant.
It was hard to know there was a group of people a floor below, talking about you and making decisions about your life without you.
Not that I wanted to be there. I didn’t because I knew two things.
The first was that if I’d been there, everyone would’ve been too worried about me and my feelings to be honest. The second was that they could strategize all day, but my life was mine, and I would have the final say.
I’d earned that the day I walked out of the basement on my own two feet.
Jackson came through the door, and the look on his face said it all.
“Tell me,” I said.
He sat down on the couch beside me and turned so he was facing me. “Corvane’s network has gone quiet since the Gala. Kat thinks they’re either standing down or moving assets. Either way, the threat is still active. Chance is building a case, but there’s no timeline,” he said, without preamble.
I nodded. I’d known most of that. “And the plan?”
“The plan is to give Chance the time he needs. Keep security where it is. Keep your life as normal as possible. You’re free to leave the building with someone; you’re not on lockdown.
The workshop at Mars’s shop, things like that.
” He held my gaze. “We’re not just sitting and waiting.
We’re keeping tabs on him. He’s bound to slip up at some point. ”
“And if he doesn’t?” We both knew this couldn’t go on indefinitely. I couldn’t live the rest of my life in the Three Bears headquarters. I had to have a job. A life.
He was quiet for a moment. “Our first priority is helping Chance get something that sticks. If that doesn’t work—” He paused, and something in the pause told me this was the part he’d been deciding how to say.
“Priority two is relocation. New identity, new city, deep enough cover that Corvane can’t find you. ”
I looked at him.
“It’s a last resort. Not the first option,” he said quickly. “But it’s on the table, and you deserved to know that.”
I sat with it. Tried to hold it the way my therapist had taught me to hold scary thoughts with sharp edges—loosely, not so tight that they would cut.
New identity. New city.
“Everything I have,” I said. “Dr. Reyes. Julius and Mika.” I could feel the panic creeping in like a slow rolling fog threatening to swallow everything. “The life I’ve built since—” I stopped and took a breath. “I know it’s a last resort. I know. But—”
“Noah—”
“I finally have something real.” My voice came out quieter than I intended.
“I finally have… you. This.” I motioned between us.
“And you’re telling me there’s a version where I have to walk away from all of it.
Start over. Again.” I clenched and unclenched my fists and stared at the coffee table in an attempt to fight back the fog. “I know it’s the last option. I just—”
“Noah.” His voice was different. I looked up.
He was watching me with an expression I’d seen building for weeks—in the kitchen in the mornings, out at the camp when we took walks down the trail, and on the dance floor at The Hargrove. It was the thing that had made me believe this was something real.
“I need you to hear something,” he said. “If it comes to that. If we’re forced to build you a new identity and move you somewhere safe, they’ll need to do the same for me.”
I stared at him.
“I’m not letting you go alone,” he said.
“That’s not a possibility I’m willing to consider.
” He held my gaze with a steadiness that told me that he’d thought this through, and there was no changing his mind.
“I love you, Noah. That’s what I’m telling you.
Whatever comes next, you don’t do it alone. ”
The room was very quiet.
I’d spent my time since the basement preparing for so many things.
For the slow difficult work of putting myself back together, and for the possibility of Corvane coming after me, but I hadn’t even remotely prepared for Jackson Crowe.
For him telling me he loved me. I should have, though, because now that he’d said it, I realized I’d known it was true.
He’d shown me in a hundred different ways every day, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. But yet, I still was.
“Jackson,” I said.
“I know the timing—”
“Stop talking.” My voice broke on the words, which was embarrassing, and I didn’t care.
He froze and looked at me, and I took in a deep, steadying breath.
“I love you, too. I have for a while. I just—” I stopped and shook my head.
“You would leave? For me? You would leave everything. The camp, Three Bears.” I looked at him. “Wyatt.”
Something moved through his face at his brother’s name.
“Yes,” he said.
“Jackson—”
“He would understand,” he said. “He’d hate it, but he would understand.
” His voice was even, but there was something underneath it that told me how much it cost him.
“But it won’t come to that. I told you it’s the last option.
Chance is good at his job, and Kat is even better.
It won’t come to that.” He reached across and covered my hand with his.
“But if it does, I go. That’s not a debate. ”
I looked at our hands. At the bracelet on my wrist, the dark stone against my skin that Mika had said was for protection, it was pretty, but I knew where my real safety lay, and it was right here with this man, not because of some metaphysical magic, but because he loved me.
“I don’t want you to have to make that choice.” I thought of the look on Jackson’s face that day Wyatt had shown up at the camp unexpectedly. The pure joy there at seeing his brother and how unfair it was to think he might never see him again. Because of me.
“I know you don’t,” he said. “That’s one of the things I love about you.”
I looked at him.
“You would never ask anyone to give anyone or anything up for you.” He turned my hand over and laced his fingers through mine. “But, baby boy, you aren’t asking. I’m telling you that whatever it takes, it’ll be worth it, as long as I have you.”
I’d just managed to hold myself together through this whole conversation—the plans, the relocation option, even the I love you—with that same practiced resilience I’d spent months building after my kidnapping.
It was what had kept me from losing it during the car chase and what kept me sane when I was down in the cabin’s cellar waiting for Jackson to come back for me.
But all of that came apart in about four seconds.
Not in a bad way. Like a thread that had been stretched too far until it finally found its breaking point and snapped, releasing all the tension it’d been holding.
I turned and put my arms around him, and he gathered me in, one hand at my back and one at the back of my head.
I pressed my face against his shoulder and let myself fall apart.
He held me without saying anything because he was Jackson, and he knew that what I needed wasn’t words. I just needed him to hold me.
After a while, I pulled back and looked at him. He looked back. His expression was open in a way I didn’t always get to see from him.
“I love you,” I said again. Because I wanted to say it not in the middle of coming apart but clearly, looking at him, with all of myself present. “I love you, Jackson Crowe.”
Something in his face went quiet and warm. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”
I laughed and shook my head. “That’s the most you-thing you’ve ever said.”
Crowe
He kept looking at me the way he had when he said my name out loud—I love you, Jackson Crowe—like saying it had changed something in the room. Maybe it had.
What I knew was that we’d done enough talking for one afternoon.
I reached for him and pulled him close, one hand at the back of his neck, and kissed him slow and deep until I felt the last of the tension leave his body, and his hands found my shirt and held on. Then I pulled back just enough to look at him.
“Bedroom,” I said.
He didn’t argue.
I sat him on the edge of the bed and stood in front of him and let myself look at him. His eyes were still bright. His hair was undone from my hands. He looked up at me, waiting, trusting me to know what he needed.
“You good?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m good.”
I reached out and started on the buttons of his shirt, slow and deliberate, and he let me, sitting still under my hands. I pushed the shirt off his shoulders and ran my hands over him, his chest, his shoulders, the line of his ribs. He shivered.
“Lie back,” I said.
He did.
I took my time. I’d always taken my time with him, being careful, managing around fragility, because I never wanted to be another thing that caused him trauma, but this afternoon was different.
This afternoon I went slow because I wanted to.
Because he was mine. I worked his jeans off, tossed them aside, stood over him, and looked at him laid out on the bed.
He looked back at me with dark eyes, his chest already rising and falling faster.
“Daddy,” he said.
“I’ve got you, baby boy,” I said. “Relax.”
He exhaled. His hands went loose at his sides.
I came down over him and kissed his throat, his collarbone, the place at his shoulder where he always carried tension.
He made a soft sound, and his hands went into my hair.
I worked my way down his chest, his stomach, taking my time, being sure to hit each spot I knew he enjoyed because I wanted him to know I remembered.
Because he deserved to be cherished each time.
He was trembling slightly by the time I came back up to his mouth and kissed him hard.
“Please,” he breathed against my lips.
“Please, what?” I pulled back to look at him.
“I need you,” he said. “Jackson, please.”
I grabbed the lube from the nightstand and took care of what needed taking care of, working him open slowly and thoroughly while he moved under my hands and made the sounds that I’d decided early on I would do just about anything to keep hearing. He gripped the sheets. His back arched.
“More,” he said. “Please.”
“I’ve got you.” I pressed deeper, watching his face, finding the place that made him gasp and working it until he was saying my name over and over like a prayer.
When I finally lined up and pressed forward, he let out a long, broken sound, and his legs wrapped around me, pulling me in. I gave him a moment to adjust, one hand braced beside his head, watching him, and when he was ready, I began to move.
Deep, steady strokes. Not rushed. Our gazes locked and I kept them there, kept that connection, because I wanted him to feel seen. I felt him shudder under me.
“Right there,” he said, gasping. “Don’t stop.”
I didn’t stop.
I shifted my angle and heard him cry out. I reached between us and wrapped my hand around him and stroked him in time with my thrusts, and he went rigid, his hands flying to my shoulders, gripping hard.
“Jackson… I’m—”
“I’ve got you,” I said. “Let go.”
He came apart in my hands with a sound that I felt in my chest, his whole body arching up against mine. I drove into him through it, watching every second, until I buried myself deep and came with a low groan that I didn’t bother trying to hide.
I held him through the aftershocks. Stayed right where I was, one hand in his hair, my forehead against his, both of us breathing.
After a long moment, I rolled to the side and pulled him against me. He came easily, tucking himself against my chest, his hand spread over my ribs. His breathing was evening out. Mine was getting there.
“Leaving is still the last resort,” I said, after a while.
He let out a laugh that was still a little ragged. “You already said that.”
“It’s worth saying twice.”
His hand moved slowly on my ribs. “I believe you, you know. That you’d go with me.”
“Good,” I said.
“I just don’t want you to have to.”
I pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “I know you don’t. That’s one of the things I love about you.” I felt him go still in a good way at the word, the quiet way he received things that mattered. “Get some sleep, baby boy.”
He was quiet for a moment. “I love you, Daddy.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I love you, too.”
He settled against me, and after a while his breathing went slow and even against my chest, and I lay there with my hand in his hair and the city doing its quiet thing outside the window.
I thought about Wyatt, who would understand, and the camp that would still be there, and the last resort, which wasn’t going to be necessary.
And I thought about Noah asleep in my arms.
Worth it. Every single bit of it.