Chapter 34 #2
Naomi finally moved. Her hand found his, her fingers warm against his skin. “It’s okay. You don’t have to—”
“I do,” he cut her off. “You need to know who you’re letting into your life.
Your bed. I spent four years in solitary out of paranoia.
Twenty-three hours a day in a concrete box the size of your bathroom.
No human contact except the guard who slid food through a slot three times a day.
I lost track of time. Days became weeks became months.
No books. No TV. Nothing to distract my mind.
Just me and four walls and the things I’d done. ”
He stared at their joined hands, unable to meet her eyes as he continued.
“After four years in that hell, they transferred me. No explanation, no lawyers, no paperwork. Just threw a black bag over my head and transported me to a place that doesn’t officially exist. A place for people the government wanted to forget.
” His smile felt brittle and mean on his lips.
“And if I thought solitary was hell, this place was worse.”
The dark room.
The endless questioning.
The sleep deprivation that made reality blur at the edges until he couldn’t tell what was real and what was hallucination.
Naomi’s fingers tightened around his, bringing him back to the present, and he exhaled a shaky breath.
“After four more years in that hole, I blackmailed Isolde to get out. She’d climbed high up in the intelligence community, and I had evidence that would have destroyed her. Still do. It’s why she leaves me alone, mostly. Why I’m here instead of still in a cell or dead in some unmarked grave.”
The silence that followed his confession felt endless.
Ghost forced himself to meet her eyes, ready for the disgust, the judgment, the slow backing away that would signal the end of whatever had been growing between them.
Instead, he found something unexpected. Compassion. Understanding. And beneath those, a heat that hadn’t been there before.
“Is that it?” she asked quietly.
The question caught him off guard. “What do you mean, ‘is that it?’ Did you hear what I just said? The things I did?”
“I heard you.” She moved closer, her knee pressing against his.
“I heard a young man who was raised by a system that juggled him through homes so he never felt wanted, then was recruited into a system designed to exploit his skills and his isolation. I heard someone who made terrible choices in an environment where terrible choices were normalized. And I heard someone who paid for those choices, who’s still paying for them. ”
Her hand rose to touch his face, fingers tracing the line of his jaw. “Thank you for telling me. For trusting me with that.”
He stared at her, unable to process her reaction. He’d expected revulsion, anger, maybe even fear. Not this quiet acceptance.
“Why aren’t you running?” he asked, his voice rough with emotion he couldn’t contain. “After everything I just told you—”
She silenced him by pressing her lips to his, a kiss that started gently but quickly deepened into something hungry and fierce. When she pulled back, her eyes were dark with desire.
“Because I don’t care who you were,” she said. “I care who you are now.”
Before he could respond, she was pushing him backward onto the soft grass, her hands moving to his belt. His mind struggled to catch up, to reconcile the confession he’d just made with the woman now efficiently unbuckling his jeans.
“Naomi—”
“Shh.” She slid down his body, wincing slightly as the movement pulled at her healing ribs. He tried to catch her and draw her back upright, but he didn’t want to cause her more pain.
“Stop,” she murmured, her breath warm against his stomach. “Let me show you how much your past doesn’t matter to me.”
And then her mouth wrapped around his cock, warm and wet and so perfect he had to close his eyes against the surge of emotion that threatened to overwhelm him.
Her hands steadied his hips as she took him deeper, and he buried his fingers in the grass, anchoring himself to the earth as white-hot pleasure sizzled through his body with every stroke of her tongue along his shaft.
It wasn’t just the physical sensation, though that was shattering enough. It was what her actions meant. Acceptance. Forgiveness. Things he’d never thought he deserved, never even allowed himself to want.
She’d heard the worst of him and still wanted him. Still chose him.
Ghost had never surrendered control to anyone. Not willingly. Not without a fight.
Yet here he was, flat on his back in this meadow, letting Naomi take him apart with her mouth, completely at her mercy. The thought should have terrified him. Instead, it felt like salvation.
She took him deeper, her tongue swirling around the head of his cock before sliding down his length. Her hands worked in tandem with her mouth, one cupping his balls, the other wrapped around the base of his shaft, creating a perfect rhythm that had his hips jerking upward involuntarily.
"Jesus, Naomi," he groaned, fighting the urge to thrust deeper into her mouth. He tangled one hand in her hair, not guiding, just connecting, needing the physical tether to keep from floating away on waves of pleasure.
She hummed in response, the vibration sending shockwaves through his system.
Her eyes flicked up to meet his, dark with desire, and he finally understood what it meant to be truly seen.
Not as a ghost, not as a weapon, not as a collection of skills and sins, but as a man.
Flawed, damaged, but worthy of connection.
Worthy of her.
The realization hit him like a physical blow. All his life, he'd fought to maintain control—of his surroundings, his emotions, his reactions. Control was safety. Control was survival.
But in this moment, with Naomi's mouth on him, her eyes meeting his with such complete acceptance, something inside him broke open. His hand loosened in her hair. His body stopped fighting the pleasure, stopped trying to contain it or direct it.
He closed his eyes and surrendered.