Chapter 38
Jiya
Idrift toward consciousness to find Calloway already home, buried deep inside me.
My sleeping body betrays me every time, slick and ready for him without a single conscious thought. There is no surprise, only the deep, primal satisfaction of a lock finding its key.
I let out a soft sigh, my body instinctively arching back to take him deeper.
It's become our ritual since I got fired. Bad for business, my boss had said when my arrest hit the news. Now my days are empty except for waiting—for trial, for this nightmare to end.
“You’re awake.” Calloway’s voice is a low rumble against my spine. He’s been still, inside me, waiting.
“Just enjoying the welcome,” I murmur, my voice thick with sleep and arousal.
A low chuckle vibrates through his chest and into my back. His arm, banded like steel around my waist, tightens. He shifts his hips, not a thrust, but a slow, deliberate rotation that makes the piercing drag against my inner walls. I gasp, my fingers digging into the sheet.
“Seven days of this,” I breathe, trying to distract myself from the exquisite friction. “I’m going to forget what the outside world looks like.”
“This bed,” he says, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin of my neck. “This is the only world that matters.” He presses deeper, a slow, claiming stretch that steals my breath. “Don’t move. Let me feel you.”
His hand slides from my waist, up over my stomach. His palm presses down, a firm, possessive weight above where we are joined. The counter-pressure is a revelation, making me feel him from both sides, a living core of heat and pressure inside me.
“Feel that?” he asks. “That’s us, Jiya. That’s me buried inside you. No space between us.”
“I feel it,” I whisper.
His fingers slide lower, tracing the seam where his body enters mine, a gesture of blatant ownership. My hips try to rock back, a desperate, involuntary plea for friction. His arm locks me in place.
“You moaned my name in your sleep,” Calloway whispers, his lips brushing against my ear. “Did you know that? You were dreaming of me.”
“I always am,” I confess, squirming against him, craving friction, movement, anything. “Please,” I beg, the word torn from me. “Calloway, I need you to move.”
“Soon,” he promises. “First, I want to watch you come apart from this. From being mine.”
His hand on my stomach presses more firmly, while his fingertips find me, circling my clit. He keeps his body perfectly still inside me, denying the thrust I crave while focusing entirely on that bundle of nerves. It’s agonizing. It’s perfect.
“So beautiful,” he murmurs. “So dangerous. My little killer.”
His touch is a ruthless precision, a pattern of pressure that builds and recedes, never letting me adapt. All while he remains buried deep, refusing to move. It’s almost unbearable.
“Cal—” My voice breaks as his fingers press harder.
My body tightens around him, seeking the friction he won’t provide. His groan vibrates through my back, but still, he doesn’t thrust. Instead, his fingers work faster, a counterpoint to his unmoving hips.
I whimper, powerless against the rising tide. The contrast between his rigid stillness inside me and the relentless motion of his fingers creates a tension that’s unbearable. My legs tremble.
“That’s it,” he encourages, feeling the first tremor. “Show me how much you love being claimed.”
I shatter with a broken sob, my inner muscles clenching around him. Wave after wave of an intense, almost painful orgasm crashes through me. He holds me through it, staying still inside me, absorbing every pulse, every tremor, into himself.
As the last wave fades, I lie boneless and wrecked, aware of him still buried deep, still hard, his body shaking with the monumental effort of his restraint. He doesn’t move.
He holds me, his forehead pressed between my shoulder blades, his breathing harsh and controlled. This wasn’t for his release. This was for the connection. This was for the feeling of me breaking apart around him.
“Calloway,” I whisper.
He shudders, a full-body tremor. “Just…a minute,” he rasps against my skin. “Let me have this. All of you. Just like this.”
I surrender to the stillness, to being utterly possessed. We stay like that for a long moment, with nothing but the sound of our breathing in the quiet room.
Finally, his grip on my waist loosens.
I turn and trace the lines of his chest, his heart slow under my palm.
He pulls me closer, his lips brushing my temple.
I understand what this is now. Not just sex. Not just pleasure. It’s intimacy in its purest form. Something neither of us has allowed ourselves to have before.
The sharp, insistent buzz of a phone shatters the peace.
Calloway’s entire body tenses beneath me. The lover is gone, replaced by the killer. He reaches over, his movements economical and precise, and answers, putting the call on speaker.
“Xander.”
“We have a problem. A big one.” Xander’s voice is tight, stripped of its usual sarcasm. “Elisha Briggs’ building. The security company, Aegis Security. I don’t know how we missed it.”
“Missed what?” Calloway’s voice is low, controlled.
“They keep physical backups,” Xander says, the words landing like stones. “Tapes. The original, uncompressed footage from every camera in that building. Can you believe it? In this day and age. The good news is, the police don’t have them. They didn’t even know they existed.”
The air in the room turns to ice. The original tapes. No deepfake argument could stand up against the source material.
“The owner just got back from a business trip,” Xander continues, his voice grim.
“Called the DA’s office an hour ago, playing the good citizen.
He’s handing them over first thing in the morning.
Lazlo is prepping to go in now. It’s a simple smash and grab, but the office has a new silent alarm system. ”
“No,” Calloway says, the word flat and absolute. The muscles in his back harden into steel plates. “That footage is the only thing that can clear her name or bury her. It’s my responsibility. I’m going.”
A new voice, rough and familiar, cuts in over the speaker. “Negative, Calloway. I’m handling this one.”
“Lazlo, you’re injured,” Calloway argues. “Why not send Ambrose?”
“Ambrose is handling another matter,” Xander replies. “Lazlo is our only option on the ground.”
“The arm’s a lot better,” Lazlo says, his tone leaving no room for debate. “Besides,” he adds, and I can almost hear the gruff smile in his voice, “I’ve grown quite fond of our little killer. I want to do this.”
The unexpected warmth in his words hits me harder than any threat.
“It’s too risky for you anyway, Calloway,” Xander cuts back in, his voice sharp.
“Why?” Calloway’s voice is quiet. “How is it any riskier for me than it is for him?”
Before Xander can answer, I slide off Calloway’s lap, my moment of peace a distant memory. I stand before him, naked and unafraid.
“He’s not going alone,” I say, my voice leaving no room for argument. “Those tapes are of me. I’m going with him.”
A dead silence hangs on the line. Calloway stares at me, his eyes wide with a mixture of shock, pride, and terror.
Xander’s voice crackles over the speaker, dry and utterly devoid of humor.
“That,” he says, answering Calloway’s question from a moment before. “That’s why.”
The implication hangs in the air, sharp and undeniable: You’re a liability because she will follow you into the fire.
Calloway closes his eyes for a fraction of a second, a flicker of pain crossing his face. He understands. But the time for debate is over. He opens them again, and his gaze is pure resolve. He looks at me, not as a fragile thing to be protected, but as his partner. His equal.
The call ends with a click, no further words offered.
He gets out of bed, his body a canvas of lethal grace in the dim light. He walks to the closet and pulls out two black duffel bags, tossing one on the bed in front of me.
“Get dressed,” he says, his voice a low, dangerous command. “We have some tapes to collect.”