Chapter Twenty-Four
Elise
My apartment door clicked shut behind us, and the sudden silence rushed into the room like heavy static. Brady was still holding my hand. His skin was warm, steady, unhurried. I was still marveling that he hadn’t copied anything. He hadn’t taken a single photo.
He’d passed.
My brain tried to run a diagnostic, but the telemetry made no sense.
Alethea and I had designed the perfect, impenetrable system.
He should have failed. Had we gone through the front door, he would have.
What neither my design nor Alethea’s additional tech had taken into account was a sick guard and Brady’s charm. People trusted Brady.
And then Brady passed the only test that actually mattered: given every opportunity to weaponize my father’s deepest vulnerability, he chose radical respect instead.
Who honestly does that?
In my experience, the answer was no one.
My father’s voice echoed through the cold corridors of my mind, dark and unforgiving: People show you who they are when they think no one is watching.
I had built an entire fortress on that belief.
But my palms were sweating because Brady had spent four straight hours proving my father could be completely, utterly wrong.
The guilt was a physical ache. I had weaponized Brady’s kindness. I’d repeatedly tested a man who was only trying to help his family. Every way I spun the story in my head, he was on the right side of it . . . and me?
I pulled my hand free. I needed distance before my internal processor violently glitched.
“Sit down,” I said, my voice thin and brittle. “I have something to tell you.”
He sat on the edge of the couch without hesitation, elbows on his knees, watching me with that open, endlessly patient expression.
He didn’t even look tense. He looked like he was waiting for me to say we’d run out of coffee, not that I was about to dismantle the foundation of everything between us.
I paced two steps, then stopped. My footsteps were heavy on the worn rug.
The words lodged in my throat like broken glass.
Saying them would burn every bridge and leave me completely exposed.
I took a shallow, shaking breath, then another, but the air in my own living room felt too thin. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“Okay.”
“It’s something I should have told you in the beginning.”
He sat a little straighter and waited.
I gathered my courage.
“My last name is Steele. Thomas Steele is my father.” His expression was momentarily so confused that I added, “I’m the daughter of the actual Thomas Steele you’re looking for.”
I braced for the flinch, the mask to drop, the anger. I was prepared for an argument to field accusations and defend why I’d kept this from him.
Instead, Brady blinked once, then let out a slow breath. I sensed a moment of conflict within him, but it passed like a quick summer shower. After a beat, he nodded and said, “Can’t say I saw that one coming.”
“I feel horrible about it. I just—”
My mind stalled out. The entire logical loop broke. In my world there was only threat or asset, but I had no idea how to categorize him. I stared at him, waiting for more words to come to me. The silence stretched, agonizing.
“So . . .” He rubbed his jaw. “You’ve only been spending time with me to figure out what I was really doing here?”
“Yes.” The admission burned like acid. I watched his face, hunting for the crack.
“And the Tahoe birthday party?” His voice stayed even. “That was just to pump me for information?”
“No.” The denial tore out too fast, heat flooding my neck. “I couldn’t believe you were actually going. I thought it was an act and I had to see it for myself. That day . . . that day was real, though.” My voice cracked.
A small, genuine smile touched his mouth. “Good. I really liked that day.”
I kept going, the confession tumbling out in jagged pieces.
I told him about running his background, the air-gapped session, knowing about Bella and the Burkes, the Friesians, Mrs. Donnelly.
I told him I’d dropped the purse on purpose.
I laid every piece of evidence at his feet and waited for the verdict I deserved.
Brady listened, eyes locked on mine. When I finally ran out of things to confess, he spoke gently. “Elise. Considering who your family is and why I came to this town, I completely understand why you wouldn’t want me to know. You were protecting your people.”
“But I lied to you,” I whispered. “Repeatedly.”
He shrugged one shoulder, easy and honest. “Given the same situation? I probably would have lied too.”
The floor felt unsteady. I sank onto the couch beside him as my rigid binary system shattered. Tears burned my eyes. Why wasn’t he angry? Why wasn’t he leaving?
He turned fully toward me. “I’m an honest guy ninety-nine point nine percent of the time. But if my father was hanging over a cliff ledge and you were holding the rope, I’d look you dead in the eye and tell you whatever you wanted to hear. I’d lie my absolute ass off to save him.”
A shaky laugh escaped me. Context. Of course he’d bring it back to a nuanced, human, impossible to predict exception to a rule.
The old abandonment fears clawed at my throat, but his hand found mine, thumb brushing slow, rhythmic arcs across my knuckles. “How are you feeling right now? And would a hug make things better or worse?”
The first sob broke free before I could stop it. I leaned into him, and his arms came around me.
I pulled back to look up at him, then on impulse, kissed him. Fierce. Grateful. Desperate. “I want so much more than a hug,” I murmured against his lips.
I pressed closer, sliding my hands under the hem of his shirt. I needed the solid warmth of his back under my palms.
Brady made a low sound, a deep vibration that traveled straight through me. His skin was warm, slightly damp under my fingers. When I dragged my nails lightly down his back, he shivered, a full-body reaction that made my own breath catch.
His hands stayed on my hips, grounding and steady. He eased back just enough to look at me. Really look. His eyes were dark with want, but there was more there, the shadow of my confession, the cost he was still carrying.
“Elise,” he said softly, voice rough. “We’ll go slow. I want it to be . . . the kind of good you don’t forget.”
His thumb brushed along my side, absent and tender. “Talk to me. Tell me what you like.”
I blinked. The words disrupted the frantic script in my head. Why does he talk so much?
I kissed him harder instead, deeper, trying to pull us back into heat. My fingers found the button of his jeans.
He caught my wrist gently. “Hey. What feels good?”
Frustration flared, bright and quick. But underneath it was something quieter. Every instinct I’d trusted to protect myself had only kept me alone.
I met his eyes, breath uneven. “This is good. You. Now.”
His mouth curved with understanding.
That undid me more than urgency ever could.
I kissed him again, guiding his hand under my blouse, pressing his palm over my breast. His hand was warm, rougher than mine. When his thumb brushed across my nipple a hot, electric reaction ripped through me. I gasped.
He stilled for a second, then leaned in. “You’re killing me, Elise.”
A shaky laugh slipped out. “Didn’t you tell me I should be comfortable enough to talk to you?”
“I did say that,” he murmured, mouth grazing my jaw before trailing downward. His voice dropped, rough and warm. “Right now, I have other things on my mind.”
“Me too.” I tugged at his shirt. “Off.”
He obliged, pulling it over his head in one smooth motion. The sight of him, his broad shoulders, muscles shifting under the low light, made my mouth go dry.
I guided his hand lower. Pure trust. His fingers slipped beneath my waistband, and when he found me wet and ready, the needy sound I made would have embarrassed me once. Now it felt honest.
He groaned against my neck, thumb circling my center with deliberate pressure that made my knees unreliable. “Don’t you dare stop doing that,” I whispered.
“Bossy. I like it.” His quiet chuckle brushed my throat. Then he slid down, replacing his talented fingers with his agonizingly, bold mouth.
I rocked against him, fingers tightening in his hair as pleasure sparked bright and hot. It built slowly, terrifying in its clarity. No distance. No escape hatch. No reducing this to data packets. This was surrender. Being known.
His free hand stayed locked at my lower back, anchoring me. “Careful,” he warned against my skin, voice tight. “You keep moving like that and this is going to end embarrassingly fast for me.”
I smiled against the wave building inside me. “Then we’ll just have to start over.”
His laugh was warm and genuine. “God, you’re hot, Elise.”
The crest hit hard and deep. I clung to him, his name breaking from me like a cracked code, body trembling through the aftershocks. He stayed with me, whispering soft words.
When the waves faded, I rested my forehead against his, palm over his heart. Steady. Certain.
“I’ve got you,” he said simply.
The scary part? I believed him.
I kissed him slowly. Everything I couldn’t articulate lived in that kiss. Protecting my heart a thousand percent had only kept me isolated. I didn’t want safety anymore. I wanted him, the risk, the uncertainty, the terrifying, beautiful possibility of more.
We shed the rest of our clothes in a slow, laughing tangle of stubborn buttons, teasing, zippers and fabric floating to the floor.
My hands explored him with open wonder, tracing the broad planes of his chest, the dip of his hips, the taut ridges of his abdomen.
Lower still, until my palm wrapped around the thick, heavy length of him.
He was rock-solid and velvet-soft at once, pulsing hot against my skin.
I took my time, stroking every inch with reverent curiosity, learning the weight of him, the way he twitched and throbbed in my grip, the low groan that rumbled from deep in his chest.
“Elise…” My name fell from his lips like a half-warning, half-prayer.
Heat pooled low in my belly. I straddled him on the couch, knees sinking into the cushions on either side of his hips.
The head of his cock brushed against my slick folds, and he rocked upward in a deliberate tease, sliding along my sex, parting me, coating himself in my wetness without pushing inside.
Again and again. The friction was exquisite torture.
I whimpered, hips chasing him desperately.
“Brady, please . . .”
His hands gripped my hips, steadying me as he continued the slow, maddening glide. “I’ve waited for this,” he murmured, voice dark with need. “I want to feel every second of you.”
When he finally thrust up, stretching me open inch by thick inch, the fullness was overwhelming.
Perfect. Right. A broken moan tore from my throat as he seated himself fully, buried to the hilt.
We stayed like that for a long moment, breathing each other in, eyes locked in the charged silence.
The stretch burned so good, every tiny shift of my hips sending sparks racing up my spine.
Then we began to move. Unrushed at first. A deep, rolling rhythm that let me feel everything: the drag of him inside me, the way my body clenched greedily around his thickness, the slick sound of our joining.
Every roll of my hips drew a guttural groan from him.
Every powerful upward stroke chipped away another layer of my defenses, pulling another wall down inside me until I felt raw and exposed in the best possible way.
Brady sat up, arms wrapping tight around me, holding me flush against his chest. His mouth found my breasts.
Hot. Wet. Relentless. He sucked one sensitive peak deep, tongue flicking, teeth grazing just enough to make me arch and cry out.
The other he kneaded with his hand, thumb circling the tight bud in time with our thrusts.
Pleasure coiled tighter, hotter, winding through every nerve.
I rode him harder, fingers digging into his shoulders, nails biting skin. Sweat slicked between us. The couch creaked beneath our rhythm. His name became a chant on my lips: half plea, half worship.
When the orgasm crashed over me, it was devastating. I clenched hard around him, waves of intense pleasure ripping through me as I shattered. He followed right behind, burying himself deep with a raw moan of my name, hips jerking as he spilled hot and endless inside me.
We stayed connected, foreheads pressed together, hearts hammering against each other. Our ragged breaths mingled. I felt him still twitching inside me, aftershocks trembling through us both.
Later . . . minutes or hours, I couldn’t tell, we drifted to the shower without conscious decision.
Scalding water poured down, filling the glass enclosure with thick steam that wrapped around us like another embrace.
Brady stood behind me, his chest a solid wall of heat as he worked shampoo through my hair with slow, worshipful fingers.
Every pass of his hands felt like devotion: massaging my scalp, rinsing carefully, pressing soft kisses along the side of my neck and down my shoulder blade.
I leaned back into him, boneless, letting the heat melt the final traces of my old firewalls.
He turned me gently to face him, then lifted me as if I weighed nothing. I wrapped my legs around his waist. He guided himself back inside. And it was perfect. So fucking perfect. Foreheads pressed together under the spray; we moved in a sensual rhythm.
Then he turned me toward the tile, hugging me close from behind.
He kissed my neck, nipped gently at my shoulder, and entered me again, gently at first, then deeper, with more insistence.
One hand slipped between my legs, fingers circling my clit with expert pressure while he thrust. Every powerful stroke released another knot of tension, another buried worry, until pleasure built into a shattering peak.
I came with a broken cry, deep, satisfying waves that left me trembling and boneless in his arms. He followed moments later, groaning my name as he held me steady against the tile, pulsing inside me while the water cascaded over our joined bodies.
Afterward, we simply stood under the spray with foreheads touching. I felt raw, open, stripped down to something real and unguarded. For once, I didn’t want to hide.
Brady brushed wet strands of hair from my face, those dimples flashing in the smile that had first weakened my knees. “You’re amazing. That was amazing.”
I laughed softly, pressing closer into his warmth. “We’re going to need a bigger couch. Or a bed. Or . . . more showers.”
His arms tightened around me, warm and sure. “I’m all in, Elise. Anywhere. Anytime. Wherever this takes us.”
And for the first time, I let myself believe in the same radical optimism he carried like armor.
I was done running risk assessments.
This—this was what my life had been missing.