Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
The lights go on as we pull into the safe house.
The place is lit like a stadium. Every kind of security light, motion light, infrared sensor, heat detection system, pressure sensing alarms are in place…you name it, this house has it.
In seconds we’ll be inside. Locked behind a hundred-thousand-dollar security system.
The team will be here.
There’s a safe room.
There’s an armory of weapons and supplies to last for months.
I still won’t rest easy.
Not until the threat against Rosalie is over.
“I’m impressed,” Rosalie murmurs, a look of awe as the blue-white lights reflect in her wide eyes.
For a beat I’m struck by how beautiful she is.
Again.
Every time I get punched in the gut. That’s the power she has on me.
But I react for a different reason when she tenses as another vehicle pulls in beside the SUV we arrived in.
“That’s Marshall,” I reassure her as he kills the engine on the truck, and climbs out.
Wearing his usual grim face, he has a quiet authority in his stride that’s unmistakable.
“Hit the rack, everyone,” he tells us, “JT and Truck, you two are wheels up at zero-four hundred. I’ll have a mission plan ready for you then.”
As soon as he says that, Rosalie’s gaze hits me with force.
When the team drifts away in conversation about the rescue mission, I hang back, wanting a minute before we go inside.
“I know this is a lot to take in, you doing okay?”
She nods, but asks, “What’s wheels up mean?”
She’s not used to this world. I would do well to remember to help her navigate the lingo and procedures. Personally, I wouldn’t like being left in the dark.
“We’ll be flying somewhere to run down the intel Marshall gets tonight.”
“But you’ll sleep?” She reaches for me, brushing a delicate fingertip below my eye. “You look exhausted.”
When was the last time I slept? So much has happened. But now isn’t the time to stop. I shrug it off, standing taller. “We’re trained for this.”
“You’re still allowed to rest, especially when your boss tells you to sleep.”
When I should hurry her into the house, I don’t. I stop her by the door, let my hands find her waist. Holding on.
“I wasn’t thinking about sleeping,” I say, my tone husky.
The second she’s against me, it’s like the rest of the world drops out. When she makes a soft sound, her lips trembling, drawing my eyes to the soft curves, I suddenly have the urge to nip.
Watching her for a reaction, I say, “I was thinking about a bed where I can get you on your back, so I can get my mouth on you. All of you.”
She gasps, tensing in my arms, but there’s a pleasurable widening of her eyes. “But everyone will be around.”
I lean in just enough that my breath brushes her skin, fighting the urge to ravish her neck. “That’s their problem.”
Her blush is fast, crawling up from her neckline and I want to lick it to taste the heat.
“I need a shower,” she says in a husky rasp.
I can’t help the low, satisfied laugh that rumbles out of me. “That means yes?”
She’s the one that moves, tugging me toward the house. “It’s not me saying no.”
We bypass the planning meeting in the kitchen. Or I do, practically pushing her up the stairs with my erection growing to dangerous proportions before we reach the second floor landing.
“Last room on the left.”
It’s a random choice, but the door’s open which means it’s fair game.
“Oh, this is beautiful,” she murmurs, standing in the middle of the large bedroom. “That bed is to die for.”
As I close the door and lock it, voices are drifting around from somewhere else in the house. Camile and Allison are talking, and for a second, the weight of everything we’ve been carrying presses down again.
The mission we’ve been running for months. Beast has gone missing. Westerly on the run. A hit ordered on Rosalie.
“I heard them too,” she says, automatically tuning in on the shift in me.
It’s one of the things that makes Rosalie so dangerous to me. Nothing goes unnoticed. She reads between all of my lines.
I just don’t know if I’m ready for her to excavate my darkest places.
“Camile’s worried,” I say, “but she knows him just like the rest of us do. That man’s hard to kill.”
For a quiet moment, Rosalie studies me, those gentle green eyes seeing more than I want her to—my fear that the mission will result in someone losing their life.
Somehow caused by me failing them.
“You’re really not worried?”
“I’m concerned,” I admit, stripping my shirt off, tossing it down, feeling the fatigue crawl up my spine.
“But concern doesn’t help a search at this stage. It only clouds my insight. Strategy works. Intel is the foundation, and Marshall will be up all night working.”
Rosalie’s locked onto my abs, a glimmer of pleasure in her expression. It pleases me that she likes what she sees.
Taking a steadying breath, I unlock my tight muscles. Rolling out my neck, I take a moment to enjoy the heat that’s still heavy in my pelvis.
“In the meantime, we get time for us.”
“So this is your strategy?” she teases softly, the gentle smile ripping away another layer of my inner fortress.
“Yeah, it is. Very soon I’m going to be an expert strategist when it comes to you.”
“I like the sound of that,” she whispers as I close the distance between us, making myself take this slowly. Trying to defy my need to throw her on the bed and devour what’s mine.
Damn. Things changed fast.
Now I can’t imagine not having her near.
A sense of rightness is building like a banked fire in my chest as I tug her closer.
“Right now, this is about reminding both of us that we’re still here. Still alive.”
Her breath catches again when my fingers thread into her hair.
“So alive,” she says huskily. “But you can’t make me scream.”
I brush my thumb along her jaw, trace the corner of her mouth with my knuckle because I cannot stop touching her. “If I do, they’ll know I’m doing my job right.”
She laughs.
I swallow roughly as the light, slightly nervous sound invades my senses. It is the best sound I’ve heard in days.
Maybe in my life. The gravity of that fills my voice with emotion when I whisper against her temple, “You’re my only mission tonight.”