Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
DELANEY STOOD AT THE window, which overlooked the street below, her arms over her chest as she stared out at the dark street.
The lamp on the corner barely gave any illumination, casting the street in dark shadows.
As always, her mind ran through the loops of her working on something she hadn’t quite figured out yet as sounds of the house settling whispered in the background.
Taking herself out of the equation, she looked at the situation just like she would any other case her company was working.
She looked for patterns and contingencies where the security team could go off the rails, where the weakest parts were.
Not that she didn’t trust the men downstairs; she simply trusted herself and her reactions more.
Besides, it was her life she was risking.
She pushed at that thought like she pushed her tongue when it wouldn’t leave a sore tooth alone.
She didn’t regret her decision, but now that they were in Savannah, the weight of it had become real in a way that planning never quite allowed for.
She knew Leon was out there somewhere, just waiting to make his move and make her give up her family.
He was real, and not some grainy image on a casino surveillance feed anymore.
And he was coming for her. Matteo had sent him for her.
Her mother’s voice came back to her unbidden. Be careful; whatever you choose, do not lose yourself. She pressed her fingertips against the window frame and took a deep breath as she stared outside. “That’s the plan, Mom.”
Behind her, she heard the bedroom door open, followed by heavy footsteps.
She smiled as she stared out at the Spanish moss, seeing Bobby’s reflection in the window, the way he walked toward her, the swagger in his steps like he knew how to move without drawing attention to himself.
It never worked, however; people noticed Robert Jenkins wherever he went.
She had been studying him since they left the casino, comparing him to the boy she knew in school.
It was like getting used to someone all over again after being gone so long, but not much had really changed.
Both of them were so different, but the relationship had never changed.
She knew there were things about Robert Jenkins she could never forget. Nor did she ever want to.
There was only one light in the room, a small, ornate lamp on the nightstand, but she could see him well enough as he moved to join her.
Once there, he slid his arm around her from behind, warm and steady, and he drew her back against his chest, holding her as if time hadn’t passed between them.
He rested his chin against her temple, and for a moment, neither of them spoke.
Outside, a car eased through the intersection at the end of the block and continued on, keeping her tense until the taillights disappeared. She blew out a breath as she let her muscles relax.
“Calm down,” Bobby whispered in her ear. “Blaze has the cameras pointed in every direction, and your man Donovan has done a thorough search of the first floor. They’ll run the watch tonight in case we missed anything, but I promise you, we missed nothing.”
“He could find us, you know?” she said. “We were careful, but I’m sure they have people monitoring cameras as well. We’re not the only smart ones out there.”
“True, and if that’s the case, Blaze will know before he gets within three blocks.”
She blew out a breath, but his assurance did nothing to ease her worries.
“I keep thinking about my mother. About the night they came to the house to whisk us away. She never raised her voice. Not once through the whole thing: the packing, the agents, the drive. She just kept touching my face every time she walked past me, like she knew what it was doing to me.”
She felt him tighten his grip around her waist. “I’m sure she was just making sure you were doing all right,” he told her.
Delaney closed her eyes, placing her hands on his arms around her waist. “I know that now. I just didn’t understand that until years later.”
He turned her then, his hands tender on her shoulders, and his eyes locked onto hers as soon as she faced him.
In the dim light from the lamp, his face was all shadow.
He looked at her like he had been looking at her since their first conversation, like she was something he had spent a long time believing lost and was still in the process of accepting back.
“There’s no need for you to stand here watching the street,” he told her.
She gave a sheepish smile as she ducked her gaze. “I know.”
“But you’re going to anyway, aren’t you?”
“Well, I was until you came in,” she admitted.
Something shifted in his expression, and he lifted one hand and pushed a curl back from her face, his thumb tracing the line of her cheekbone. “Well then, how about instead of watching the window, we watch each other?”
She sucked in a breath as she reached up and covered his hand with hers, holding it against her face for a moment.
Turning her head, she pressed her mouth to his palm.
She felt him go still for just a moment before he leaned down and kissed her, his lips lingering against hers.
It was as if they had all the time in the world and nothing else mattered right then but the two of them and he meant to capture every moment that the universe had stolen from them.
He slid his hands through her hair. At his touch, she felt the tension she had been carrying in her shoulders for the past few days ease muscle by muscle. It was as if her body had just realized it was all right to rest once more.
She pulled back just far enough to look at him, staring into his eyes, seeing how serious he was, more serious than she remembered him ever being.
Back in school, he had always been the jokester, the King’s devoted fan.
He would spout trivia in the most random of moments and sing every Presley song in his off-key way.
All of that was still him, she knew that, but this was the part underneath it.
The part that had stood outside a girl’s empty house and never entirely recovered from what he found.
She kissed him again and let herself stop thinking, surrendering to his embrace.
They didn’t break the kiss as he walked her back toward the bed, his steps still unhurried, his hands holding her, sliding over her body and along her back, learning her the way a careful man studies something he knows has value.
He slid her top over her head, tossing it to the side before he reached for the clasp to her bra.
Soon, his hands were roaming over her body, his kisses hungrier, more urgent.
She hadn’t been touched like this in longer than she wanted to calculate.
Not with this quality of presence. Not since she left Tupelo, left him.
Oh, other men had tried to get her attention, wanted to take her out, to kiss her.
But there was simply no way she could give her heart to another; she wouldn’t risk that type of hurt again, so she turned them all away.
He laid her down and followed, and she pulled him close, her hands in his hair, his mouth at her throat, the warmth of him settling over her like something she had been cold without for fifteen years without fully understanding the source of the chill.
No. She knew the source; there just wasn’t anything she could do about it.
Once they had both stripped and he had slipped a condom on, he took his time, entering her with a slow thrust as he kissed her. She felt her eyes go wide, felt her back arch slightly as she tightened her grip on his arms.
He paused there, buried deep, letting her adjust, to feel every inch of him stretching her open once again. His forehead rested against hers as his breath came out in ragged gulps, his eyes locked on hers in the dim light. “Still with me?” he murmured, his voice low and rough.
She answered with her hips instead of words, rolling them up to meet him, taking him even deeper. A soft, broken sound escaped her throat, half moan and half relief. He groaned in response, the sound vibrating against her lips, and then he began to move.
Slow at first, deliberate strokes that dragged against every sensitive place inside her, building pressure with each measured withdrawal and return.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, digging her heels into the small of his back, urging him closer.
She felt him slide a hand between them, fingers finding her clit with unerring accuracy, circling in time with his thrusts.
Her breath hitched, turned shallow and fast as she clutched at his shoulders, nails biting skin, as the slow burn inside her coiled tighter and tighter. He dipped his head, mouth closing over one nipple, tongue flicking, then sucking hard enough to make her gasp his name.
The sound of it, his name on her lips after all these years, seemed to snap something in him.
His control frayed, and the next thrust came harder, deeper, rocking the headboard against the wall.
She met him stroke for stroke, hips rising, thighs trembling.
The wet sounds of their bodies meeting filled the room, obscene and perfect.
He shifted his angle, grinding against her clit with every forward roll of his hips, and that was it—she shattered.
Her orgasm hit like a wave breaking, sudden and overwhelming, her inner walls pulsing around him, milking him as she cried out, back arching off the mattress.
He kept moving through it, drawing it out, stroking her through every aftershock until she was shaking, gasping, clinging to him like he was the only solid thing left in the world.
Only then did he let himself follow. A low, guttural sound tore from his throat as he drove deep one last time, spilling inside her with hard, pulsing jerks of his hips.
He buried his face against her neck, breathing her in, shuddering through the aftershocks as she held him there, arms and legs wrapped tight, unwilling to let any space come between them.
For a long minute they stayed like that: sweat-slick, their hearts hammering, limbs tangled together on the wrecked sheets. Neither of them was willing to move first, not ready to let the moment end.
She lay against him in the dark, her head on his chest, his heartbeat steadying under her cheek.
She felt his hand toying with her hair, slow and without agenda, and she was able to relax into him as she listened to the city as it passed by outside.
In the distance, a church bell marked the hour, and she found herself not even caring.
“I forgot what this felt like,” she whispered, nuzzling into him even more.
His hand paused in her hair, strands slipping through his fingers. “Which part?”
“Not being alone,” she said. “Being with you. Getting lost in us.”
“I’ve always loved being lost in you.” He pressed his mouth to the top of her head and said nothing, which was the right answer.
She closed her eyes, thinking she might actually sleep, knowing she had never felt safer than she did right at that moment, with him tucked around her, his breathing a steady rhythm in her ears.