Chapter 39
thirty-nine
Watching his forearms flex every time he grinds the coffee beans makes me want to pull him back in bed.
“What?” he asks with that sluggish grin.
I tug the covers up to my nose to shield his eyes from the blush in my cheeks. “Put a shirt on. You’ll freeze to death.”
He glances down at his abs, hands out wide, asking what the problem is. “I think you’re just too sore to go again.”
“Listen, I know I popped your cherry, but…you have to slow down.” I’m lying. I don’t want him to slow down at all, but after the car hood, then the kitchen table, and in the middle of the night, I do need to shower and recuperate.
“I’m taking a break for coffee. Then…breakfast.” The way he licks his bottom lip makes it clear food isn’t what he’s hungry for.
His scent envelopes me as I toss his hoodie over my head. Summer and wildflowers. The reddish tint in his sandy hair gleams in the winter morning light. Warm slippers caress my feet before I slide over to him near the kitchenette in the parlor.
“Hey,” I say, pressing my chest to his back. “Even when our bedroom is finished, can we keep the coffee stuff up here? I like waking up to the smell of it.”
He swivels around to kiss the top of my head. “Of course. Why do you think I left the kettle and French press on the table? I got you.”
I gather the cups and place them out while he finishes making it. Black for me. Lots of sugar for him.
The sweatshirt is so big on me, I can pull my knees to my chest and perch on a chair with them tucked under the soft fabric. When he serves my hot cup of caffeine, I think I fall more in love with him.
“You too tired to pick out paint colors today?” he asks, like we didn’t just try to assassinate a president.
“Are you trying to make me forget what happened?”
“I guess I’m trying to talk about something other than death for once.”
“I hope someday we can talk about puppies in the mornings…”
He murmurs something low.
“What was that?” I ask.
His lashes flutter as he lifts some devilish green eyes up to my face. My belly flips when he gives me a dimpled grin. “Or babies.”
I purse my lips to keep from smiling. “Someday.”
He reaches across the table and threads his hand with mine. “Then help me pick out some, uh, puppy wallpaper for one of the rooms down the hall.”
“Only if I can bring my coffee.”
As if insulted, he rears his head back. “Uh…of course. You’re not prying mine out of my hands either, my queen.”
We stroll hip to hip around to the various bedrooms in the wing and find some that are in good shape. “My closet. And also mine,” I tell him with a firm nod.
“Fine. All I need is one of those egg crates for my underwear anyway.”
“I’m going to force you to change your hoodie once a day,” I say with a stern look.
He shrugs. “Or I’ll just walk around without one.”
I consider his answer, gazing at his abs. “Deal.”
Finally, we reach a rounded room, topped with an intact turret. It’s cozy, gets all the light from the east, and I can envision a future there…if we decide on kids. When I turn around from the windows, Valen’s leaning against the doorway, looking fucking fine, sipping his coffee and eyeing me.
“Will you say it again?” he asks me with vulnerability resting in his gaze.
“Say what again?”
He looks at the wood floor, shuffles a foot for a moment, then back at me, but his mouth doesn’t part to answer. Then it dawns on me what he’s asking for…
I set my cup down on the windowsill and slowly walk toward him, stopping just in front of his chest. One of his arms snakes around my waist to pull me closer. My head tilts up until our lips are close, our breaths mingling together. Lacing my fingers through his hair, I whisper, “I love you, V.”
His expression softens as he kisses me gently, for only a second, before pulling back. “I love you.”
The thing I think he needs to hear most is something I learned about him last night. “And…I trust you.”
Eyes squeezed tightly shut, he seems to saturate in the validity of what I said. “Fuck. You have no idea how amazing that feels. To love you and you love me and to trust each other… I’ve dreamed of this moment for years.” His gaze flashes to mine. “And now you’re here.”
“Always.” I’m exactly where I want to be. And appointed to the perfect man for me.
He glances out the window, and I follow his gaze. “Out there…” Wandering closer, he points to a large area of overgrown grass.
“Over there what? A pool? Garden?”
When he flips his head back to me, he smirks. “The putt-putt course I’m kicking your ass on.”
Giggling, I take my toes and lightly kick him, but he grabs my ankle until I almost fall. He snatches my waist and hoists me over his shoulder while I balance my coffee like a ballerina. Carefully, I take a sip. But when he swats my behind, I squeal.
In the afternoon, we’re settled in his war room desk chair, me on his lap as he helps me draw a Monarch wing with an ink pen.
“What now?” I ask timidly.
“What now, what?” he asks, tapping the paper to show me where to shade in more.
With a sigh, I gather the courage to speak the words aloud. “What about Harvey? How do we go about our next attempt?”
He doesn’t seem very perturbed. “I’m thinking we don’t try again publicly.”
“We go after him directly?”
His throat tightens. “Well…you have a lot of ties to him. So what if you arranged a special meeting with him, and I watch from a camera?”
“And then I would…” My vision gets blurry just thinking of going solo.
“Kill him.”
“How? More poison? What if he overpowers me? What if they’re onto us and I can’t get closer now?”
Valen takes a moment to sip his energy drink. “Good point. Perhaps they’ll suspect anyone from your family and definitely mine. We probably can’t try that again.”
“He’ll attend my grandfather’s holiday event next weekend. Everyone does…”
“It would be bold of him to show up. But maybe he’ll bring more enforcers this time. I also wonder if it’ll be the same bartender.”
At that, my jaw tightens. “Do you have any information on him yet?”
“I’ll have to get back to my room at Delta. I don’t have everything set up that I need here. But my dad is helping with what I can’t find. He’s got some deeper resources through his business associates.”
“Don’t you think going to the house is dangerous right now? Shouldn’t we stay holed up here?”
“Yeah…it is. But how are we supposed to avoid classes this week? I’m not so worried about myself. I’m afraid if you go back, especially to Omega, they’ll try something.”
I take a breath and shake my head. “I don’t think the president wants any Cardell blood on his hands at all. That may have the board turning against him.”
Valen’s green eyes sparkle as he takes a swig and sinks deeper in thought. He reaches for my hand and uses my thumb to dab at the corner of his mouth, wiping off a drop of his drink. I smirk, then stick it in my mouth. “Romantic,” I say sarcastically.
“Hey, mama birds do it. Figured you would like some of my spit.”
Something about that makes my pussy flutter. Focus, Olivia.
He ponders, “I think, for this moment, the easiest and quickest thing we can do is to break in and shoot him in the middle of the night.”
A vision of us in ninja outfits scaling the walls of the white mansion to enter the president’s bedroom makes me feel more at ease than the poison plan. “Quick and clean, you mean?”
“I’ll take care of the surveillance. We’ll have to skip past the guards, but yes.”
“We’ll have to set up alibis. Just in case…”
He nods, a flop of his hair falling over his forehead. “Yeah, but my father can forge that easily. So we’ll show both of our locations here, logged for the entire evening. We’ll even bring in someone from outside the family to vouch for us.”
“Ashlyn Donovan.”
His head tilts. “Ashlyn?”
With a narrowed-eyed smirk, I say, “Yep. I realized something, Vanq. That day we were at the bar together, Elliot and I, she must’ve known who you were. One of the few who’s seen your real face.”
Lips pressed into a line, he lowers his head. “She knows me, yes. Our families have grown up together.”
“But the more important thing is, despite her wanting to spill the secret, she didn’t. Her family is one of the trustees at NU, correct? She’d make the perfect candidate to cover for us.”
“Ashlyn will want something. She always does,” he says with a bit of a sneer.
I blink. “She’s beholden to Omega. And I’m her president. That should be enough.”
“It does. But just in case, see if she wants more.”
“I’ll figure out how to get her to do it.” I shift on his lap. “So…when are we instituting the new plan?”
“I’d say, the sooner the better.” He reaches around me to the keyboard.
After a few moments of him sitting there, typing furiously, and me, running fingers through his wild hair, he says, “Tuesday night. Nothing seems to be on his schedule then, and we can show up to classes on Wednesday like nothing happened.”
Looking at the display, I nod my approval. “Guns?”
Valen nods. “Yeah. I’ll grab some with silencers. And tactical gear. I’ll have the house set to lose power around midnight when he should be in bed, asleep. We’ll sneak in through the side library window, the one I investigated during the president’s luncheon earlier this semester.”
I smirk. “So that’s what you were doing in the library?”
He chuckles and leans back in his chair. “Yep.”
“I thought it was to meet me.”
“That was an absolute bonus. I mean, I knew you’d be there, but it was happenstance you showed up when you did.”
The memory of our first meeting warms me inside. He wraps his arms around my waist. “So after we enter, where do we go? What do we do?”
On the computer, he pulls up a floor plan and points to the different areas. “Up the stairs, to the right, open his bedroom door, and bam. Done. We’ll leave through the same window and shut it. I’ll then have the power back on in thirty minutes.”
“You make it sound simple.”
His eyes meet mine, and we stare at one another for a long moment. “I hope it will be.”
With nervousness tightening my belly, I reach across the desk and lift my leftover morning mug in a mock toast. “To midnight murders and mouth spit.”
He clinks his can against mine. “The real Caliphylla love story.”
Valen rolls over onto his back and stares at the ceiling high above us, exposed joists and spider webs decorating the rafters.
“We’ve been over the route in the dark several times. Ashlyn will be at your parents’ place this evening to vouch for our presence. I know how to use the silencer quickly. It should be fine,” I say, rubbing his arm.
“I haven’t asked you. I haven’t said…” His lips are dry, and he licks them, trying to find some words. We haven’t talked about what may come after or what might happen if.
My eyebrows lift at his sudden nervousness. “Asked me what?”
He faces me, stroking back my hair and studying my face like he’s memorizing it for later. “I want children with you. Lots of them. I want to live here and make this mansion a home where I can stay and work, and play. Maybe it’s selfish to keep you from whatever political career you want—”
“I don’t want that. Not anymore,” I say with finality. Because that’s what I feel. Politics isn’t a place for rule followers. No.
It’s the hell that lawbreakers go to escape their punishments.
“Then what do you want?” he asks me carefully. The future CEO of the biggest tech company in the nation is asking me what I want…
“Everything you just said.” Sure, maybe in the future, I’ll come up with something different. Become a leader somewhere. But for now, his vision is my own. “I need a break from the Seven.”
Leaning over the pillows, he kisses me deeply. His breath makes me tingle all over. It tastes like Valen. Like home. Thumbs caress my cheeks as he holds my face and half slides on top of me.
“I love you, my Monarch. My beautiful butterfly. Watching you was nothing compared to holding you. I think I’m falling more for you every day.”
I blink back tears as my heart warms. “And I love you, V. We’ll do this. We’ll get it done for the good of everyone at NU.”
Neither of us says a word about what could happen if things go wrong.