Chapter 29
WYATT
When I finished—when the last word about Project Trueborn and my fourteen half-brothers and my father's impossible resurrection hung in the air like smoke that wouldn't clear, wouldn't dissipate no matter how much I wanted it to—I waited for her to recoil.
To ask how I could be part of something like that, how I could sit here and calmly tell her I was literally bred for a purpose like some kind of lab experiment, like livestock with a pedigree.
To tell me it was too much, too strange, too dangerous to touch with a ten-foot pole.
To look at me like I was contaminated by association, like being designed instead of just born made me less human, less real, less worthy of the kind of love she'd offered me last night in that hotel bed when the world still made sense.
She didn't.
Instead, she lifted our joined hands—mine still trembling slightly from the weight of confession, hers steady as bedrock—and pressed a kiss to my knuckles. Soft. Deliberate. Reverent, even.
Like I was something precious instead of something manufactured in a government program nobody was supposed to know about.
"Thank you," she said quietly, her voice cutting through the noise in my head like a blade through fog.
I blinked, completely thrown, my brain struggling to process the response because it wasn't what I'd expected, wasn't what I'd braced for. "For what?"
"For trusting me with it." She met my eyes, and there was no fear in them at all, no hesitation, no careful distance.
Just that steady warmth that made my chest ache like something was breaking open inside me.
"For not running from me again. For letting me see all of you—even the parts you think are broken or wrong or too damaged to love. "
My throat closed up tight, words jamming there like they were trying to escape and couldn't find the exit, couldn't push past the emotion blocking the way.
"You still want this? After knowing ... everything?
After knowing my entire existence was planned by people I've never met for purposes I'm still trying to understand? "
She smiled—small, sad around the edges but so achingly real it hurt to look at, like staring directly at the sun. "Especially after knowing everything. Because now I know why you run. And I can love you, anyway. I can love you because of who you are, not in spite of what you came from."
The word love hit me square in the chest, warm and terrifying and too big to hold, too big to deserve.
I pulled her into me then, crushing her against my chest hard enough that she gasped softly, burying my face in her hair, breathing her in like oxygen after drowning, like she was the only thing keeping me tethered to something real, something that made sense in a world that had just revealed itself to be built on lies.
She wrapped her arms around me, holding tight, fingers pressing into my back like she could hold me together by force of will alone, like she could keep all my broken pieces from scattering to the four winds.
We stayed like that until my breathing evened out, until the shaking in my shoulders stopped, until the world felt less like it was ending in fire and more like it was just .
.. shifting. Rearranging itself into a shape I didn't recognize yet but might be able to live in, if I was brave enough to try.
Then she pulled back just enough to look at me, copper hair falling across her face, catching the afternoon light filtering through the windows and turning it molten. "What happens now?"
I exhaled slowly, trying to think past the relief of having her here, having her know the worst of it, having her stay despite everything I'd just dumped on her like a confession too heavy to carry alone anymore.
"I don't know. I need to talk to my father again.
Need to understand what Dominion Hall actually is, what they do beyond just existing, what they want from me, what risks come with accepting whatever they're offering.
Need to figure out how to keep you safe from whatever fallout might come from Klein or anyone else who's looking into this, who might use you to get to me. "
She nodded, serious but not afraid, like she was already mentally organizing the problem into manageable pieces the way she probably did with her counseling clients. "We'll figure it out together."
"Together," I echoed, and the word settled into me like a promise I finally believed I could keep, like something solid and permanent instead of another lie I told myself to feel less alone in the dark.
Then her expression shifted—something warmer sliding into her eyes, something that made the air between us change, charge with different energy. She smiled slow and wicked, the kind of smile that made heat pool low in my gut and made every coherent thought scatter.
"But first ..." she said, voice dropping lower, rougher, intimate.
She leaned in and kissed me.
Not soft. Not careful. Not the gentle comfort we'd been sharing while I talked through my family's nightmare.
Hungry.
Her mouth opened under mine, tongue sweeping in bold and claiming and demanding a response I was more than willing to give.
Her hands slid under my shirt, nails dragging lightly down my back, making me groan into her mouth, making my cock harden instantly, blood rushing south so fast I felt dizzy with want.
I flipped us so she was under me on the sofa, my weight braced on my forearms. She arched up immediately like she'd been waiting for this, like she'd been holding herself back and now didn't have to, legs wrapping around my waist, pulling me down until every inch of us pressed together, until I could feel the heat of her even through our clothes, feel how much she wanted this, wanted me.
"Wyatt," she breathed against my lips, voice already wrecked, desperate in the best way. "I need you."
God, hearing her say that—hearing the raw need in her voice after everything I'd just told her—it did something to me. Made me feel real. Made me feel chosen instead of designed.
I kissed her harder, deeper, tasting the salt of earlier tears mixed with the sweetness of her want, the combination making me feel more alive than I had all day, more human than any revelation about my origins could take away.
My hands roamed—sliding up her thighs, finding bare skin that felt like silk under my calloused palms, soft and warm and so fucking real it grounded me completely.
She moaned when my fingers grazed the lace of her panties, already damp with arousal, the evidence of how much she wanted me making my cock throb painfully against my zipper.
"Fuck, Soph," I growled against her throat, teeth grazing her pulse point, feeling it hammer. "You're soaked."
"That’s on you," she whispered, hips rolling against my hand shamelessly, seeking friction without apology.
I slipped the lace aside, fingers sliding through her slick folds, circling her clit until she gasped, back arching off the sofa beautifully.
She was dripping—wet enough that I could hear it when I moved my fingers, feel it coating them, the obscene sound making me harder, making me want to bury myself in her immediately and never leave.
I pushed two fingers inside her, curling them up, stroking that spot that made her cry out my name. She clenched around me, tight and hot and perfect, her hips rocking in rhythm, riding my hand with complete abandon, no shame, no holding back.
"More," she demanded, voice wrecked, nails digging into my shoulders hard enough to sting, hard enough to leave marks. "Wyatt—more—"
I added a third finger, stretching her, pumping faster, thumb working her clit in tight circles that made her whole body shudder beneath me.
She was loud now—moans and gasps and my name like a plea, like a prayer, completely uninhibited in a way that made me want to devour her, made me grateful the suite had thick walls.
Her arousal coated my hand, dripping down my wrist, soaking into the expensive sofa beneath us and I didn't give a single fuck about the damage, about anything except making her feel this good.
She came hard—clenching around my fingers in rhythmic pulses, release flooding out wet and hot, her whole body going taut before melting. I worked her through it, gentling my touches as she trembled, whimpering, oversensitive and beautiful and mine.
Then I pulled my fingers free slowly, brought them to my mouth, licked them clean while she watched with dark, hungry eyes that said she wanted more, wanted everything.
"Taste yourself," I said, offering them to her, my voice barely recognizable, rough with want.
She sucked them into her mouth without hesitation, tongue swirling, moaning around them like they were the best thing she'd ever tasted, and the sight nearly made me come right there in my jeans like a fucking teenager who couldn't control himself.
Fuck.
I stood, stripping fast—shirt yanked over my head and thrown somewhere I didn't care about, pants and briefs shoved down and kicked aside without grace or patience—until I was naked, cock hard and leaking, already desperate for her in a way that should've embarrassed me but didn't because this was Sophie and she made me feel like wanting wasn't weakness.
She watched with hungry eyes, biting her lip, legs spreading wider in clear invitation, dress pushed up around her waist, panties pulled to the side, glistening and pink and absolutely mine for the taking.
I knelt between her thighs, hooked her legs over my shoulders, and buried my face in her.
She was still sensitive, still dripping, and I licked her—slow, thorough, savoring every drop like she was the best thing I'd ever tasted, like I could spend hours right here worshiping her and be completely content.
She writhed above me, hands fisting in my hair, pulling me closer, thighs trembling against my head as I worked her toward another edge even though she hadn't recovered from the first.
When she was trembling again, close to breaking, whimpering my name in that breathless way that made me insane with need, I rose up, positioned myself at her entrance, and thrust in—deep, hard, burying myself to the hilt in one stroke.
She cried out, nails raking down my back hard enough to leave marks I'd feel tomorrow, marks I wanted to feel, wanted to carry as proof this was real.
I didn't give her time to adjust. I fucked her hard—long, deep strokes that made her breasts bounce, made the sofa creak beneath us in protest, made wet sounds fill the room that would've embarrassed me with anyone else but with her just made me harder, made me want to go deeper, claim her more completely.
She was so slick, so open, taking every inch like she was made for this, made for me, clenching around me like she wanted to keep me inside forever.
"Harder," she gasped, head thrown back, throat exposed and vulnerable and trusting. "Please—Wyatt—I need—"
I gave it to her. Pounding into her, hips snapping with force I didn't bother controlling, the sound of skin on skin echoing in the suite loud and raw and honest. She was loud—moans turning to cries, cries turning to screams she didn't try to muffle, and I fucking loved it, loved that she wasn't holding back anything.
Her release built fast, her inner walls fluttering, clenching tighter with every thrust, her breath coming in short gasps that said she was close, so close.
"Come for me," I growled against her ear, voice rough and commanding in a way I'd never used with her before. "Come on my cock, Soph. Let me feel you fall apart."
She did—clenching around me with a cry that was my name and something wordless and broken, clenching so tight it bordered on pain, her release flooding out wet and hot and perfect.
I followed two thrusts later—burying myself as deep as I could go, spilling inside her in hot pulses, filling her until it leaked out around me, marking her, claiming her in the most primal way I knew how.
We collapsed together, panting, slick with sweat and release and the aftermath of something that felt less like sex and more like proving we were alive, proving we could have this.
I kissed her—slow, deep, claiming, tasting us both on her lips and not caring.
"You're mine," I whispered against her mouth, meaning it more than I'd ever meant anything in my entire life.
"I sure am," she breathed back.
And for the first time in my entire fucked-up life, I believed it.
Believed that someone could know all of me—the damage, the lies, the manufactured purpose, the government program that created me like I was a weapon instead of a person—and still choose to stay.
Believed that I could be more than what I was made to be, more than the sum of someone else's design, more than a product of Project Trueborn.
Believed that maybe I deserved this. Deserved her. Deserved happiness that wasn't contingent on being useful or effective or tactical or anything other than simply human.
Not because of what my father had engineered or what Project Trueborn had intended when they started this experiment decades ago.
But because Sophie chose me, anyway.
Because she saw what I was made from and loved what I'd become despite it. Or maybe because of it. Because all those experiences, even the manufactured ones, had shaped me into someone worth loving.
Because I was more than my origin story.
And with her beside me, choosing me every day, I could believe that was enough.
That I was enough.
Just as I was.