48. Delaney
DELANEY
Something dark passes between us.
He tightens his hold on my throat. If he were any other man, I’d be frightened. I’d fight back, try to release his hold.
But he’s not any other man.
He’s Samson Vexley, the man I—
No. Not yet. I clear my throat, and he releases me.
“I spent years denying who Halstead was to me,” I say. “And now I don’t get that distance anymore.”
“No.”
I lift my hand and place it flat against his chest. “I’m not going back to that version of myself,” I say. “I can’t.”
“Then what are you now?”
I don’t hesitate. “Not objective. I’m done pretending I don’t feel this.”
“What you feel doesn’t change what I did.”
“I know.”
“Then why—”
“Because it doesn’t change what I choose.”
That stops him.
Completely.
“I’m not choosing this because it’s right,” I say. “Or easy.”
“It’s neither.”
“I know.” I draw in a breath. “I’m choosing it because it’s true.”
He exhales slowly. “I’d tell you that you’re making a mistake, but I’m making the same one.”
“Probably.” I smile. “But at least we’re doing it with our eyes open.”
He pulls me into his arms. “You’re not supposed to stay.”
“I know.”
“After seeing everything.”
“I saw it before,” I say quietly. “I just didn’t let myself call it what it was.”
He slides his hands up my back and stops at my neck. That same place.
I tilt my head, and he brushes his lips against mine.
It’s not a kiss, really. Not the kind of kisses we’ve shared before. It’s more of a question. He made his choice. I made mine. Now we’re asking each other if we’re sure.
Is anyone ever truly sure of anything? You can think you are, in the moment. But things change. Life changes.
People die.
Others kill them.
I stand here, my lips against the man who ended the man who gave me life. I didn’t know Halstead, didn’t have a relationship with him. If I had, I probably wouldn’t be here.
But still, I wouldn’t exist but for him.
So he, along with my mother, gave me the ultimate gift.
I part my lips. Samson’s tongue dives between them.
And in this moment, knowing what I know, I still choose Samson Vexley.
The kiss becomes more raw, more fierce. He walks forward, backing me against the wall and sliding his hand from my throat down to my breasts. He cups them, kneads them, pinches my nipples through the silk.
I moan into his mouth, not only from the pleasure of it, but from the sudden catharsis that comes with letting myself want him, with letting myself need. I claw my hands up his broad back, needing him to know it.
When he finally breaks the kiss, we’re both panting. Staring at each other over the gasp of breath. I catch my reflection in a mirror across the room, and I see something different.
I’m a woman stripped bare.
Not by Samson. By the truth.
It’s honest.
It’s ugly.
It’s mine.
And it was a long time coming.
He’s imperfect, but so am I. The dark inside me recognizes his, and what started as a choice becomes a surrender.
We won’t walk away. We won’t deny. We’ll own every shard of whatever this is.
He bites at my lower lip, just to the verge of pain. “I’ll ruin you,” he says, voice low.
“You’ve already done it.” I slide my hips against him, my thighs already slick, my heart hammering so hard he must hear it.
“Fuck…” he growls as he fumbles with the silk-covered buttons on my pajama top and then gives up, ripping the two halves apart and letting the buttons fly.
He drags the top off my shoulders, exposing my breasts to the cold air and his burning gaze. He buries his face in the hollow of my throat and then his hands are everywhere—on my breasts, teasing my nipples, pinching me, owning me.
I don’t care about pain, or bruises, or what comes after. Maybe I want to be marked. Maybe I want to look in the mirror tomorrow and see him on my flesh. Again.
He kneels in front of me and drags his tongue against a nipple. The hard marble tile hurts my knees when he yanks me down with him, but I arch into the hurt. The harder he bites, the harder I want him.
He doesn’t ask for permission. He never has.
He shoves my pajama bottoms down, his fingernails scraping my thighs as he goes, and then he has me, truly has me.
The cool marble, the silk bunched around my knees, the air on my skin—all of it collides with the heat of his mouth, the rough and urgent drag of his tongue.
I throw my head back against the wall and let myself take it, arching into him, giving him everything he dares to claim.
What else do I have to keep from him now?
He takes his time, which isn’t like him, but I know why. He’s telling me with the sharpness of his teeth and the bruising pressure of his hands that this is the choice I made.
He doesn’t need to tell me. I already know.
In a flash, he rises, pulling me with him. I step out of the silk bottoms, and then he lifts me, just enough, pressing me between the wall and his hard length. My legs go instinctively around his hips and I’m dizzy with it. With one hand he frees his cock, and then he’s inside me, thrusting upward.
I moan, loving the completion that I’ve only felt with him.
It isn’t sweet, and it isn’t gentle. It’s a collision. It’s the tearing down of all my walls, all the careful structures I built to protect myself.
I dig my fingers into his shoulders, through the fabric of his shirt.
He doesn’t speak. He just watches my face as he thrusts, his amber eyes fiery and unblinking, holding me captive. I don’t look away. I let him see every flicker of pleasure, every wince, every shudder that runs through me.
It’s over quickly, violently. He comes with a low groan, his body tensing against mine, and I follow, my own climax a sharp wave that leaves me trembling.
For a moment, we stay like that, pressed against the wall, breathing each other’s air.
Then he lowers me slowly, resting his forehead against mine.
“You still don’t understand where this will lead you,” he says.
“Then tell me.”
He doesn’t answer right away.
“You’re still deciding what I get to know,” I say.
“Yes.”
At least he’s honest. “Then decide faster.”
He sighs. “My brother.”
“Nathaniel? Or Cain?”
“Nathaniel,” Samson says. “He’s the one who makes things disappear. Legal structures. financial pathways. Anything that needs to be contained.”
“And you didn’t know?”
“I did know.” He frowns. “But not like this. Not how far it went.”
“And now?”
He gazes out the window. “Now someone else is moving through those same channels.”
I wait a moment before voicing the thought I know we’re both having. Then, “Or he is.”
Samson doesn’t respond. Which is, in itself, a response.
“Say it,” I say.
“I don’t move on guesses.”
“Then what do you move on?”
He shakes his head, his jaw going rigid. “I was trained to look at what’s real. To put pieces together. That night was too precise. The access point. The timing. Everything already in place.”
A slow burn starts under my skin. “You think someone built it.”
“I know someone did.”
“And you think it was Nathaniel?”
He crosses his arms. “No. Nate doesn’t build anything. He fixes things. Covers them up.”
“Your father, then?” I say.
Samson lets out a breath. “Maybe. But it doesn’t fit his MO. The only other option is…”
“Cain,” I say.
He nods. “But he was sixteen that night. Still a kid.”
“So? That’s only two years away from legal age. He could have had a part in it.”
“He did have a part in it. He was there. But…” Samson shakes his head again. “He doesn’t fix things like Nate. He builds them. Situations. Outcomes. And if he engineered this whole thing, at that young age… Damn. Why? Why the hell would he want the wrong man dead?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “But if it was Cain, and he had a reason, we’ll figure it out.”
He studies me as if he’s waiting for me to pull back.
I don’t.
Not now.
Not after this.
“Say it again,” he says.
“Which part?”
“That you choose me.”
I hold his gaze. “I choose you.’
He presses his forehead to mine again.
“Let’s finish it,” I say. “Together.”