Chapter 19
Nineteen
TRUST TESTED
THAL
“That’s the place?” Daphne asked, her finger tracing a spot on the map spread out on my dining room table.
“Yes, that’s it,” I replied. “But we’ve kept the location a secret from everyone involved this time.”
“We can’t do this alone, Thal. It’s too dangerous.”
“We won’t be alone. I’d never risk putting you in that kind of danger. Our men will be on standby. When we need them, when the moment is right, we’ll summon them. The target’s exact location remains a secret until the last moment. No leaks, no surprises.”
Daphne looked at me, uncertainty flickering in her eyes.
“How can we be sure Rhea and the syndicate won’t see us coming?” she asked.
“We can’t.” I shrugged. “But my team has been surveilling the site for weeks. They’ve clocked every camera within a mile radius.
My technical team already has a plan in place to disrupt the feed on each of them at my command.
This will be done well before we begin to approach.
And, of course, any men surrounding the premises will be eliminated by our preliminary guards immediately.
We’ve covered every alarm that might alert them to our presence. ”
“The jamming sequence starts at T-minus three minutes,” Daphne said, her finger tapping the marina’s north dock. She looked like a technician calculating the odds. “If your team misses the third camera on the pier, the silent approach is dead.”
I looked at her, at the sharp, lethal line of her jaw and the cold precision in her eyes. Gone was the ward Zeno had tried to break. In that place, I saw a technician of death. She’d dissected my plan before I’d even finished the preamble.
“My team doesn't miss, Daphne,” I rumbled, a dark pride blooming in my chest. “But you’re right. Rhea is a cornered animal, and tonight, we’re the ones holding the cage open.”
Maybe talking nonstop wasn’t what she needed.
They always said men needed to listen more, didn’t they? Maybe I was foolish for not trying that first, but I decided to do it now. I stood and walked over to her, pulling her to her feet.
“Tell me what’s haunting you, beauty,” I rumbled, pulling her into my heat. I wanted to anchor her. I’d longed to strip her bare since the moment she walked in, but the look in her eyes told me she was drowning in thoughts I hadn't been invited to yet.
She leaned into me, her sigh catching against my chest. “I’m worried about the plan, Thal. But mostly … I’m worried about after.”
I lifted her face, my thumb tracing the velvet of her lower lip. “After?”
“What if we win?” she whispered, her eyes searching mine for a truth I wasn't sure I was ready to give. “What happens to us, Thal, once the smoke clears and the debt is gone?”
Her question hit me like a physical blow. I knew what I wanted—I wanted her locked in my world forever. But Zeno had spent a decade making her a prisoner. I wasn’t going to be the man who built her a new cage.
“Whatever you want, Daphne. That’s the only answer that matters,” I said, my voice dropping to a rough, jagged edge.
“Zeno never gave you a choice. I’m giving you the only one I have.
If we survive tomorrow, and you tell me you want to walk away, I’ll let you.
I’ll burn the world to make sure you have a path to run on, even if it’s away from me. ”
She looked at me in a long beat of stunned silence, her breath shallow. She wasn't used to holding the power, and I could feel her trembling under the weight of it.
“I believed I was a fortress, Daphne,” I rasped, pulling her so close there was no air left between us. “For ten years, I built a world of ice and called it strength. I thought that by not loving anyone, I left nothing for my enemies to seize.”
I tilted her chin up, forcing her to see the raw, terrifying obsession in my eyes.
“But the moment I saw you in Aruba, the walls cracked and turned to dust. You aren't my weakness, Daph. You’re the only reason I want to stay alive to see the sun rise. So you have the final say. But know this: I’m standing beside you until you tell me to stop. And maybe even after that.”
I took a deep breath, the truth piercing straight to my heart as it spilled from my lips. It felt good to let it all out. Especially to Daphne.
She had been the catalyst for my admitting that I wanted more.
“After we met on the island, though, everything changed. I was fine pushing away all those basic desires before I’d met you.
But it was you, Daphne, don’t you see? It was easy to deny myself all that stuff before, to tell myself it was because I didn’t have time or space for it in my life.
I told myself that having a partner would have been a weakness on my part.
Having love in my life would have been a risk that could have destroyed everything I’d worked so hard to build, and I thought I’d never let anything destroy it. ”
I stopped speaking, peering into her sparkling eyes. I wanted to make sure she was hearing me, loud and clear, that she understood every single word. It was essential that I got through to her.
“But none of that was the truth, Daphne. I just hadn’t met the person worth sacrificing everything for. Not until you.”
“Oh, Thal,” she said, looking up at me with the deepest pools of emotion I thought I might drown in. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Daphne,” I whispered, stroking her cheek, “you mean more to me than any power or empire ever could. All I want is you. Wherever you want to be.”
I bent my head, kissing her.
Tears streamed down her cheeks, and I kissed them all away. Her breath caught as she smiled through them, looking up at me.
“Thank you for saying all that,” she whispered.
“I meant every word, beauty,” I replied, kissing her again. Her lips were warm, soft, and pliant, with a pulse of emotion flowing between us—alive, strong, and genuine.
She pulled back, her eyes sincere but filled with uncertainty.
“I don’t know what I want yet,” she said. “But I do know that I want you by my side, Thal.”
“That’s all I care about.”
“I care about you,” she whispered, her smile shining at me like sunshine, the fear and anxiety in her eyes now replaced with hope and optimism, and what I hoped was a tiny golden thread of feeling safe.
“I love you,” I said, throwing caution to the wind. “I’ve loved you since that first night in the Caribbean, Daphne.”
“Thal, I—” she whispered, but I stopped her words with my lips. I pulled her even closer, needing her body as close to mine as I could get it, wanting to wrap myself around her soul and protect her forever.
I didn’t need her to say it in return. I knew.
I saw it in her eyes, heard it in her voice, felt it in her touch.
We were both so far over the edge.
Whatever happened now? We were a team.
The vulnerability we shared. The trust we’d built.
The love we’d grown from the tiniest seed that we’d planted in the Caribbean…
It all flooded inside me, overwhelming me with pure, unrestrained emotion.
“I need you now, Daphne,” I growled, my kiss turning urgent and deep as I let my tongue dart past her lips.
She gasped, the movement allowing me to go deeper into the heat of her soft lips, find her tongue, and twirl mine around it until a pulsing thread of attraction wound its way through my body.
I pulled my lips away from hers, enjoying the whimper of displeasure that escaped her. Could it be that she was as addicted to me as I was to her?
My hands pushed at her clothes, craving her skin against mine. I reached for the hem of her blouse, pulling it over her head and gasping when I saw the lacy red bra she wore.
“Fuck, Daph,” I muttered, the corners of my lips turning up with delighted surprise.
Her creamy breasts were curvy and perfect, her pebbled nipples threatening to poke completely through the flimsy lace. My cock twitched with desire, that deep yearning I’d felt earlier snaking through me like a determined cobra and gripping me harder with every single second that passed.
“Off,” she hissed, shaking her head as she reached for my T-shirt, her long hair cascading over her shoulders.
She pulled the soft black cotton over my head and tossed it onto the floor of the safe house. I pulled her close, the soft lace of her bra brushing against my bare chest. A shudder of desire rippled through my body, my cock throbbing and hard against her thigh.
My lips met hers again, savoring the taste of her full lips, the intense heat of her mouth, and the desperate urgency of our tongues intertwining. Her hands clawed at my bare back, her breasts pressed against my chest.
“This is lovely,” I growled, tugging at the clasp in the middle of her bra. “But I need your skin as bare as mine.”
“Yes,” she whispered breathlessly, just as the clasp came undone and her full breasts spilled forward into my hands.
“Daphne, my god,” I groaned, unable to do anything other than bend my head and capture her pink nipple between my lips. Her fingers sank into my hair, pushing my mouth into her chest as I licked and sucked at her rosy bud.
“Thal, that feels so fucking incredible,” she moaned.
I bit down, my cock twitching at the sound of her startled cry. I kissed my way over to her other breasts, repeating the motions until she cried out again, her pleasure a siren’s song of delicious encouragement.
My hands slid down the velvety skin of her side and moved to the front of her jeans, fumbling with the zipper as I kissed her lips again. The denim gave way, and I slipped my hand inside, searching for her warmth.
I palmed her mound, loving the pulsing life I felt between her legs.
“Thal!” She gasped against my lips as I pressed into her.
She moaned, pressing her hips forward to increase the pressure. I shifted my hand so I could slide under the wispy silk of her panties, my finger slipping between her lips and finding the slickness I’d hoped for there.
“Yesssss!” she hissed as I found her clit, pressing it lightly in the tiniest of circles.