Chapter 23 #2
“His targets aren’t new to him,” I told her. “There’s too much research that goes into them. This guy might have slipped his net—maybe he was out sick. Maybe he was on vacation…”
“Maybe he was responsible for something that someone else got blamed for.” She made a face.
I turned, leaning back against the opposite counter. The kitchen was small enough that the distance between us seemed charged and stayed that way. It separated and connected us no matter where we stood.
“We have a lot of potentials and what ifs and speculation,” I said. “Let the M.E. do their job and let the tox report do the talking.”
“Except, we know that Masters is one of his victims,” she countered immediately. “He left the ledger. He wanted you to know what you were looking at. He wanted his process examined.”
She pushed off the counter and crossed the space between us abruptly.
“I don’t know when he picked Masters and if he’s fixing an earlier mistake, or simply eliminating another target creatively, but what I do know is that he’s responding,” she continued. “Not just performing business as usual or escalating blindly. Responding to us.”
“To you,” I corrected.
Her eyes snapped to mine. “You don’t get to pretend you’re not part of this anymore.”
“Don’t I?”
“No,” she snapped. Heat licked over me from the blaze in her eyes. “You already said he wants me to give him your name.”
“As the person leashing you,” I murmured the reminder and not at all turned off by the image of Mallory in a collar and a leash. I wouldn’t be opposed to her on her knees either, but that wasn’t the current topic of discussion.
“Yes, as the person ‘leashing,’ me,” she said the word with such utter disgust and a roll of her eyes I had to smile. Mallory McBryan was a bottle rocket ready to explode sparkling with fire everywhere.
“If that’s not it,” I said, holding her gaze, “then tell me what I’m missing.”
She exhaled slowly. “Poison changes the clock. It stretches the timeline backward. It means this crime began—”
“Could have,” I corrected her and she glared at me. “Look, if you want to own the timeline, you also have to own what we don’t know. That poison could have been delivered and killed the man in three seconds. We don’t know the poison yet so we don’t know the clock.”
A huff of utter frustration escaped her on a low groan. “Fine. It means this particular crime could have happened days—maybe weeks—before the body dropped today.”
“And?” I prompted because yes, this I was already aware of.
“And it means the message might not have been only the one he delivered with the death,” she said. “It might have been illustrated in how long it took the man to die.”
I stared at her. “Explain.”
“Poison is quiet,” she went on. “Invisible. You don’t know you’re dying until it’s too late. It’s all about the killer’s control without any spectacle. It’s… almost micromanagement.”
“Depending on the type of poison, yes. Some are absolutely brutal and swift acting. You’re dead before the first symptom appears.” If we were going to wage this debate, we would do it with facts not just speculation.
“Sure,” she said, chin lifted in a haughty manner even as her nostrils flared. “It’s about breaking the leash before you have even finished yanking it.”
I took a step closer before I realized I’d moved. She didn’t retreat.
“You think this is about me,” I said.
“I think it’s about access,” she replied. “And leverage. His body drops haven’t always been this public, In fact, I can only think of one other that was and that was only because they started construction on that site a week early.”
My jaw tightened.
The coffee maker hissed and spat behind me. Neither of us turned to acknowledge it.
“Mallory, whatever he does or doesn’t do about me, that’s not on you,” I said.
Her mouth tipped slightly. Not humor. Recognition. “Well, then whatever he decides to do about me shouldn’t be on you.”
“Wrong,” I corrected her. “Your safety is my job. I’m the agent. I am supposed to protect you.”
Silence stretched—dense, deliberate.
Then, quietly: “You didn’t tell your bosses I was there.”
“No.”
“You didn’t tell the team.”
“No.”
“You falsified a report.”
“Yes.”
Her breath hitched—not fear. Something closer to understanding the weight of what that meant.
“For me,” she said.
“For the case,” I corrected automatically.
She stepped closer. Close enough that I could smell her shampoo—something clean and understated that had no business doing what it did to my concentration.
“For me,” she repeated. Not a challenge. A fact.
I didn’t deny it.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “As much as I want to be in on all of it… I know you can’t keep doing that.”
“No,” I agreed, though to be fair the lines had been heavily blurred of late. “I can’t.”
“I don’t want you to get burned.” She studied my face like she was memorizing it against the day she might need to describe it.
“I’ll be fine, Mallory,” I comforted her automatically.
“Will you?” The challenge held a breathier kind of worry rather than a derogatory type of doubt.
“Yes.”
Another silence—this one quieter, heavier.
Her hand lifted and for a moment, I thought she would touch my face like I had hers earlier. Yet, she showed far more restraint though she didn’t withdraw.
“What happens next?” Her eyes dropped—to my mouth this time. Just briefly. Long enough to remind us both of what we were pretending hadn’t already happened.
The coffee finished brewing.
I reached past her to grab a mug. My arm brushed her shoulder. Not accidental. Not avoidable. The contact lingered half a second longer than necessary.
She inhaled sharply and that had me locking my gaze on hers.
“Walk away, Mallory,” I said. It wasn’t a request. It was a last attempt at discipline—mine, not hers.
She didn’t move.
The defiance in her eyes wasn’t loud. It was quieter than that. Colder. Like she’d already weighed the consequences and decided she could live with them.
“No,” she said.
The word burned low in my gut.
That was it.
I didn’t give her time to rethink it. I didn’t give myself time. My hand came up fast, locking around the nape of her neck, fingers threading into her hair as I hauled her into me. Not gentle or cruel, just demanding.
Her breath hitched—and then her mouth was already open, waiting.
The kiss wasn’t tender. It was a collision. A claim. All teeth and pressure and frustration burned down to instinct. She didn’t melt. She met me. Pushed back just as hard, hands gripping my jacket like she meant to tear me apart or hold me there forever—maybe both.
I tasted anger. Fear. Want.
Every boundary I’d drawn in my head went up in smoke.
I broke the kiss only long enough to press my forehead to hers, breathing hard, my grip still firm at her neck—holding her there, forcing her to stay present.
“This,” I said roughly, “is a mistake.”
Her lips were swollen. Her eyes bright, unrepentant. “Then stop.”
I didn’t.
I kissed her again, slower this time but no less dangerous—deliberate, punishing, like I was daring her to regret it. She made a sound low in her throat that went straight through me.
I didn’t loosen my grip.
If anything, I tightened it—just enough to remind her that this wasn’t hypothetical, that this wasn’t two people circling a feeling. This was contact. Consequence.
She didn’t flinch.
That was the problem.
I pulled back a fraction, not to let her go, but to look at her—really look. Her pupils were blown wide, breath unsteady, pulse jumping hard beneath my thumb where it rested at her jaw. She was shaken. Wired. Alive in a way that had nothing to do with fear.
“You think this is winning,” I said quietly. “You think pushing me here proves something.”
Her mouth curved—not soft, not amused. Sharp. “No,” she said. “I think it just proves you want me and I want you.”
That did it. The restraint I’d been white-knuckling shattered.
I dragged my mouth back to hers, not chasing pleasure now, but control—claiming space, claiming breath, claiming the moment before she could turn it into something else. My other hand slid to her waist, fingers biting in through fabric, anchoring her exactly where I wanted her.
She didn’t submit.
She leaned into it, jaw set, kiss turning fierce and unyielding, like she was daring me to break or back down. Heat flared—raw, dangerous—and for one violent second I wanted to give in completely. To stop pretending this was anything but mutual destruction.
“Are we doing this?” I demanded as I dragged myself back just enough to lock our gazes. The moment was charged, dangerous, and irrevocable. I didn’t get up this morning deciding we would have sex, but I wasn’t going to sleep tonight until we had.
She didn’t retreat. She lifted her chin instead, lips still swollen, eyes locked on mine.
“Stop asking like you want permission,” she said quietly. “Either walk away now—” Her hand slid into the front of my jacket, fingers curling hard. “—or admit you’re already all in.”
The kitchen was too small for what we were about to do. Every surface, every appliance, every damn coffee mug was a witness to the fact that we were crossing a line that had been fraying for days.
I didn’t wait. I didn’t ask again. I hauled her against me, lifting her just enough to clear the counter, and backed her into the edge.
She gasped as her hips hit the granite, but the sound was swallowed by my mouth.
This wasn't a kiss; it was a riot. It was teeth and tongue and the taste of the coffee we hadn’t even had time to drink.
She didn’t just take it. She gave it back.
Her hands tore at my jacket, shoving it down my arms, and I let it fall to the floor without caring where it landed.
The moment her palms hit my chest, through the thin dress shirt, I felt the burn.
It wasn’t just desire. It was rage. It was the poison.
It was the dead body and the Unsub and the way we’d been dancing around this since the moment she walked into the safe house.
“You have five seconds,” I gritted against her mouth, my hand fisting in her hair, tilting her head back to expose the long, pale line of her throat. “To tell me to stop.”
“Make me,” she snarled, her nails digging into my shoulders.
That was it.
I gripped her thighs and hauled her fully onto the counter, knocking a stack of paperwork to the floor.
Papers scattered like leaves, irrelevant.
I stepped between her legs, forcing them wide, and the friction against my fly was a near-physical pain.
I was hard, aching, and done with pretending otherwise.
Her eyes went wide, then dark. “Brewster.”
“Elliot,” I corrected, roughly, and bit the side of her neck.
She cried out, her head falling back, her body arching into mine. It was permission. It was surrender. It was everything I shouldn't take and everything I couldn't refuse.
My hands weren't gentle. They couldn't be.
I wanted to mark her. I wanted to leave bruises on her skin that matched the ones she was leaving on my psyche.
I yanked her shirt up, uncaring of the buttons that popped and skittered across the floor, and tore the lace of her bra aside.
Her breasts spilled into my hands, heavy and perfect, and I lowered my head to take a nipple into my mouth.
She hissed, her fingers tangling in my hair, holding me there. “Yes.”
I sucked hard, feeling her peak tighten against my tongue, feeling her heart hammer against my ribs.
The scent of her—clean skin and arousal—filled my head, displacing everything else.
The case. Washington. Flint. It all vanished.
There was only this. Only the heat of her skin and the desperate need to be inside her.
I reached between us, fumbling with my belt, the buckle clinking in the quiet kitchen. She reached down too, her fingers brushing mine, shoving my hands away to take over herself. She was impatient. She was shaking.
“Hurry,” she demanded.
I groaned as her hand wrapped around me, her grip firm and sure through the fabric. I wanted that skin on mine. I wanted to feel her bare.
I shoved her pants down, along with her underwear, in one rough tug. She lifted her hips to help me, kicking them away when they tangled at her ankles. She was bare, open, exposed on my kitchen counter, and the sight of her nearly brought me to my knees.
I dragged her to the edge, her legs wrapping around my waist, and freed myself. The first brush of my cock against her wet heat made me swear.
“Look at me,” I ordered.
Her eyes snapped to mine, glassy and unfocused.
“You wanted this,” I said, lining myself up, pressing against her entrance, feeling the way her body tried to pull me in. “You wanted to know what happens when you stop pushing.”
“Do it,” she breathed.
I drove into her in one thrust.
She choked out a cry, her head falling back, her inner walls clamping down around me like a vice. It was intense. Overwhelming. She was tight and wet and so damn hot it burned.
I didn't give her time to adjust. I didn't give myself time to think. I set a rhythm that was brutal, punishing, fueled by every hour of the last two days that I’d spent wanting her and denying myself.
“Yes,” she moaned, her nails clawing at my back through my shirt. “Elliot, harder.”
I grabbed her hips, holding her in place as I slammed into her, the sound of skin against skin filling the room.
It was wet and obscene and perfect. I watched her face, the way her lips parted, the way her eyes squeezed shut as the pleasure built.
I wanted to see her break. I wanted to be the one to break her.
I reached between us, finding her clit with my thumb, and rubbed the tight bundle of nerves in time with my thrusts.
She sobbed, her body bowing off the counter. “I’m going to—”
“Come,” I commanded. “Now.”
Her body locked up, her thighs squeezing my waist, and she shattered. She came with a silent scream, her mouth open in a perfect O, her pussy pulsing around me, rippling and milking my cock.
It dragged me over the edge with her. I buried myself deep, grinding my hips against hers as I let go, pouring myself into her with a groan that felt like it was ripped from my soul.
For a long moment, there was nothing but the sound of our breathing, ragged and loud in the quiet kitchen. The hum of the refrigerator. The distant tick of a clock.
I slumped against her, my forehead resting on her shoulder, my hand still gripping her hip. I could feel the sweat cooling on my skin. I could feel the tremors running through her.
I didn't move. I didn't want to.
This was a mistake. I knew it. She knew it.
But as I lifted my head and looked at her—disheveled, satisfied, and utterly unrepentant—I also knew one other thing.
I’d do it again.