Chapter 18
Then Make Me
Mira
His taste still lingered on my lips as I walked away.
That was the first thing I noticed, and it pissed me off more than anything else.
Not the fact that we’d lost control again. Not the fact that I’d let it happen. But the way my body hadn’t even tried to fight it, the way it leaned into him like two years hadn’t meant shit the second he touched me.
I moved fast through the corridor and forced distance between us.
As if space would somehow reset everything back to where it was supposed to be.
It didn’t. My pulse stayed too high, my breath just a little off, heat still sat under my skin like it didn’t get the memo that this was over. That it had to be over.
“Get it together,” I muttered under my breath.
I dragged a hand through my hair as I cut down a side passage and forced my pace to stay even instead of the sharp edge it wanted to take.
Because this? This was exactly how people got caught.
Not the intel. Not the system. Not the quiet digging that actually mattered. It was this kind of distraction, this kind of slip, this loss of control that made patterns form where they shouldn’t.
And Silas was already watching.
That thought snapped into place hard enough to steady me.
It grounded me into something real instead of the lingering pull of him.
I forced my focus back onto the mission, onto the data I’d pulled, the movement I’d tracked, the fact that I was sitting in the middle of something a hell of a lot bigger than whatever was happening between Aiden and me.
People were being moved. Sold and disappeared into routes that didn’t show up on any official record. And I was close. Closer than I’d been since stepping into Ironhand.
That was what mattered. Not him. Not the way his hands had felt like they still knew exactly where to go. Not the way I’d kissed him back like I hadn’t spent two years convincing myself I was done with him.
I reached the terminal station I’d been using and slid into position like it was just another shift, just another task, just another night. My fingers hovered over the keys for a second longer than they should have before I forced them to move and pulled up the last set of data I’d flagged.
Numbers. Routes. Timelines. Something I could control. Something that didn’t look at me like I still mattered.
But even as I worked, even as I dug deeper, pushing past another layer I probably shouldn’t have touched yet, there was still a part of me that stayed wired to him. To the way he’d looked at me. To the way he hadn’t stopped … to the fact that neither of us had.
I clenched my jaw and shoved that thought down hard, focusing on the screen in front of me like it was the only thing that existed.
Because if I let myself think about it for more than a second, if I let myself feel even a fraction of what was still sitting under my skin? I’d lose focus. And in a place like this, losing focus didn’t just complicate things. It got people killed.
Including me.
I tried to stay away from him … for exactly three hours.
That was how long it took before the edge came back, sharp and relentless.
It sat under my skin like it wasn’t going anywhere, no matter how hard I shoved it down.
Every second I spent at the terminal, every line of data I forced myself to focus on, every route I mapped, none of it cut through it the way it should have.
My mind stayed split, one part locked on the mission, the other circling right back to him like it didn’t have a choice.
It pissed me off.
Because I knew better, I knew exactly what this was, what it meant, what it would cost if I let it keep pulling me off balance like this.
I wasn’t new to pressure. I wasn’t someone who lost focus just because something got complicated. Except this wasn’t just complicated. This was him.
And that was the problem.
I shut the terminal down harder than necessary. I pushed back from the station before I could second-guess it. The decision didn’t come from logic. It didn’t come from strategy. It came from something a hell of a lot simpler and a hell of a lot more dangerous.
I wanted him.
Not to argue. Not to fight. Not to prove a point.
Just… him.
That realization sat heavily in my chest as I moved. I cut through Ironhand with the same controlled pace I always used, even as everything under the surface burned hotter than it should have.
I didn’t look for him the obvious way. I didn’t need to. By now, I knew how he moved, where he preferred to be, and how to intercept without making it look like I was trying.
It didn’t take long. I found him near one of the side corridors, half-shadowed, watching the floor like he always did, like he was already tracking three things at once.
His gaze snapped to me the second I stepped into his line of sight.
His focus locked in with that same intensity that made it hard to pretend he didn’t affect me.
I didn’t give him time to speak.
“Walk,” I said quietly, not sharp, not demanding, just certain, like I already knew he would.
He hesitated for half a second. Then he moved.
We didn’t speak as I led him through the lower corridors. I kept our pace steady, our movements controlled, nothing that would draw attention if someone crossed our path. It looked like routine movement, like just another task, just another shift.
It wasn’t.
By the time we reached my room, my pulse had picked back up, tension coiled tighter instead of easing. I opened the door without looking at him and stepped inside. I waited just long enough to make sure he followed before I shut it behind us.
The lock clicked.
This time, I didn’t hesitate. I turned to him and closed the space in two steps. My hands grabbed his shirt and pulled him into me before either of us could fall back into the same pattern of holding off, holding back, pretending we had control over this.
This wasn’t about provoking him. It wasn’t about proving anything. It was because I wanted him. And for once, I wasn’t going to pretend I didn’t.
There was no room for pause once I pulled him into me. Hands flattened against the wall on either side of my head trapped me against the wall while his body smoothed over mine, flush so that I could feel every hard inch of him through our clothes.
I didn’t let him think. I shoved my mouth against his harder, dirtier than last time, torching every ounce of restraint we’d carefully maintained all over again with the heat of everything unsaid.
This wasn’t gentle. This wasn’t careful.
This was fucking and needing tangled together, desperately, every slammed bruising movement infused with it.
My fingers scrabbled at his shirt and pulled him in closer when there was no more space to close.
I ground my hips against his hard-on, demanding, praying he felt me just as short of breath as he was.
He didn’t hesitate. He knew exactly what to do. With one sharp thrust of his hips when he pulled his grip tightly around my hips, bruises waiting to happen, he hollowed his mouth out against mine with a brutality that bordered on violence.
His hands attacked my clothes impatiently, tugging at fabric until my shirt was yanked completely open, baring my breasts to the chill of the air against my stomach.
His mouth left mine to trail down my neck, teeth nipped at my skin painfully, hands roamed wildly over me — possessive, seeking ownership he no longer had over me.
Mine weren’t gentle either. My fingers twisted brutally in his hair and tugged his head back so I could nip at his shoulder, hard enough to leave teeth marks that would hopefully last.
We both ran out of breath far too quickly, lungs begged for air that didn’t exist between pulls on each other.
It was sharp. Hot. Claustrophobic; filled only with contact, the scrape of his hands, the way my hips rocked wantonly against his, anywhere they weren’t connected.
I felt it in the death grip he maintained on my hips.
I pulled us both back a step, then another until I landed hard against the bed behind me.
He didn’t stop. He slammed me down into the bed before rolling hastily over me.
His hands yanked impatiently at my jeans and tugged them down over my hips with more force than was strictly necessary, making me loudly wet beneath him.
I shifted impatiently against him, hands fisting violently at his belt buckle, needy for him inside me.
Needed him hot and heavy between my thighs, stretching me open, filling me up, and carving his mark inside me so he wouldn’t ever leave again.
When he finally pressed two fingers inside me, I nearly screamed, rocking back against his intrusion, hips stuttering forward again as he rubbed his thumb along my clit with agonizing slowness.
“Look at me.” His voice was gruff, needy, and completely ruined by the hint of anger thrumming just under the surface.
I cracked one eye open to find him staring down at me darkly, green eyes sending chips flying in my vision. I belonged to him, wasn’t that what that look meant? He pulled his fingers free, and he pulled his jeans away from his hips, freeing himself with a swipe of his hand.
He took one hesitant stroke up before slamming himself into my entrance, sudden and overwhelming. It wasn’t gentle, not by a long shot. He gave no fucks about how long I’d gone without being filled up; stretched open in more ways than one by another man.
One hard thrust in and he was fully sheathed inside me, my body overwhelmingly warm and loose around him as I gasped brokenly, rocked forward again by the ache of stretching myself around his thick girth.
He didn’t slow once we connected. We settled into a rhythm that was punishing and perfect all at once.
I dug my nails hard into the muscle of his back and dragged down. It hurt like hell, but I didn’t care, and I wouldn’t stop hitting him up against my own personal earthquake. Each thrust was a question.
How much more could I take?
Was I ever coming home?
His mouth crashed back down onto mine before I could form an answer, kissing me desperately, teeth ragged and needy as he threw his entire weight down onto me.
I wrapped my legs around his waist possessively, tangling my thighs with his.
I wanted more, needed him to fill me so much I groaned out a string of curses that were half curse words, half his name.
We weren’t gentle, neither of us. Didn’t wrap ourselves up in each other, licking our wounds with needy kisses and whispered promises of never letting go.
It hurt, damn fucking hurt, but we did it anyway.
Didn’t ask. Didn’t pause to consider the fallout, the cost of letting someone like him back into my life.
Anger flared hotly between us; a physical thing wrapped up in our lust-soaked coupling. It twisted around us spitefully, threaded through caresses and blows alike. It hurt, reminded us of every single thing we hadn’t forgiven, every conversation left deliciously unfinished.
It wasn’t gentle, our lovemaking. Our coming together. It wouldn’t have been classified as healthy if we tried.
But God, did it feel like taking back what was rightfully ours. And destroying every last bit of control I thought I had, all at once.
The room went quiet in a way that didn’t feel earned. Not soft. Not safe. Just… still.
I lay there for a second longer than I should have, chest rising too fast, skin still humming from everything we’d just done, everything we hadn’t held back. He was close enough to touch, close enough that I could feel the heat of him without actually reaching for it.
And I didn’t.
Didn’t move closer. Didn’t say anything.
Because there wasn’t anything to say. No apology. No explanation. No bullshit attempt to make this into something it wasn’t.
My gaze drifted to the ceiling, and my jaw tightened as the realization settled in, sharp and unavoidable.
This didn’t fix anything. It made it worse.
And the worst part?
I knew I’d do it again.