Chapter Four | TORIN #4
The words came out before I could stop them.
Noa heard it. Her hands slid from my shoulders to my face, and for one dangerous second she held me there, eyes on mine while I moved inside her.
Then she kissed me, and the moment turned back into heat.
I reached between us and found her clit with my thumb. Noa’s hips jerked.
“I’m sensitive,” she said, breath catching.
“I know.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I know that too.”
I rubbed her clit in firm circles while I fucked her, and her breath started to break apart again. She tried to turn her face away. I caught her chin with my other hand.
“I want to see you.”
“This isn’t fair.”
“It’s not meant to be.”
Her body tightened around me.
I slowed just enough to make her chase it.
She glared at me. “If you stop, I’ll hurt you.”
“That’s my vicious girl.”
“I mean it.”
“I know you do.”
I drove into her hard, thumb steady on her clit, mouth close to hers. “Come for me again, Noa.”
Her name went through her. I felt it. Her whole body shivered, and then she came hard, pussy clenching around my cock, nails digging into my shoulders, voice breaking on a curse she didn’t try to make pretty.
I held on by a thread.
Noa was still shaking when she shoved at my chest.
I stopped instantly.
Her eyes opened. “I didn’t say stop.”
I stared down at her.
She shoved again. “Let me move.”
I let her push me onto my back.
Noa climbed over me, thighs bracketing my hips, hair falling around her face. She gripped my cock, positioned me, and sank down inch by inch while I watched every bit of control I had left leave the room without saying goodbye.
She took me all the way and braced her hands on my chest.
“Your face,” she said.
“What about it?”
“It finally shut up.”
I laughed, and the movement made her gasp.
Then she started riding me.
She went slowly at first, because she knew what she was doing. She rolled her hips, hands pressed to my chest, tits moving with every stroke, gold bracelet flashing at her wrist. I gripped her thighs and let her set the rhythm until letting her became another kind of torture.
Noa looked down at me, eyes heavy and fierce. “You like this.”
“I like you on top of me.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
“It was still true.”
She moved faster, taking me deep, using me exactly as she wanted, and the sight of it nearly split me open. There was nothing passive in her. She was all in, fully present, hungry and furious and alive.
I slid one hand up to her breast, thumb over her nipple. Her body clenched around me.
“Use me,” I said.
Her eyes flashed. “I am.”
“Yes, you are.”
She leaned down and kissed me, messy and open, and I caught her hips, driving up into her. The sound she made against my mouth took the last of my restraint and ground it under her heel.
I rolled us fast, putting her under me again, and she laughed like the shift thrilled her.
“Predictable,” she said.
“Effective.”
I pulled one of her legs higher against my side and drove into her deep. Her laughter turned into a moan. I did it again, harder, and her hands fisted in the sheets.
The room narrowed to skin, heat, the slap of our bodies, the scent of sex under expensive hotel air, Noa’s voice, my name in her mouth, my cock buried in her pussy like I had any right to feel as possessive as I did.
I was close. Too close.
She knew.
Her hand slid to the back of my neck, pulling my mouth to hers. “Do it.”
I shook my head once. “Not before you.”
Her eyes widened. “Again?”
“Tell me if you want me to stop.”
Noa’s thighs tightened around me. “I didn’t tell you to stop.”
“Then give me one more.”
“You’re insane.”
“Likely.”
I got my hand between us again. Her clit was swollen and slick under my thumb. Noa’s body jerked, already sensitive, already close to too much.
“Torin,” she said, voice rough. “That’s a lot.”
I slowed my hand immediately. “Too much?”
Her eyes found mine. Her hips lifted into my palm.
“No,” she said. “Don’t stop.”
That was all I needed.
I fucked her through it, thumb working her, mouth at her throat now because I needed to taste her skin when she came again. Her pulse hammered under my lips. Her nails scored down my back.
The third orgasm took her hard.
Noa cried out, body bowing under me, pussy clamping down around my cock so tight I lost the last scrap of control. I thrust deep once, twice, and came with my face buried against her neck, every muscle locked, her name torn out of me before I could stop it.
For several seconds, the hotel room disappeared.
Noa lay beneath me, breathing hard. Her hand stayed in my hair and didn’t push me away.
I lifted my weight before it became something she had to ask for. My arms shook. That annoyed me. She noticed, because of course she did, but she didn’t comment.
We lay there tangled in the wreckage, the hotel room too bright now, morning pressed against the windows, the bed destroyed under us.
Noa stared at the ceiling. “That was a terrible idea.”
I turned my head toward her. “You started it.”
“I was under stress.”
“I’m very stressful.”
“That isn’t a defense.”
“It’s context.”
Her mouth twitched, but she kept looking at the ceiling. “We’re not discussing this.”
“We’re not discussing this.”
“That’s probably best.”
“It’s safest.”
She turned her head then. Her dark eyes met mine, and for a moment all the banter sat beside us instead of between us.
I wanted to touch her face.
I didn’t.
Instead, I got out of bed before I made a worse decision, like ask if she was all right in a way that sounded like more than the job.
Noa watched me cross the room naked to check the lock.
“Very professional,” she said.
“I’m excellent at my job.”
“Is that what that was?”
I looked over my shoulder. She was still on the bed, hair a mess, lips swollen, gold bracelet bright against the sheet.
I turned back to the door. “Parts of it were above and beyond.”
“That sounds like something you’ll put on an invoice.”
“I’ll use discreet phrasing.”
“You’re shameless.”
“You keep saying that from the bed.”
“It’s not your bed.”
“It became mine when I suffered in that chair all night.”
“I’ll fight you over property law.”
“I look forward to it.”
Her bare feet hit the carpet. Fabric rustled. When I glanced back, Noa had pulled my discarded shirt over herself instead of her own, which did nothing useful for the state of my self-control.
She crossed to the bed, retrieved the drive from under the pillow, and held it up.
“Still here,” she said.
“It’s still there.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “That was too calm.”
“The drive isn’t what I’m worried about.”
Noa’s hand closed around it. “What are you worried about?”
I picked up my phone from the desk. “The people who found the hotel.”
She said nothing. She knew a dodge when she heard one.
I called Landon.
He answered on the first ring. “Dempsey.”
“We had surveillance at The St. Julian. Three points. Restaurant, valet approach, service follow. We burned them and circled back. We’re in the room.”
A pause followed.
Noa moved around the room behind me, gathering clothes with efficient hands and no visible concern that she was naked under my shirt. My body, traitorous and recently satisfied, still wanted to do something about that.
Landon said, “You circled back?”
“They exposed themselves. Unknown second location is a worse risk until you give me a clean channel or a name.”
“I don’t love it.”
“You don’t have to love it. You have to find the insider.”
“I’m close.”
“How close?”
“Close enough that I’m not giving you anything until I can prove it.”
I looked at Noa. She was watching me now, drive in her hand, hair around her shoulders, mouth still swollen from mine.
“Then prove it faster,” I said.
“I’m working on that. Hold position unless the room is compromised. No official contact. No police. No federal channel. Not yet.”
“Agreed.”
“And Dempsey?”
“What?”
“Don’t get sloppy.”
My eyes stayed on Noa.
“I don’t,” I said.
The call ended.
Noa slid the drive back into her jacket pocket. “He’s close.”
“He says he is.”
“But no name.”
“Not yet.”
“No official channel.”
“Not until we know who’s clean.”
She nodded once. “Then we hold the drive.”
“You hold the drive.”
Her gaze lifted to mine.
I crossed to her and stopped close enough to touch, but I didn’t touch her.
“You hold the drive,” I said. “I hold the door. We don’t move unless we have to, and when we do move, we move with a plan.”
Noa’s eyes searched my face.
“What kind of plan?”
“The kind that stops letting them choose the ground.”
Her mouth curved faintly. “I like that plan.”
“You haven’t heard it yet.”
“I like the direction.”
“That’s nearly praise.”
“Don’t ruin the moment.”
I smiled despite the danger, despite the dead man, despite the laundering operation, and despite the people outside who had missed Noa once and would come again if they had the chance.
Then I pulled clean clothes from the go-bag and dressed fast: dark utility pants, a charcoal shirt, fresh socks, boots.
Noa changed into her own clothes again, but she moved with her eyes on me in the mirror, and I tracked every inch of her because pretending not to was a waste of effort neither of us deserved.
Outside, Halo City kept moving under the low June sky.
The people hunting Noa were adjusting because they had missed again.
Landon was digging toward a name. And the person with the reach to get Sawyer Price killed still believed the drive could be recovered and the woman carrying it could be erased.
They were wrong about the second part.
By tonight, we needed leverage. We needed a clean channel. We needed to make whoever was hiding behind money and influence step into the open.
Noa looked up at me, dark eyes steady, one hand resting over the pocket that held the drive.
“What now?” she asked.
I reached past her and checked the lock one more time.
“Now,” I said, “we stop reacting.”