Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
GAGE
“You owe me a soda,” Knight says, lounging back on the beanbag with his combat boots still on, like we’re not in the middle of plotting the downfall of an HR employee. “River totally called it. Tasha's got a thing for you.”
“She does not,” I mutter, sinking onto the old leather couch in the Riverside mission hub.
Arrow smirks from across the room, arms crossed like the smug bastard he is. “Actually, she does. Girl was blushing harder than a freshman at prom when she mentioned your name. And did anyone else catch the part where she called you the ‘office hottie’?”
Ozzy chokes on his drink. “Bro. The office hottie? That’s, like, the opposite of your brand.”
Knight leans forward, grinning. “Yeah, you’re more of a silent asshole with good hair.”
I flip them both off. “You jackasses done?”
“Not even close,” Knight says. “We still haven’t covered how you totally made out with River in your vigilante costume. That’s some Batman/Catwoman fanfic shit right there.”
Arrow raises a brow. “Did you say you were in too deep?”
I glare. “I said maybe.”
Juno walks in holding her laptop and a box of donuts. “Correction,” she says cheerfully. “You’re one hundred percent submerged, Gage. Like, Atlantis-level sunk. It’s kind of adorable.”
Arrow stands and takes the laptop from her. “Any progress on the Tasha angle?”
Juno nods, then tosses a glazed donut at Knight, who catches it with his mouth like a trained seal. “She was definitely dodging when I brought up the internal access to River’s backup server. Said something about ‘bugs in the patch system’ and changed the subject to wine preferences.”
“Classic diversion tactic,” Ozzy says.
“She also got real weird when I asked if anyone had been in River’s apartment recently,” Juno continues. “I pretended it was about surprise birthday planning. She looked like I kicked her puppy.”
I sigh. “River doesn’t know about Tasha yet…”
Juno cuts in, “She suspects. At girl’s night, River asked about Tasha.”
I nod. “Well, I’m not telling her any more until we have solid proof. She just found out I’m Mask. I think I used up all my surprise reveals for the month.”
“You kissed her,” Arrow says flatly.
“Yeah,” Knight adds. “And from the way you were humming in the kitchen earlier, it wasn’t just a friendly kiss. You humming means you’re smitten. It’s a scientific fact.”
I rub the back of my neck. “I should check on her. Make sure she got home okay.”
Juno and Arrow exchange a look.
“You mean check the security feed like a normal paranoid guy in love,” Juno says, “or stalk her doorstep like a love-struck weirdo?”
“Don’t answer that,” Ozzy says. “We all know the answer. It’s option two.”
I grab my hoodie and head for the door. “Thanks for the support, gentlemen.”
It’s late when I pull up outside the Riverside safe house.
Her lights are on in the front room, a soft yellow glow illuminating the little potted plant Juno brought over.
The guys did a decent job transforming this old building into something cozy.
There’s a curtain on the window now, and I think Knight even added a bookshelf.
I don’t go to the door. I never do. I just stand there, hands stuffed in my pockets, heart aching with the want to be closer.
She’s safe. She’s okay. But I can’t protect her forever from this world or from the truth that her best friend might be a snake hiding in kitten heels.
I catch her curvy silhouette sliding across the curtain. She doesn’t look out—probably getting ready for bed. She favors those oversized tees, but they can’t hide the strength in her stance or the fire in her eyes. She’s tough. Braver than anyone I know.
And she kissed me like I was the only thing keeping her grounded.
God help me, I want more.
I lean against the building wall and close my eyes. For once, I’m not thinking about traps or data strings or cyber trails. I’m thinking about her smile. The way she bites her bottom lip when she’s concentrating. How she looks at me like maybe I matter.
And how I’m going to have to break her heart when this all comes out.
Because even if we prove Tasha’s involved, River is going to feel that betrayal in her bones. I want to be her safe place—but I might be part of what shatters her trust for good.
I tell myself I’ll leave after one more minute. Then my knuckles are on the wood.
I don’t mean to knock.
The locks click. The door opens.
River is barefoot in an oversized T-shirt and soft shorts, hair scraped up in a loose knot that’s losing the fight. She looks at me like she half expected this and half refuses to admit it.
“Hi,” she says.
I could say I was nearby. I could say I brought groceries. I could say anything that doesn’t sound like I can’t stay away from you.
“Hi,” I answer, and that’s all I’ve got.
She steps back to let me in. The safe house is warm and dim. The lavender plant on the counter is thriving. Of course it is. Everything survives here by sheer stubbornness.
“I shouldn’t be here,” I manage. “It’s late.”
“Why are you here?” she asks, shutting the door.
“I forget why.”
We stand there, two idiots in a room we built for danger, pretending we’re here for something as ordinary as conversation. Her eyes flick to my mouth and back up before she can stop them. It lands like a match.
“Did you need something?” she asks, voice all careful edges.
“Yeah.” I swallow. “To see you.”
Silence stretches between us. It’s heavy and thick with a tension I feel in my bones.
I cross the room before I can talk myself out of it. I stop close enough to feel the heat rolling off her skin. “Tell me to go,” I say, because I promised myself I’d always give her the exit first. “If you want me to.”
River doesn’t step back. She tips her chin up, and in that small motion I hear all the ways she’s refused to break.
“Stay.”
It’s a gravity switch. I fall.
I kiss her like I’ve been saving oxygen for this moment.
She meets me with that fierce little sound I’ve only ever heard from her—want threaded with relief.
My hands find her face—jaw, cheek, the wayward strand of hair that’s escaped her knot—and angle her mouth to mine like I’ve been planning this for years.
Because I have.
Her fingers fist in my hoodie and pull, dragging me into her until there’s not enough space for anything except heat.
The kiss goes from soft to hungry in a clean snap.
She opens for me and every line I’ve drawn burns away.
She tastes like mint and something sweet—honey, maybe, or just the way her name feels when I say it into a pillow no one else will ever see.
I try to slow down. I try to be better than my own want. It lasts half a breath.
“Gage,” she murmurs against my mouth, and I break on the sound.
I lift her, hands under her thighs, and her legs come around my hips like it’s muscle memory we share.
The couch catches me in the back of the knee and I sit, dragging her into my lap.
The lamp turns her hair to light blue, her throat to a line I want to memorize with my mouth.
“I just can’t stay away from you,” I rasp.
“Then don’t,” she says, and then she’s kissing me like this is the only good decision we’ve ever made.
We find a rhythm that’s half kiss, half conversation—her mouth asking, mine answering, both of us saying yes in a thousand different ways.
I slide a palm under the hem of her T-shirt, pause at her warm skin.
She moans my name. I learn the slope of her waist, the curve of her ribs, the way her breath catches when my thumb makes idle circles low at her side.
She threads her fingers into my hair and tugs, just enough to make me swear and forget my own name.
“River,” I say, because it’s a prayer that works.
“Say it again,” she whispers.
“River.”
She smiles against my mouth like I just gave her something worth keeping. The world narrows to just us. To this moment. This need.
I drag my mouth down her jaw, along the tendon of her neck, to the hollow where her pulse beats quick and brave.
I breathe her in—wine from the girls’ night, lavender from the plant, her from everywhere—and I think if I ever believed in luck, it was for this.
She tilts her head back and I taste skin, a shiver racing through her into me.
My fingers tighten on her hip. Her hips answer. The sound that leaves me is not polite.
“Slow,” she says, but she’s smiling, and I can feel how hard it is for her to say it. “Stay here with me.”
I pull back just enough to see her—the flush on her cheekbones, the determined set of her mouth, the softness she hides from everyone else. I cradle the back of her head. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Her eyes flick like she’s saving the words for later. She kisses me once, slow this time, like we’re learning a different language of the same truth.
My heart is a drum in my throat. Her breath warms my mouth. We rest forehead to forehead, grinning, breathing each other’s air.
“I wanted it to be you,” she admits quietly, fingers playing with the drawstring of my hoodie. “Part of me. Even when I hated that, I wanted that.”
A laugh punches out of me, wrecked and happy. “You don’t understand how happy that makes me.”
She huffs. “Really?”
“Yeah,” I whisper, because honesty is the only thing I can offer that matters. “When you were scared. When the threads went loud. When you thought you were alone. I wanted it to be me who answered. Even if you didn’t know my name.”
She goes very still. Then: “You did answer.”
“Not always the right way.”
She looks at me for a long, soft beat. “Do better now.”
“I will,” I say, and it feels like a vow that fits.
We kiss again—lazy, ruined, content—and she eventually slides off my lap to stand between my knees, hands on my shoulders like she can keep me tethered with two palms. Maybe she can.
“You should sleep,” I tell her, thumb sweeping absent circles over the inside of her wrist. “Big day tomorrow. Girls’ night autopsy. We’ll dissect everything that happened.”
She squints. “You’re not supposed to know about girls’ night.”
I try for innocent. It fails. “Wild rumor.”
She laughs, light and low, and it does something dangerous to my insides. “Walk me to my door?”
“We’re in your place,” I say.
“Walk me anyway.”
So I do—three steps to the bedroom doorway, where she leans in and kisses me once more like she’s stamping a seal on the night. It’s soft. It’s final. It’s a promise we’re allowed to keep.
“Good night, Mask,” she teases, eyes bright.
“Good night, River,” I say, because some names deserve no costume.
I make myself leave. The hallway is cooler, emptier. I close her door and stand on the other side, palm flat to the wood like I can feel her warmth through it.
I’ve been in love with her for so long it scared me.
Tonight, the fear is still there. But it’s standing next to something bigger—something that looks like a life I haven’t let myself want.
I head down the stairs with a stupid smile I can’t shake, already counting the locks, the cameras, the corners—because wanting her doesn’t mean I stop watching the doors. It just means I finally know which ones I want to walk through with her.
What the fuck am I doing?
I turn right around, heading back. I stand at her door, and knock.
She opens like she was waiting for me on the other side. Like she knew I’d change my mind.
“I promised I’d stay,” I whisper as she pushes the door aside and lets me in.
“You did,” she says, shutting the door behind me with a smile.
I grab her, pulling her into my arms. “And I’m not about breaking promises,” I say before kissing her.
I love the way she feels against me. Like we’re meant to always end up here. We move in unison to the couch, and she falls down first. I love looking at her. Her lips all bruised from my kisses.
She raises her arms, wanting me to join her. But I have other plans. “Yoga pants off,” I tell her.
She obeys like a good girl, and I watch as she undresses for me. She removes her panties too, and my eyes appreciate the view.
I sink to my knees for her. “Spread your legs,” I say, even though I’m already pushing her thighs apart. I drop my gaze to the junction between her legs, and lean closer. “You’re mine,” I remind her, and drag my tongue through her wetness.
She’s so fucking soaked for me, it drives me batty. Fucking batty. I keep licking her, tasting her until she’s moaning my name in a chant that urges me to go faster. Her hands fly through my hair, tugging me closer.
I squeeze her ass with one hand while the other pushes a finger deep inside her. “Amazing,” I murmur along her skin.
I keep sucking, letting my finger hook inside her and make her moans intensify. “Yes, come for me, River.” I keep working her with my fingers and tongue.
I’m not gentle by any means, in fact I push her to her limits, making her writhe and squirm beneath me. However, I keep going, sucking her clit between my teeth.
She’s so close. I can tell. She pulls and tugs the strands of my hair as she starts calling my name out louder and louder. And I’m fucking living for this.
Every sound. Every micro-movement of her body. Each and every time she quakes and shivers beneath me.
My cock’s harder than it’s ever been, and even though I’d love to just slam it deep inside her, I’m not here for that. I’m here to make her feel good. To worship her. To make her come harder than she ever has in her life.
I work her over and over, my cock pulsing and throbbing in my pants. I ignore the pain as I bring her closer and closer to her orgasm.
“Come for me, River,” I whisper against her heated skin.
She pauses, and then erupts. She’s cursing my name like she’s never had anyone better, and her hips thrust against my face. “I’m coming,” she calls out loud enough for the entire world to hear.
I smile, not letting up on the pressure of my tongue against her clit. As her orgasm fades, I wrap her in my arms, kissing her temple as she comes down from her glorious high. “I’m not going anywhere,” I tell her, and listen to the sounds of her breathing steady until she’s fast asleep.