18. Render
Render
Something feels different about the light in this room.
The fluorescent tubes are the same ones that have been here since I stocked the unit six months ago. The concrete is the same gray. The metal walls still have that slight sheen from the temperature difference. Nothing physical has changed.
But the way the light hits Enley Cameron is different now, and I know that’s got nothing to do with the bulbs and everything to do with me.
She’s at the table with the laptop open, running the last checks on the evidence system.
Focused. Efficient. Channeling everything into the work so she doesn’t have to sit with what just happened against the wall.
I’m doing the same thing with the communication gear.
Checking the channel again. Making sure the signal is solid.
Making sure all nine of us will stay connected once things start.
Her hair is still a little messed up from my hands. I have to admit it makes her look seductive. Hotter. Sexy as fuck. The hoodie is back on, pulled up against the cold, and it has new creases that map exactly where the wall and my body pressed against her.
My body hardens at the thought of her. The way she felt. I push the feeling down and try my hardest to focus back on the work. No pun intended.
I’m testing the gear properly, but a solid chunk of my brain keeps replaying the sound she made when my hand found the bare skin of her waist. The way her knees gave out.
The fact that my hands actually shook for the first time since I was thirteen and first understood what it meant to hold something that could change everything permanently.
See… I can’t fucking focus.
I’ve spent eight days being the version of myself that the mission needed.
The operator. The failsafe. The one who moves through dark rooms and solves problems with code and bullets and carefully managed distance.
That version didn’t have room for what I felt when Enley pulled me those last twelve inches and the gap between us hit zero for the second time.
The first time was a collapse. The second was a choice.
A choice is different. You can explain away a collapse.
You can call it fatigue or pressure or years of wanting finally breaking through.
You can’t explain away a choice. A choice means the person you were before isn’t the same person after.
I chose to cross the room. I chose to put my hand on her neck.
I chose to stay when staying meant something I can’t take back and don’t want to.
The loop runs again. The sound she made. The way she said “tell me the half I don’t know.” The heat of her skin under my fingers.
I force myself back to the gear. The signal is strong.
The channel is clean. All nine of us will be connected from the second the breach starts until it’s over.
Enley’s voice will be in my ear the whole time, running the tech side from two hundred yards away.
I’ll be able to hear her but not see her and not reach her, and those two hundred yards are going to feel longer than any distance I’ve ever managed.
“The delivery system is ready,” she says.
“Evidence package is set. The moment you enter the stairwell, I trigger the drop. Federal agencies, the regulatory people, and the journalist all get the complete Goldenbell financial map at the same time. By the time Serafina’s lawyers can react, the information will already be in the hands of people who can act on it. ”
“Timing?”
“Synced with the breach. Zero delay. The digital side and the physical side start at the same second.”
She turns from the laptop and looks at me. Her expression is clear and steady. Not embarrassed. Not regretful. Not trying to fill the silence with reassurance. She’s looking at me the way she has since the night she sat on the concrete floor and laid out her conditions: directly, without apology.
“We should talk about it,” she says.
“Now?”
“When else? In five hours you’re going underground and I’m going to be on the other end of a radio trying to sound professional while the man I just had sex with is clearing corridors in a building full of people who want to kill him.”
The bluntness is so completely her that something warm moves through my chest.
“What do you need me to say?” I ask.
“I don’t need you to say anything. I need to know that when you walk into that building tonight, you’re not carrying guilt about this on top of everything else.
I need to know that what we just did isn’t sitting in your chest like a weight that makes you slower or less focused or more reckless because you’re trying to make up for a decision you think you shouldn’t have made. ”
She sees me. The precision of it is almost unsettling, like she’s running a diagnostic on me that I don’t fully control.
“I’m not carrying guilt,” I say. I check the statement against what’s actually true and find it accurate.
“I’m carrying awareness. The awareness that I’ve just made the situation more complicated in every direction.
Poe. The crew. The mission. What comes after.
All of it is more complicated now because of what we did. ”
“More complicated isn’t the same as wrong.”
“No. It’s not.”
“So you don’t regret it.”
I look at her. The woman who taught herself to code in an empty apartment.
Who found the weak spots in systems that should have been locked down.
Who mapped an entire criminal empire while I was unconscious with a fever.
Who walked twenty miles through wet forest without complaining.
Who sat on a cold floor and told me she wasn’t going to fall apart and then spent eight days proving it.
“I’ve regretted a lot of things in my life,” I say. “Most of them were things I didn’t do. This isn’t one of them.”
Something in her expression shifts. Not a smile. Something deeper. The look of a person who heard what she needed to hear and is taking it in completely.
“Okay,” she says. “Then here’s how this works.
You go into the building. I run the digital side.
We bring the crew home. And when it’s over, when Poe is out and the crew is safe and Serafina is dealt with, we have the conversation.
The real one. The one where you tell me everything and I tell you everything and we figure out what this is in a room that doesn’t have a countdown clock on the wall. ”
“That’s the plan.”
“That’s the plan. But Render.” She pauses and holds my gaze. “Come back. From the building. From the stairwell. From whatever happens underground. Come back. Because the conversation can’t happen if you don’t.”
“I’ll come back,” I say.
“Promise.”
“Promise.”
The word sits between us for the third time in eight days.
The first time was in the cabin when she made me promise to answer her questions.
The second was after the Margaux decision.
This third one is different. This one isn’t about information or honesty.
This one is about a body returning to a room where another body is waiting.
It’s the simplest promise I’ve ever made and the hardest one to guarantee.
I look at her standing there in my hoodie, hair still messy from my hands, eyes steady on mine. Five hours left. The clock is still ticking. But right now the only thing I can think about is how she felt against that wall and how much I already want her again.
“Come here,” I say.
She doesn’t ask why. She just walks over. I sit on the edge of the cot and pull her between my knees. My hands slide under the hoodie and find the warm skin of her waist. She shivers at the contact.
“I need you again,” I tell her, voice raspy. “Before we go back to the work. Before the clock takes over. I need to feel you.”
She nods. No hesitation. I push the hoodie up and off.
The thin thermal follows. Her bare skin is warm under the cool air of the unit.
I lean in and press my mouth to the soft curve of her breast, tasting her, taking my time.
My tongue circles her nipple until it hardens against my lips.
She makes a soft sound and her hands slide into my hair.
“That’s it,” I murmur against her skin. “Let me take my time with these. I’ve wanted my mouth on you for years.”
I switch to the other breast, giving it the same slow attention. Sucking gently, then harder when she arches into me. My hands cup her, thumbs brushing over the sensitive peaks while my mouth works. She breathes my name and the sound goes straight through me.
I keep going until she’s shifting restlessly between my legs, thighs pressing together. Then I lean back on the cot and pull her with me.
“Climb on,” I tell her. “I want to watch you take me.”
She does. Slow. Straddling my hips. I help her push my pants down just enough. When she sinks down onto me, inch by careful inch, we both go still for a second. The heat of her around me is perfect. Damn, she’s tight.
“Fuck,” I breathe. “You feel so good. So tight around me. Ride me, Enley. Nice and slow. I want to feel every second of it.”
She starts to move, rolling her hips in a steady, deliberate rhythm. My hands settle on her waist, guiding but not rushing. I lean up and take one breast back into my mouth while she rides me, sucking and licking as she moves. The dual sensation makes her gasp and tighten around me.
“That’s it,” I say against her skin. “Use me. Take what you need. I’ve got you.”
Her hands brace on my chest. The pace stays slow and deep, every movement deliberate. I keep my mouth busy on her breasts, switching between them, biting gently when she starts to move faster. My hands slide down to her hips and help her grind against me on every downward stroke.
“You’re so wet,” I murmur. “I can feel how much you want this. How much you’ve been wanting me. Keep going. Don’t stop until you come on me.”