6. The Dark Hours
SIX
The Dark Hours
ADDY
His mouth crashes down over mine, and the entire world shatters into sharp, jagged heat.
There's nothing gentle about the kiss. It's a collision.
Four years of starvation and absolute isolation break against my lips, pouring into me with a desperate, crushing force. His hands lock onto my hips, dragging me flush against the hard, unrelenting lines of his body.
I gasp into his mouth. The taste of black coffee, adrenaline, and pure male aggression floods my senses.
I wrap my hands in the heavy canvas of his tactical jacket, holding on as the gravity in the room completely flips. He doesn't ask permission. He doesn't hesitate. He moves with the terrifying, lethal grace of a predator that has finally caught its prey.
One massive arm sweeps across the scarred wooden desk. The ruggedized laptop, my hardshell drive, and his hit ledger hit the floorboards with a violent crash.
I don't care about the data. I don't care about the network.
His hands grip my waist, his thumbs pressing bruising half-moons into my skin through the thin thermal henley, and he lifts me onto the cleared edge of the table.
My thighs part automatically, making room for the sheer size of him as he steps between my knees.
"Fuuuuuuck." The groan rips out of his chest, rough and entirely starved. "Been wanting to do this for days."
A breathless, nervous laugh escapes my throat. "Days?"
"Yes." His hands slide up my sides. "You know when."
The memory of the creek hits me like a physical blow. The cold water. The absolute exposure. The knowledge that he had been watching me through the scope of a sniper rifle while I stripped bare.
"When I watched you take that plunge in the creek." His dark eyes lock onto mine, the predatory hunger in them completely unmasked. "I've been hard ever since."
A violent, liquid heat floods my core. I dig my fingers into his shoulders, meeting the challenge in his stare.
"Show me."
His mouth crashes back down on mine. He grabs the hem of my shirt, pulling it up and over my head in one savage, fluid motion before tossing it into the dark. The freezing mountain air bites at my bare skin for exactly a second before the crushing heat of his chest blankets me.
His mouth drops to my neck. He bites down on the sensitive curve of my throat, scraping his teeth over my racing pulse before soothing the sting with a rough swipe of his tongue. I arch into him, a ragged, shameless sound ripping out of my chest.
I spent my entire adult life building walls. Constructing a flawless, impenetrable armor of professionalism and cold logic so no man would ever underestimate me.
Wyatt shatters every single barrier I have in less than sixty seconds.
His large, calloused hands map the curves of my body, rough and possessive.
I have spent the last fourteen months auditing dark money and avoiding human contact.
My entire existence has been reduced to logic and survival.
But here, trapped between the massive thighs of an elite operator, all of that intellect shatters.
He doesn't treat me like glass. He treats me like I belong to him. Like I have always belonged to him. The physical dominance of his touch sends liquid fire straight to my core.
I reach for the heavy zipper of his tactical jacket. I need it off. I need the weapon stripped down to the man beneath.
He pulls back, his chest heaving, giving me room to work. I drag the zipper down, shoving the heavy canvas off his broad shoulders. He tosses the jacket aside, followed immediately by his black t-shirt.
The pale glow of the LED lantern cuts across his chest and abdomen. Thick slabs of muscle, a harsh dusting of dark hair, and jagged, silver scars. It is the body of a man who has lived his entire adult life on the edge of a blade. It is a terrifying canvas of violence.
I flatten my palms against his bare chest, absorbing the heat of him. His heart hammers a frantic, violent rhythm against my skin. The unstoppable pulse of a killer who has finally found his weakness.
He grabs my ankles, tossing my shoes to the floorboards. His knuckles graze my stomach as he undoes the button of my jeans. The rasp of the zipper is deafening in the quiet cabin. He drags the denim down my legs and throws it into the dark, his hands heavy and completely impatient.
He doesn't waste time on reverence.
He steps back to shed his own gear, but the predatory hunger in his dark eyes completely fractures his control. He is too starved to manage it himself. I reach for his belt, my fingers quick and desperate as I undo the heavy tactical buckle. I drag his zipper down and push the thick canvas open.
I free him, wrapping my hand around the heavy, blistering heat of his shaft.
A harsh, guttural groan rips out of his chest. His hands immediately clamp over my hips, stopping me before the sheer friction breaks him completely.
He shoves his pants down his thighs. He doesn't even bother kicking off his heavy combat boots. The absolute, violent urgency in his movements makes my breath catch. He needs to be inside me right now.
He steps squarely between my knees. His massive hands grip my waist, and he lifts me completely off the edge of the table.
My hands brace against his broad shoulders. His chest heaves under my palms, his skin searing hot against mine in the freezing cabin air. I clamp my legs tightly around his waist, locking my ankles behind his back and position myself directly over him.
His dark eyes lock onto mine, wild and utterly feral.
He yanks me down.
A sharp, breathless cry tears out of my throat at the sheer force and size of the intrusion. He fills me completely, stretching me, anchoring me to his body as he drops me back onto the hard wood of the table.
He goes perfectly still. His muscles lock tight, his jaw clenched as he fights for a single second of restraint.
"Move." My fingernails bite into the scarred muscles of his back. "Wyatt, please."
The last thread of his control snaps.
He withdraws and slams back into me, burying himself to the hilt. The table groans under the violent impact of our bodies. He sets a brutal, punishing rhythm, taking exactly what he needs.
There's no romance in the dark of the cabin. There's only survival. Claiming. A desperate, primal need to carve ourselves into each other before the sun comes up and the world burns down around us.
His mouth covers mine, swallowing my cries as the pleasure sharpens into something blinding and chaotic.
The friction builds, hot and unrelenting. My hands tangle in his hair, pulling him closer, demanding more. He gives me everything. The absolute raw power of the man crashes over me, driving me higher, closer to the edge.
The heat inside my core coils incredibly tight, threatening to snap.
"Wyatt." I bow upward against his lips, rising to meet his brutal thrusts.
"Take it." His grip on my hips bruises my skin, anchoring me to the violence of his rhythm.
I shatter.
The climax rips through me with the force of a detonation, sending violent, electrical shocks cascading through every nerve ending in my body. I cry out, my nails scoring down his back as the intense, blinding pleasure drags me under.
Wyatt gives a harsh, guttural shout. He drives into me one final, devastating time, his powerful body shuddering violently against mine as he empties himself into me.
He collapses forward, his heavy chest crushing the breath out of my lungs, his face buried in the curve of my neck. We are both gasping for air, slick with sweat in the freezing cabin, our bodies completely fused together in the dark.
I wrap my arms tightly around his broad shoulders, holding the deadliest man I have ever known against my chest.
He doesn't stay there long.
Wyatt pushes back from the table, stepping into the freezing air of the cabin. He kicks off his heavy combat boots, letting them hit the floorboards with a dull thud, and finally strips his tactical pants down his legs, kicking them aside.
He stands before me, completely bare in the pale, dying light of the lantern.
I reach for him, the exhaustion of the long night settling deep into my bones.
He catches my hands, his large fingers wrapping around my wrists. The predatory, starving darkness in his eyes hasn't faded. It has only sharpened.
"I'm not nearly finished." His voice is a dark, gravelly promise that sends a fresh, violent wave of heat straight to my core.
Before I can process the absolute feral intent in his stare, he steps forward and lifts me clean off the wood. He carries me across the dark cabin, dropping me onto the narrow bed against the far wall. The rough wool blankets smell like woodsmoke and cold air.
He follows me down instantly.
He cages me in, bracing his massive weight on his forearms, trapping me beneath his body. He takes me a second time.
Slow. Impossibly deep.
He owns the space he has claimed. The overwhelming size and power of him pulls raw, ragged sounds from my throat, echoing loudly in the absolute silence of the mountain.
I surrender to a man who took a contract to end my life. And I have never felt safer.
Hours bleed away into the dark, measured only by the searing heat of his skin and the violent, unrelenting rhythm of his body. The claustrophobic walls of the cabin act as a cocoon, insulating us from the freezing Wyoming winter and the syndicate hunting us both.
He takes me a third time, flipping me to my knees on the rough mattress.
He grips my hips, anchoring me against the sheer force of his thrusts.
His fingers tangle in my messy braid, yanking my head back to bare my throat to the freezing air.
He drives into me from behind, tearing the last remaining shreds of my control apart until I shatter all over again.
When the feral, consuming energy finally burns itself out, he pulls me down into the rough blankets.
Wyatt presses my bare back flush against his chest, wrapping his heavy arm tight around my waist. The solid, unyielding heat of his massive body acts as a physical shield against the freezing temperature of the room.
I bury my face in the wool, inhaling the intoxicating scent of sweat, gun oil, and cedar.
I close my eyes, physically drained.
For the first time in fourteen months, the data doesn't matter. The audit doesn't exist. There is only the dark, the quiet, and the heavy, fiercely protective weight of the man holding me in the dark.
I sleep a deep, dreamless sleep until the heavy, mechanical crunch of tires on gravel shatters the silence of the cabin.
My eyes snap open.
The pale, gray light of early dawn filters through the frosted glass of the cabin window. The LED lantern on the floor has burned out.
Wyatt is already out of the bed. The devastating intimacy of the night is gone.
He stands by the frosted window, dressed in his black tactical pants and heavy combat boots.
The canvas jacket is zipped tight over his chest, hiding the scars I mapped with my hands only hours ago.
His massive .338 Lapua sniper rifle is slung across his back.
The transformation is jarring. The lover who held me in the dark is gone. He looks exactly like what he is: a ghost. A highly trained weapon forged in the dark, preparing for war.
The low, rumbling idle of a heavy-duty diesel engine vibrates through the floorboards. Multiple car doors slam shut outside.
0600 hours.
The extraction has arrived. Frost is here.