15. Eva
EVA
Wolfe stares straight ahead as he drives the rest of the way home.
He doesn’t speak, but I don’t need him to fill in the blanks.
I heard enough through the phone. Dmitri’s voice, his fake ass oily bullshit voice.
The same voice that asks about Sal over coffee he doesn’t drink as if he gives a good goddamn.
I caught what I needed to from that one-sided conversation.
Her work is done. Everything I needed, I already have. Vulnerability is very expensive.
My stomach plummets into my shoes. The man who’s been controlling my life for three months just told the man I’m falling for that I’m disposable.
Falling for. Fuck. There it is. The thought I’ve been dodging since that kiss on the couch.
Wolfe’s hands shake as he grips the steering wheel. The last time his hands shook was the night he promised to fix Sal’s debt. This is different, though. This is fear of losing something he can’t replace.
And Wolfe doesn’t do fear.
We get to my apartment. I unlock the door. He’s right behind me, checking the hallway, the stairwell, scanning like a man who just found out the place is under siege.
He calls Ronan from my kitchen table. This time he keeps the call on speaker. Ronan’s voice hardens when Wolfe gives him the details.
“He called you directly,” Ronan says.
“Yeah.”
“On your personal phone.”
“Yeah.”
“Which means he’s been inside our systems for longer than we thought.” A pause. “And the woman?”
“Her name is Eva,” Wolfe says. “And she’s sitting right here.”
“Put Lochlan’s team on the brother. Tonight. And get her out of that apartment,” Ronan snaps.
“She’s not leaving her apartment.”
“Wolfe—”
“She’s not leaving. I’m staying with her,” he says.
Another silence follows, and it’s longer this time. I can practically hear Ronan’s jaw clenching through the phone.
“Fine,” Ronan says. “But tomorrow we accelerate our plan. Everything moves up. I want the warehouse trap operational in four days, not eight.”
“Understood.”
“And Wolfe?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t let her out of your sight.”
Ronan clicks to end the call. Wolfe puts the phone down and looks at me.
“Lochlan’s people will be on Sal within the hour,” he says. “Physical surveillance. Around the clock.”
“Does Sal know?”
“No. And he can’t.”
“Because he’d do something stupid.”
He nods. “Because he’s Sal.”
I lean against the counter and press my fingertips to my throbbing temples. The knife is on the counter, six inches from my right hand. I stare at it.
Three months ago, Dmitri walked into my life with a folder and a smile and turned me into a tool. Two weeks ago, Wolfe walked into my life and turned me into a spy.
But in this moment, I’m not thinking about myself. I look at Wolfe. “You’re scared,” I say.
“Yeah.”
“I’ve never seen you like this before. Your thumb stopped. You’re not tapping, you’re not moving, you’re not doing any of the things you normally do when your brain is firing.” I hold his gaze. “You’re completely still. And you’re never completely still.”
His jaw tightens but the rest of him doesn’t move. It’s like his whole body locked up and doesn’t remember how to restart.
“That call hit you on a different level,” I say. “And that’s the part that’s freaking you out, isn’t it? Not the threat. The fact that it landed. The fact that Dmitri found the one thing that actually gets to you.”
His expression is shadowed by something raw I haven’t seen before.
“Nobody touches you,” he says in a low voice. It’s the voice he used when he shut down Ronan. “Nobody gets near you or Sal. I don’t care what it costs.”
“I believe you.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.” I fold my arms. “And that terrifies me.”
We stand there. My kitchen. His chair. The knife on the counter. The space between us that’s been shrinking for weeks.
“You should go,” I say, twisting my hair. “Make your plans. Run your scenarios. Do the Wolfe thing.”
He stands up. The chair legs scrape against the worn wood floor. He walks to the door.
“Wolfe.”
He stops, his hand on the frame.
I don’t know who the fuck I am anymore.
“I didn’t mean that. Don’t go.”
It comes out before I can stop it. Two words that just fall out of my mouth like they’ve been sitting impatiently behind my teeth since Tuesday night, just waiting for the lock to fall open.
He stands there, half in, half out.
“The calls are made,” I say. “Sal is covered. There’s nothing else you can do tonight that you can’t do from here.”
“Eva—”
“Please.”
I hate how it sounds to my own ears. Needy.
Exposed. Everything I swore I’d never be again.
But Dmitri just told this man that I’m expendable, and Sal is a thread ready to be snipped, and the only thing standing between me and the dark is a guy in a Metallica shirt who admitted he’s scared of losing me.
I’m so goddamn tired of being afraid alone.
He closes the door, flips the deadbolt, then fastens the chain.
My heart leaps into my throat when his eyes latch onto mine. I glance down. His hands are clenched at his sides.
I close the space between us and reach for one. I uncurl his fingers and press my palm flat against his. His hand is bigger than I expected. Warm. I can feel the pulse in his wrist hammering against my skin.
“Your heart rate is elevated,” he says.
“No shit, Wolfe.”
“Mine too.”
“I know. I can feel it.”
His fingers close around mine. Not tight. Just there.
“I don’t know how to do this,” he says. “I don’t know the right order or the right words or—”
“Just stop thinking,” I murmur.
“I can’t.”
“Try.”
I pull him toward me by his hand, stand on my tiptoes, and kiss him.
This kiss is nothing like the one we shared on his couch. There’s nothing careful or tentative about it. This kiss has days of “not yet” behind it, a death threat in front of it, the understanding that tomorrow everything changes, and tonight is the only sure thing either of us has.
His hands find my waist, and this time they’re not gentle.
I gasp as he digs his fingers into my hips and pulls me flush against him.
If I could think straight, I’d be embarrassed about the sound that just tore out of my throat.
But I can’t, because while his lips are assaulting my neck, his teeth graze my skin. And my knees damn near give out.
“Wolfe—” His name comes out broken. I grip the edge of his t-shirt and shove it up and away from his chest so I can feel his skin against my palms. He reaches back and pulls it over his head in one motion and my breath hitches.
I trace my finger over the scars and the cuts of muscle his band shirts have been hiding.
I dip my head and lick a path over his pecs. His stomach tightens when my fingers trace down the center of it.
“Eva.” He sucks in a breath. “Don’t stop.”
I pull my shirt off next. His eyes drop to my breasts and his pupils blow wide, and for a few long seconds, he doesn’t move or breathe. He just looks at me with an expression so raw and hungry and overwhelmed that my entire body flushes with a raging heat.
“You can touch me,” I whisper. “I’m right here.”
His hands land on my ribcage and slowly slide up the sides of my torso. His thumbs trace the curve underneath my bra, and I shiver at his touch, at the sparks of lust glowing in the cool blue pools fixed on my face.
I reach behind my back and unhook my bra. It falls to the floor.
“Fuck. You’re—” He stops and swallows hard. “I don’t have a word.”
“You don’t need one.”
His mouth drops to my collarbone. Then lower.
His hands map my body like he’s memorizing it, every curve, every inch of skin, and the thing that’s wrecking me isn’t the technique—it’s the focus.
The complete, total, laser focus. Like I’m the only system he’s ever cared about cracking, and he’s going to learn every single piece of me if it takes all night.
And my God, I’m going to make sure it does.
We make it to the bedroom. Barely. Our hands are in a complete frenzy, our mouths voracious.
His back hits the wall outside the door.
I press into him, grinding my hips against his cock, tugging at his hair.
He slides his hands down my spine to my ass and he lifts me into his arms like I weigh nothing.
I wrap my legs around his waist and his mouth finds mine again, and we kiss until I can’t breathe and my heart swells to the point where it might just explode out of my chest.
He lays me on the bed and stands over me, his eyes drinking me in and heating up my insides, nothing like the analytical stare I’m used to. These eyes are dark, intense, and starving.
I reach for the waistband of his jeans and pull him down on top of me.
The rest of our clothes come off in a tangle of hands and fabric and heavy breathing. I reach over to my nightstand, pull open the drawer, and grab a condom. He takes it from me and rips it open with his teeth. But I hold a hand against his chest.
“Wait,” I say. I lick the palm of my hand and reach for his thick cock.
A hiss of breath slips through his teeth when I touch him.
Then I lift my head toward him and run my tongue over the tip before sucking him down.
He grabs the sides of my head, thrusting against my lips as I stroke his corded length.
His chest heaves as I suck him harder and pull him deeper. “Jesus fuck,” he mutters.
I smile at the effect my oral assault is having on him.
“Eva.” He holds my face still. “Don’t make me come. Not yet.”
“Tell me what you want,” I whisper.
“You. Right now. All of you.”
I roll the condom on and lie back down. He crushes his lips to mine and pushes into me. Slowly. Agonizingly. He stretches me wide, filling me with pulsing heat and need. My back arches off the bed and I lance his shoulders with my nails.
“Holy shit,” I rasp.
He stops. “Are you okay? Do you want me to—?”
“Don’t you dare stop. Don’t you fucking dare. Just…move.”
He moves. And God, he moves like he does everything.
Every push and pull are deliberate, and precise.
He pays attention to every reaction I have and adjusts to give me more of what I want.
When I gasp, he does that thing again. When my nails press against the small of his back, he thrusts deeper.
When I say his name, just his name, nothing else, his rhythm stutters and I feel him fighting for control.
My hands tangle in his hair, my legs locked tight around him.
Every nerve in my body is firing. He drops his head to my neck, his breath like a torch lit against my skin.
He rocks his hips against mine with a rhythm that has my entire body teetering on the brink of the kind of bliss I’ve only read about.
I claw at his back when he hits my spot, a yelp escaping my lips.
“Fuck yes,” I choke out, squeezing my muscles and drawing him farther.
I drag my clit along his cock with each push and pull, a scream erupting from my throat.
Tingles erupt in my core, shooting out to the tips of my toes and the ends of my hair.
Blood rushes between my ears, everything in the outside world fading to white noise… except him.
“Wolfe—” My voice doesn’t sound like mine. “I’m—”
“I know.” His thumb finds my hip bone and presses. “I can feel you.”
“How—?”
“You’re trembling. And your—” He stops talking because I grab his face and kiss him hard enough to shut his brain off entirely.
The orgasm blasts through me. Hard. My whole body locks up, and I cry out against his mouth. He swallows the sound and follows me over the edge seconds later with a groan that vibrates through both of us.
Sweet Jesus.
Wolfe Molloy is a sex god.
Hours later, we lie in my bed among the discarded condom wrappers from our sexfest. I think it’s safe to say we’re sated.
For the moment, anyway.
His arm is wrapped around my back, hugging me tight against his side. I rest my head on his chest, my cheek vibrating with the hum of his heartbeat. It’s slower now.
I breathe him in, the soap, the sweat, everything uniquely him. Aftershocks still have my body singing, and my brain is finally quiet for the first time in weeks.
He traces light, lazy lines up and down my arm that make me shiver. There’s not a pattern I can identify. Just movement. Like his hands need to keep touching me.
“You made things quiet.” He presses his mouth against my hair. “My brain is always so loud. Running, processing, never off. But right now, it’s just...quiet. You did that.”
My throat tightens. “You can’t say things like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ll want to hear them again. And then I’ll need them. And needing things from people is how I end up in courtrooms in handcuffs.”
“You’re taking a big leap from pillow talk to prison.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. But a lump lodges in my throat, and I press my face harder against his chest because if I look at him right now, I’m going to cry.
And Eva Moreno does not cry after sex.
“Hey.” He cups my chin and tilts my face up. “Look at me.”
I look. His eyes are soft, not analytical, not processing. Just looking at me like I’m a person he can’t believe is real.
Like I’m a person he cherishes.
I bite down on my lip.
“This isn’t a courtroom,” he says. “And I’m not that asshole who hurt you.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I’m working on it.”
He pulls me back against his chest. His thumb continues making the lazy lines on my arm.
“Tell me something,” I say.
“What?”
“Something that has nothing to do with Dmitri or operations or shell corporations.”
“My favorite Metallica album is Master of Puppets.”
“That’s nerdy.”
“You asked.”
“Tell me something else.”
“When I was twelve, I taught myself to pick locks because my dad kept locking my tools in the garage.”
“That’s sad and impressive at the same time.”
“That’s kind of my whole thing.”
I smile against his chest. My eyes droop, heavy with sleep I desperately need. The adrenaline crash is hitting, his body is warm, and I’m starting to drift.
“Eva.”
“Hmm.”
“Dmitri is still out there.”
“I know.”
“And tomorrow everything changes.”
“I know that too.”
“But right now—”
“Right now, you’re in my bed and your brain is quiet and that’s enough.” I press a kiss against his chest. “Don’t ruin it.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
Outside, the city does what it always does. Sirens blare out. Bass from someone’s stereo vibrates the air. The streetlight outside my bedroom window flickers.
Dmitri is going to make his move. We need to get the trap ready for him.
Tomorrow I’ll wake up to this reality. All the fear will be back, and the world will be loud and dangerous again.
But tonight, Wolfe Molloy holds me close, like he can’t bear to let me go. His heartbeat thrums under my ear and his fingers draw lines on my skin. And it’s perfect.
Bliss like I’ve never known.
Safe used to mean locked doors and checked deadbolts and a knife on the nightstand.
Now it means him.
Somehow, I’m not terrified by that anymore.
But maybe I should be.