49. Easton
Easton
“Sebastian reinforced the third-floor windows with ballistic glass,” Wyatt says for the third time, like repetition might make it more true and get us all to relax. Him stopping pacing would do more.
I fix the collar of my army-green button-down and ensure the chain I now have around my neck—courtesy of Constantine on the flight here—is tucked beneath my white under shirt and hidden. “RPGs don’t care about glass.”
Wyatt stops short and glares at me, then over at his daughter sitting restlessly on the couch. He stopped wearing out the floor for two seconds, though. A win is a win. “Thank you for that image.”
He switches from stress-walking to spinning the black band on his wrist. A memorial bracelet. His team rotates wearing it in honor of the one they lost. All I see when I look at it? No one is invincible.
“Nothing short of a bunker is perfect,” one of the British operators speaks up, cutting through my thoughts. “But this level does provide you the narrowest approach angles and best fallback control.”
What it doesn’t provide is our preferred exit. Of course, that’s staying our secret for now in case we need to escape the Brits at any point. Fortunately, it’s not looking like they’ll be a problem. We’re being protected, not held in custody.
Not only did POTUS sweet-talk the prime minister into accepting we’re not the real threat, Gideon pulled strings, too. High ones. Like calls to the royal family.
Maybe we should’ve even pressed our luck and asked to keep our phones.
Or course, none of this changes the fact Gwen’s still bait, which means we’re all on edge.
Wyatt checks his watch, then the corridor. Again. “I’m doing an interior sweep. I’ll ask two officers to do a perimeter rotation outside. Be back in ten.” He looks at me, and what the hell is he doing?
I’m fairly certain he’s handing us privacy on purpose after that car ride conversation detonated on the way here. And I don’t know whether to thank him or ask him not to let her out of his sight.
He goes so far as to gesture to the officer by the door and aggressively suggest, “How about you wait in the hall?”
Something tells me this is Gwen’s doing. She had to have made the request when I hit the head a few minutes ago.
The second the door clicks shut behind them both, Gwen hops to her feet.
Yeah, yeah, mission accomplished.
She’s now the one insistently motioning for me to get my ass moving. I follow her to the connecting bedroom, because I’m not the most rational person in the world when it comes to her.
She softly closes the door.
Great, now we just need about thirty more between us and the enemy, not to mention her father.
“What’s up?” I hook my thumbs at the front of my jeans in some lame attempt to act like my heart isn’t pounding at a near-death rhythm, knowing she’s going to drive me crazy somehow. Frustrate me or turn me on. Probably a little of both.
I catch a whiff of her perfume as she closes in on me. Loose strands of her sun-blonde hair frame her face in soft waves, and it takes all my control not to tuck the locks behind her ears. To lean in and kiss the sensitive spot I discovered earlier at the side of her neck.
Her gaze lingers. Observant, not shy. Feels like she’s taking my emotional temperature, gauging not what to say, but how to.
“Since when do you wear jewelry?” Her tone is inquisitive, not biting.
And that’s definitely not what I expected her to start with.
But this is Gwen, and when it comes to her, anything is possible as a conversation starter.
Hedgehogs or heartbreak and everything in between. God, I love that about her.
I drag a finger down the front column of my throat to catch the white-gold chain and shift it out from beneath my shirt. “My brother-in-law gave it to me. He, uh, pulled me aside on the plane and said some type of Saint Michael prayer over me, then gave me this necklace.”
She steps forward and takes the small medal of that warrior saint between her fingers.
The side of her mouth lifts. “You know, I wasn’t that much of a believer before I started working at The Sapphire.
Don’t think I was, at least. Never thought much about it, that’s for sure.
” She slowly rests it back in place but keeps it out.
“But if so much evil exists in this world, then shouldn’t the opposite, too? ”
I have no idea how we wound up walking down the road I detoured from with my sister only a few hours ago, but if anyone can make it happen, Gwen can. “I’m inclined to agree with you.”
Her eyes always carry light differently depending on her mood. Reflective when guarded, glass-bright when excited. And as for right now? I would say somewhere in between.
“Well?” That’s my way of opening the door for her to kick things off with whatever will make me uncomfortable. We have about eight and a half minutes left, so we need to make them count.
She takes hold of the open green shirt and gently tugs. “This shirt I picked out looks good on you.”
“You’re procrastinating.”
“I’m scared,” she whispers.
“Well, you always scare me,” I admit. “But if you don’t tell me what’s on your mind before your dad returns, I’ll overthink my way into next Sunday and we’ll have a real problem on our hands.
” I wrap my fingers around both her wrists and remove her hands, returning them to her sides.
“I’ll have to kick your dad out until you tell me what’s going on in that beautiful head of yours, and that’s gonna piss him all the way off. ”
“We wouldn’t want that.”
“No.” I switch my hands from her wrists to her waist. “We wouldn’t.”
Her lips part like an invitation to kiss her. Stress and attraction feel like both the worst and best cocktail.
“Julian,” she says under her breath.
Mood killer, but okay. “I’m listening.”
There’s a softness to her mouth that makes even her silence feel like a confession.
Her dark lashes flutter as she blinks her way up to my face.
“I’m worried that, after what he said, you’re going to try and give me some dumb list of reasons why I’m better off without you. And you’ll try to leave me again.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” The words come out without hesitation or forethought, because they’re the truth.
She scrunches her nose, and she’s about to question me. To try and push me into doing the very thing she fears we’ll both do: run. She admitted as much this morning after her Dear Easton note.
“Gwyneth.”
Her eyes slant to my lips as if she misheard me. “You’ve never called me that.”
“I never had to before.”
“You about to yell at me?” She raises a brow, eyes shooting back to mine.
“No,” I breathe out. “Just tell you how much I love you.”
Did I just admit . . .?
I did, didn’t I?
Her lips are warm when she presses her mouth to mine in response.
The ghost of my Spearmint is on my tongue as I seek hers, and this room and mission feel farther away than the moon as we kiss.
Her hands work over me. Under my overshirt to push it back, fingernails biting into my shoulder blades as I deepen the kiss. My rough palms land on her soft skin beneath the hoodie. I chase away the tomorrows and anchor us in the present every second our hands roam.
She breaks away and tilts her chin to stretch out her neck, offering it to me. Feels like I’m coming home without a map—muscle memory I shouldn’t have and knowledge of her body I don’t, but somehow my soul seems to.
She jumps up into my arms, wrapping her legs around me, and I pin her against the door without second-guessing it, without second-anything it. My defenses keep folding fast. Heat and harbor in the same breath.
Her lips connect once again with mine, and whatever pressure is left between us breaks.
For five more perfect seconds, the third floor and the threat radius stay out of my mind. It’s just her. She chose to step in, not away, when I admitted how I felt. She didn’t run, and that’s all I needed to know.
I force our lips to part and rest my forehead against hers. “If I don’t stop, I’m going to forget we’re surrounded by armed professionals and your father and possible incoming violence.”
A soft breath settles between us as she lets her Converse hit the floor. “Okay, but um . . . did you say you love me? Did I hear you right?”
A laugh hits the back of my throat, and I lift my head and sweep my hands to her cheeks. “Maybe.” I squint one eye closed. “Possibly.”
Her hand drifts between us, delicate fingers touching her lips. Her skin is a soft red from my beard, and it takes all my energy not to pick up where we left off. Covering every inch of her with my mouth from her delicate temples to between her legs.
I park a palm on the wall over her shoulder and lean in. “Does that scare you?”
She shakes her head no.
I exhale a deep breath, hoping to summon what’s best to say from the ether since I’m no wordsmith. Is there a patron saint of love and romance? I tip my chin to the ceiling, asking for a little help here.
Her hand falls from her mouth to my chest, and she wraps her fingers around the St. Michael medal. Seriously, a mind reader sometimes, I swear.
“I should never have left the first time.” That’s what I need to say.
“I was confused and scared, too, but that doesn’t change the fact I hurt you.
” I can’t help but keep apologizing for leaving.
I’ll say the words as many times as I need to until I can forgive myself, because I know she already has.
Her dark lashes remain a shield to her eyes as she continues to stare down between us.
“I meant what I said before about Julian being a good guy, but I disagree with your dad. Julian doesn’t love you, not the way I do.”
Her eyes startle up when I drop the L word again.
“If he knew you like I do, he wouldn’t have sent flowers.
He’d have bought you a nature preserve full of wild ones.
He would know you hate when flowers are cut and put in vases.
You like them the way you like yourself.
” With my other hand, I brush strands of her hair behind her ear.
“Wild. Free,” I add in a hoarse voice. “I should have been the one to do that.”
A shuddery breath leaves her lips along with one lone tear. She releases the saint medal and presses her back to the wall.
“You said in your Dear Easton note this morning you don’t know what it’s like to be loved.” I crook my finger under her chin, and rasp, “I want to be the one to show you.”