Chapter 19 #2
Mya’s expression is completely blank.
Apparently, she’s a trained assassin/robber or whatnot, because she doesn’t budge. And since I was only joking about the waterboarding and Warner is a certified gentleman, we opt for the next best option: securing her to an exposed vent pipe while we search the building.
There’s not much beyond the paintings. We start on the floor, checking behind the pipes and filing cabinets.
Even the vents, mostly because that’s where criminals in movies put stuff.
After a while, we’re tired and not totally convinced that this drive—that Warner knows nothing about—even exists, but we search the rack panels anyway, Warner up front, to keep an eye on Mya, and me in the middle working my way to the back to Sherry’s portrait.
I almost give up searching, too.
Until I go to slide Sherry’s portrait back into the rack and notice a tiny tear in the backing board screwed into the stretcher bars. It’s canvas, which is unusual by itself. But there’s a rigid impression near the tear.
“I’ve got nothing,” Warner calls to me. “Find anything?”
“Nope,” I say as I wriggle my finger into the opening. “Still looking, though. Did she say anything yet?”
He says no at the exact moment the canvas breaks.
“I’m just going to double-check for water damage while I’m at it. I want to be extra thorough, you know?”
It’s a plastic-wrapped flash drive intricately embedded in canvas, so I have to pry it out.
I tug slowly, careful not to make any ripping sounds or grunt too loudly, giving away my struggle.
And when it finally gives, I quickly scan the outside, making out a tiny label—ZH24—before I tuck it into my pants pocket.
I’m not even sure what secrets I’ve just unearthed. It could be a time-lapse video of Sherry painting. Or scathing pictures of her having sex with some Luxe Ladies superfan, for all I know. Or worse, her having sex with Warner. Though their marital business is theirs, not mine.
But I give the performance of my life.
“This shit is for the birds.” I step out from behind the rack. For good measure, I give it a kick, then march to the front of the building, stomping mad. “Where’s the goddamned drive, Mya?”
And that’s how I play it. I can’t even tell Warner. Not yet.
Between my movies and true crime podcasts, I’d have to be a fool to say anything in front of Mya. She could be wired or on the edge of breaking free. If she takes me down and gets the drive, then we’re back at square one.
So I keep it cool, even as the plastic swishes softly in my pocket.
After we return to the main residence and confirm that Nacheline and Gibson are okay—and not accomplices—we call the coast guard, who inform us the storm should pass soon.
So, with the sun sinking lower in the sky and the house growing darker, now that we know the blackout was property-wide, we can finally breathe.
And then we laugh.
Too loud, and nonstop, until Warner’s holding me upright, ribs hurting, eyes burning from crying we’re alive tears, like my body just realized it’s allowed to breathe again.
It’s so unexpected. Sex with him was A-plus, but I love this ease between us, this genuine bond that’s formed as we stuff our faces and touch like we’ve been doing it for a hundred years and will for a hundred more.
Then it hits us.
These giggles are probably hangry, love-sated delirium. We haven’t eaten and we’re starving. We drift into the kitchen, where the charred pancakes have thankfully been replaced by fluffy eggs, crisp bacon, and a platter of fruit and croissants.
“Where did Nacheline go?” Warner asks around a pineapple-strawberry cheek-ful.
“Nap time.”
“Ah.” He flips his wrist then glances outside at the leaning palms swaying against the violet sky. “Damn, the day is almost gone.”
I toss back the last of my orange juice and notice there’s only one strawberry left. “You want it?”
“Oh, I’ve had”—he winces—“all the rest. Sorry, no, you have it.”
He steps away, kneading the back of his neck.
But he’s smiling. And it’s not just a sweet take the last strawberry smile.
He’s looking at me how he always looks at me now, intensely and loaded with subtext.
After today’s action-packed events, I’m only just now realizing what that subtext means: he wants me, now, sans clothes, in any position, and he doesn’t care who’s within earshot, conscious or unconscious.
Hand to heart, every single nerve ending in my body crackles to life.
Warner straightens to his full height and again, no further conversation needed, because babyyy… that nonverbal eye contact hits.
He’s already lifting me up onto the counter, big hands busy in my hair, on my stomach, ripping at our sweats and my panties until there’s nothing between us but tattered breaths and heaving chests. As he shoves himself inside me, we both let out audible gasps.
“Is it wrong that it feels this good?” He groans. “Like, I don’t know if I’m allowed to feel like this.”
“Not only are you allowed—”
He steals my breath, because where on earth did we earn the right for this to be so fucking sexy? So damn smooth. To fit so seamlessly together like the missing pieces of a puzzle that’s just been sitting there waiting to be finished.
“Oh my God.” I throw my head back, arching into him. “It should always, always feel exactly this good.”
“Okay, it’s just—that’s not what I remember.” He chuckles nervously. “I mean, I’m sort of out of practice, and it’s incredible, you’re incredible, and I want it to feel the same for you. I want you to be satisfied too.”
Am I satisfied?
You’re goddamned right.
At the same time, I want him to keep moving.
Keep thrusting his hips. Keep flexing his fingers into my ass to hold me close.
Never stop coiling my insides so tight I feel like I might snap.
But also, make it last, because ending this, this incredibly perfect union of our bodies, even a second too soon would end me.
“Too much?” he grunts.
But I don’t have the strength. I’m too afraid of messing this up to string together even the two letters to tell him no. It’s that serious.
Sweet Jesus, he has no idea how bad I’ve needed this—him.
“Never.” I draw in a sharp breath as he sucks my nipple through the fabric. “And I feel… everything.”
Breathless, I roll my hips. Stretching, clinging to him, head back, body arched and aching for more, I glide closer still, bucking against his strokes, fusing myself to every curved and muscled line of his granitelike physique.
We both laugh at how wild—and clichéd—this whole thing is.
A few minutes in that storage building and the suddenly they can’t keep their hands off each other shoe absolutely fits. We’ve experienced the danger all through the jungle. The high stress. The adrenaline.
And now it’s like tunnel vision. All I want, all I can think about, is Warner.
His warm breaths and the scruff of his beard on my neck as he rocks us slowly.
Feeling his hard, sculpted edges fit so perfectly against all my soft curves.
Definitely not the fact that the only thing I know about love is that it’s conditional. That it never lasts.
“Whitney?”
“Hmm?”
He swallows hard. “I don’t know”—it’s only a slight pause, but I hear the hesitation in his voice— “if my heart knows how to do this again.”
“Everything all right? Is this okay?” I tip up his chin, brushing my aching lips over his.
“I’m just a little out of practice.” He glides his hips between my thighs again, slow, mind-numbingly tender. Then a small, shaky smile breaks over his gorgeous face. “My heart is full. I love everything about this day, the too-real danger, the sex afterward.”
“Oh well, the sex.” I chuckle. “That’s definitely not our problem. I mean…”
We both laugh.
“You really saved my life. With a damn paring knife.” He’s so adorably distressed.
“Baby, that’s a good thing.” I search Warner’s dark eyes. “We’ve found something good, right? It’s okay to be happy.”
He looks at me, and something in his eyes makes me want to lose myself in his arms, to forget that, despite everything, when he says things like I don’t know if my heart knows how to do this again, what I’m really hearing is grief.
To somehow disregard that the reason he’s so attentive, so intentional with me…
Well, maybe it’s because he’s done this before.
He’s been a husband. Rough patch and amicable divorce or not.
He didn’t just forget how to inhabit that role because a year passed.
Warner’s still inside me.
He takes his time, moving his hands between my neck and hair to my breasts and thighs as he chases my kisses, and it’s almost hard to hold on, like my body is lost somewhere between his and mine.
“It’s okay,” I whisper against his lips. “I’m happy too.”
My heart’s beating so fast.
I just hope this feeling lasts because we’ve evaded danger. Twice. But that’s just it. Now, there’s nothing to stop us from falling.