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I’d caved. My defenses had been shattered. Not that they were strong around Diana. She’d barely had to do anything other than exist to push me over the edge. I’d tried, though, hadn’t I? I’d made as much effort as possible to refrain, but . . .
It’d been twelve hours since we’d first made love, and I still couldn’t believe I’d taken her missionary. And bare. Fuck.
Who was that man who’d been with her last night? Not the guy who took what he wanted with zero fucks to give. Yeah, I had taken what I wanted, then two more times after that. But I did care, and I didn’t want to hurt her. All I knew was the man staring back at me in the newest photos saved to my phone wasn’t a man I recognized.
Selfies. I’m now a man who takes selfies. And grins in photos. On an op, no less.
I swiped through the four-hour-old photos. Diana had asked me to take them while we were still in bed. And I did. There was a first time for everything, and if I was going to take selfies, there was no one I’d rather take them with. At least now my phone was full of photos legally acquired and not from my stalker habits.
I paused on one outside that set of images of us. One of her laughing with Dallas in her lab. A good kind of pain filled my chest, and I leaned back in the desk chair, thinking about every hour spent with Diana since last night.
After we’d made love, she’d gone back to her lab to work, and I’d wound up lost in my thoughts, thinking about how I’d made love, not fucked. How I hadn’t needed to dominate or control. Guided and led when needed, yes. My thoughts had run on a loop, and when I’d realized the time, I’d dragged Diana to bed to get rest at zero four hundred.
She’d requested to take a ride I couldn’t refuse. On my cock. Sitting on top of me, hands planted to my chest, she’d asked me three more get-to-know-you questions while her pussy had stretched to accept me.
“Pretty sure you’re getting to know me really damn well,” I’d teased, dragging my hands up and down her back.
She’d asked them anyway. More like panted them out. I wouldn’t be surprised if she asked them again tonight. I wasn’t sure she registered any of my answers. I wasn’t even sure what I’d said. Could’ve been responding in German for all I knew.
Her moans had also been loud enough to wake Dallas from where he’d been asleep down the hall with Oliver (per my orders). He’d come running to the door to ensure Diana wasn’t crying from pain. The little devil. He’d known what was going on. She’d been in the middle of falling to pieces on top of me as he’d barked outside our door.
But this morning, fucking hell this morning, had destroyed me. Waking up to her scent, with her limbs tangled with mine, both of us naked . . .
That was how I wanted to wake up every day of my life. Hell, maybe I’d even consider breaking my rules, letting Dallas sleep on the bed, because I knew it made her happy.
“What have you done to me?” I covered my mouth, finding a smile forming there as I stared at our photos.
After we’d taken those selfies, we’d showered together. Strictly for the sake of expediency to get back to work (her words, not mine).
As expected, we wound up making love there, too. She’d even let me play with her ass. Not with the limb I’d hoped for, but my thumb was my way of warming her up to the idea of my cock there one day.
While taking her hard up against the shower wall, she’d held on to my arms, and between kisses, rambled on about the laws of physics and how I’d never fit. It’d been cute. Endearing, even. I held back on reminding her that I knew a thing or two about defying laws.
I palmed my crotch at the memory, growing painfully hard again. Missing her already. So much so I almost texted her those very words when what I really needed to tell her was, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I slept with you knowing there was a chance your friends were dead. And as of this morning, confirmed to be true.
I steepled my fingers against my lips, trying to figure out how to tell her the news.
Earlier in the morning, the coroner’s office positively identified Bahar’s, Bonnie’s, and William’s bodies as the ones in the fire. And according to the CIA, it was, in fact, Pierce Quaid in that explosion. I wasn’t going to shed any tears over Pierce or her ex-boyfriend, but I knew Diana would be in mourning.
I’d purposefully hid out in my office after Gray had told me, unable to look at Diana again and not feel guilty for withholding the information from her both now and last night.
I needed to be alone to work. To find a way to save Diana from this mess sooner than later.
So far, no one in the underground world had admitted to knowing anything aside from what we already knew—Serbian traffickers were outsourced to do the Amsterdam job. And radio silence on the domestic side of things as to who could’ve hit the lab in Montana. The fact I couldn’t intimidate or bribe anyone to talk had me wondering if no one actually had anything to say.
Who were these shadowy pricks managing to outsmart the President’s best along with my people, who were also the best.
I was being hit with the uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu. I hadn’t felt this much like a failure since searching for Rebecca’s killer, chasing my fucking tail for almost two years. I didn’t have that kind of time now. Forget two years. We had two weeks until the election.
And at almost forty-eight hours since we’d arrived in Scotland, the little we did know didn’t help us in any way. The blackmailer had never again reached out to Alyona, confirming that’d been a diversion. Given what happened to Diana’s colleagues in Scotland, the odds any of the other hostages from either lab being alive was next to none.
Frustrated, I went for my phone, prepared to call the White House for my third time that morning and demand to speak to Craig Paulsen myself. I needed to be in a room alone with him to get him to open up.
Before I could get shot down again, my laptop buzzed with an incoming call from Gwen. I slid the laptop closer to the edge of the desk and accepted the video call. “Hey, what’s up? I thought you were working with Diana and the others.”
“I can write code in my sleep. We have the cyber stuff covered for the laser, don’t worry.” She gave me a smile that was most definitely forced. “My grandfather asked me to work on something else, which is why the call now.”
I sat taller from my slumped position, unsettled by the news the Secretary of Defense had tasked her to do something and hadn’t clued us in on it.
