His grip locked hard. “No, baby,” he rasped. “Don’t move. I can’t—juststay still.”
The command was hoarse. She obeyed because it wasn’t just him who was close to breaking.
“I want you,” he said, every word ground out. “I’d have to be dead not to. But we agreed no sex until I’m your husband. So tonight I’m just going to hold you.”
Her heart was slamming against her ribs. He was keeping his word, even now.
“I’ve missed this,” she whispered. It sounded like a confession, because it was.
“Me, too.”
When sleep finally took her, it was with his arousal still heavy against her, arms spooning her fully, legs twined with her own.
Chapter Seven
Who cleaned this thing?
The thought flared as her palm skimmed the curved glass. She touched it before she realized what she was doing, then jerked her hand back fast enough to pretend it never happened. Hopefully before anyone had seen.
The Meridian loomed above them. The official home of the First Minister was a mirrored hemisphere, wrapped in a tessellated grid of panels that reflected the clouds in fractured motion. It looked less built and more delivered, as if it had been dropped from orbit.
Bulletproof, their guide had said. Earthquake resistant. Self-cooling. Its foundation sank deeper than most high-rises soared.
You couldn’t see in, not even a hint. But Bea felt sure the eyes inside saw everything.
Peak UR.
“Did you just touch it?” Lillian murmured beside her.
“I didn’t mean to,” Bea whispered. “Do you think they’ll scan my prints and revoke my visa?”
“There are guards every thirty feet,” Georgie said. “And a drone above us. You’d get tackled first. Then it’d just be a race between Rafael and Channing.”
Bea followed the others as their group advanced, escorted by a soft-voiced staffer in blue. Charles had arranged the private tour.
The Meridian Plaza spread outward in flawless geometry, paved in pale sandstone. At the center, a massive compass rose was inlaid, its brass arms pointed not toward directions, but the Republic’s founding virtues: Discipline, Dominion, Honor, Order.
The UR flag whipped overhead on towering poles: tricolor bands of deep blue, white, and orange, with a single vertical bar near the hoist, a proud echo of the Navy roots they’d never shed.
Rafael’s arm slid around her shoulders. His forefinger brushed her collarbone as they walked. She reached for his waist.
Maybe it was that thing vacations did—that floating sense that fear and consequence didn’t quite reach here. The kind that made you jump off cliffs, buy things you didn’t need, get matching tattoos. Whatever it was, she’d stopped pretending she didn’t want him here.
Lunch was on a rooftop terrace overlooking the Rotunda. From here the Meridian seemed stranger still, its dome reflecting the city back at itself.
Bea sat beside Rafael at one end of the long table. His hand had rediscovered her knee under the linen, and was making slow sweeps on her bare skin. Her dress rode up with every pass, and so did her heart rate. She nodded along to something Lillian was saying, unsure what it was. Her brain had left the conversation to focus on clenching everything south of her bellybutton. He stopped at the point where it could’ve been chalked up to absent-minded affection—then went a single, criminal inch higher.
She picked up her drink and chugged like it was a fire extinguisher.
Laurent leaned across the table. “Griffin. Have you seen this?”
Rafael’s hand paused as Laurent slid his phone across the wood. A clip played, Monaco qualifying, a near-miss in the tunnel.
“That’s the illegal overtake. They’ll penalize him,” Lillian said, as if she couldn’t stop herself. Then immediately backpedaled. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have…butted in.”
Laurent looked at her as though she’d just revealed a second résumé. “You follow Formula One?”
Lillian’s cheeks flushed. “Follow.” Then, doomed by honesty, “Worship.”
