Page 107 of The Tiger in the Sack

“Ooh, Isak. God, yes.” She sank down onto my cock, slowly, devastatingly slowly. Her eyes shined down on me sparkling like diamonds in the sky.

“I know, Clover, I know.” She was my everything. And I wanted to make sure she knew that every day of our lives. “I love you so much.”

She smiled in a way that melted my heart and showed me that hers was melting for me too. “I love you too. So much.”

Our bodies moved together like they had worked the play out ahead of time. I eased my hand down between us and pressed gently on her clit with my thumb letting her grind into it.

“More,” she cried, tossing her head back as her hips canted faster.

I tried to hold on as long as I could but as her tight inner muscles contracted around me, and I was lost, pulling her close and emptying myself inside of her. She buried her face in my neck again, and rode me through her second orgasm, groaning my name as she came.

We sat together in the precious quiet, catching our breath and letting the love in the room fill our hearts the same way our bodies did.

“Five out of five stars. Would recommend, but too damn bad cause your mine,” she said.

I laughed out loud and lifted her up to carry her up the stairs.

“Where are we going?” She yawned and held me tighter.

“The full deluxe package includes aftercare with a shower and snuggles.”

“I can’t get my braids wet before I sleep.”

Like I hadn’t spent hours on the internet looking up info on how to care for her hair. “I know, baby, I bought you a shower cap. It’s waiting for you in the bathroom.”

“Definitely five stars.”

We climbed the stairs and Vito chirped to get my attention from the top of his cat tree where he lay entangled with Tig like a Halloween Yin Yang. He fixed me with a look so smug, I questioned for a moment if he had planned the whole thing himself. I stuck my tongue out at him and took my love to bed.

I'M KEEPING THE DOG

CLOVER

There’s a kind of morning where you wake up already wearing the day like armor that finally fits, and I had one, in a bed that wasn’t mine, in a building I’d just learned belonged to the man whose arm was across me, and the first item on my list when I opened my eyes was not a threat.

It was a meeting. Ten a.m. Gabrielle’s office. I had the folder.

I’d dressed for it like I dress for the things that matter, which is to say I’d put on the blazer that meant business and makes me feel like I’ve never once apologized for taking a chair, and Isak watched me button it from the bed with an expression I’d have to deal with later, and I’d told him to stay home, and he’d said no, and I’d said this part is mine, and he’d said okay, that one’s yours, I’ll be loud somewhere else, and let me go do it.

So I walked into Gabrielle Jackson’s office alone, with the receipts, on purpose.

Except it wasn’t Gabrielle’s office anymore by the time I got there. It was a war room.

Gabi was at the head of the table in a suit the color of a closing argument. Coach Roper sat to her right with a legal pad, still, the way he goes still in a film room, watching and watching until the pattern shows itself.

Jules Kingman had three devices open and a timeline taped to the glass wall, because Jules does not believe in a problem she can’t make into a flowchart. I wasn’t even sure how she’d gotten here. But I would admit, the girl had some serious spycraft, and she’d be running the world someday.

Zahra stood by the window with the manila folder’s twin. She gave me a contained smile and a little salute. Seemed I’d finally passed her tests.

And Fox was there, which surprised me, in a suit, looking more like a movie star than a football player. Interesting. What role was he playing today, and did it have anything to do with Jules?

And my mother was there.

My mother. Tory Freeman. In a Tigers franchise conference room, with her hands folded on the table and her chin up, the former cheerleader turned badass lawyer who’d been told at twenty-two to take up two chairs, taking up two chairs.

“Mom.”

“Gabrielle called me,” my mother said. “Somebody on this side of it needed to be a parent and somebody needed to know the law. So I came.”