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I melt with relief.
“Betty,” he says, lips brushing my earlobe. Shivers cascade over my skin, and heat pulses between my legs. Thank god. Thank god. “Listen, I won’t force you to stay with me. If you’d prefer, I can make sure you’re safe, set you up somewhere new, then leave you be. Protect you from a distance. I won’t make you do anything, alright? If you’d rather—”
“But it’s an option?” I interrupt, squeezing the rail until my knuckles go white. “Staying with you is an option?”
There’s a long pause, and my stomach drops.
I can’t say goodbye to this man. I can’t.
“That will always be an option for you,” River says at last. The words scrape out of his throat, raw and confessional. “Whether you take it now, or in a year, or in ten years’ time—”
“I’ll take it now,” I say quickly. Adrenaline spikes in my veins, and there it is again: that thrill. That dizzy, flying feeling. I grip the rail with clammy hands, and I’m smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. The wind tosses my hair. “I want to stay with you now.”
River makes a rumbly noise, half triumphant, half disbelief, and crowds against me, head to toe. His booming heartbeat rattles my bones.
“I’m not a good man, Betty.” Calloused palms slide under my tank top, stroking my hips, my waist, my ribs.
“You are to me.”
And besides: what’s life without that delicious edge of danger? You think some well-behaved accountant could ever make me feel this way? Buzzing with so much joy and excitement, I could levitate off the deck?
“That’s because you’re mine,” River breathes against my neck, trailing hungry kisses over my skin. “Precious. Perfect. Mine.” Then, quieter: “Fucking Tango. If he looks at you one more time, I’ll gouge his eyes out.”
I snort, because he’s joking. Probably.
When I reach back and weave my fingers through his dark hair, River butts against my hand like a tamed jungle cat. When he flicks my pants button open, my legs go all wobbly, and I lean harder on the rail.
“Yeah?” River’s breath is hot against my ear. He yanks the zipper of my too-big army fatigues down, then pauses. “Betty?”
I gulp down air, trying desperately to think straight. Every cell in my body is screaming for me tobend over already, idiot!
But we’re not alone on this boat. I cough. “Can Tango see us?”
River’s enraged snarl makes my belly twist. Hoo, boy.
“No,” he grits out, chest heaving against my back. “He will never see a fucking inch of you.” The breath saws out of him, strained and ragged. “Goddamn it, Betty. Now I need to kill someone.”
My startled laugh calms him down. He shakes his head, the tension seeping slowly from his muscles, then mouths at my shoulder as blunt fingers stroke the waistband of my underwear.
River pauses again. Still waiting for my blessing. I nudge back with my ass, feeling bold again now I know this is truly private. It’s just us.
Just me and the rogue agent I tamed. No biggie.
“You gonna let me touch you, sweetheart?” River’s low voice thrums with satisfaction. Primal, male satisfaction, as his fingers dip inside my underwear and coast lower. When he finds me soaked, he grunts and curls over slightly, like I’ve kicked him in the gut. “Christ.”
Blunt fingers saw up and down my seam, spreading wetness, circling my clit. Making me gasp.
“I’ll do you one better,” I tell him, and though my insides are all jittery and nervous, my words are steady. I tilt my hips and hope my meaning is clear—but then I thinkhey, why be shy? I didn’t survive this caper only to swallow my words. “I’m gonna let you fuck me, River. Right now on our getaway boat. Claim me. Make me yours.”
He groans, and it sounds pained. The fingers between my legs move rougher, possessively, coasting easily through the slickness, and his teeth scrape my jaw. “So I’m your man?”
“Yeah.” I jut my ass out further, demanding now. “You’re my man. My first and only. So what’s taking so long, huh? Don’t you want to see what you’ve won?”
River’s bark of laughter startles a flock of seabirds, even over the noise of the boat engine. They explode off the surface of the water, white wings flapping, screeching their complaints, but River’s too busy yanking down my pants and underwear to hear them. They’re already fading into the distance behind us anyway.
He strips me all the way naked except for my tank top, the stained white fabric flapping in the wind. Gonna burn it so soon. Then he props my knee on the middle rail, spreading me open, and now I’m bared. On display.
Cool wind rushes over my body, tickling meeverywhere.The metal rail is cool and slippy with seawater beneath my knee, but I don’t care. I tilt my ass and toss my raggedy ponytail like I’m auditioning for a music video.
