Then, his mouth was on me—hot, wet, and perfect—and I was gone. One hand braced on the wall behind me, the other threading through his hair, holding on because if I didn’t, I might collapse. He took me deep, greedily, and when I moaned his name, he hummed as if he’d been waiting to hear it for days. One of his hands stayed tight on my thigh, anchoring me, but the other disappeared between his legs. I caught the movement from above—his wrist flicking, the slow drag of his palm—and something in meshort-circuited. He was getting himself off. While blowing me.
I’d never seen anything so fucking sexy in my life.
My breath hitched hard, my back arching off the wall as heat spiked through me, wild and uncontrollable. He didn’t stop—didn’t slow—just let the rhythm build between us until I couldn’t tell where he ended and I began. My name on his tongue, the wet sound of slick skin, the tension in his jaw as he fought to take me deeper while chasing his own edge.
It was obscene and perfect and sent me over the edge fast—no chance of holding back after three days of wanting, aching, and spiraling toward this exact moment.
When I came, it was with a stuttered breath and his name on my lips, like a prayer and a curse in one, and he followed up a few seconds later.
Killian stood, eyes dark and wild. “Hi,” he said, voice hoarse.
I glanced down between us, to the floor of the elevator. “Clean up on aisle one?” I deadpanned.
He chuckled as we kissed again, cradling my face as if I were something precious. He tidied me up, tucked me away, kissed me so sweetly it almost madeup for the fact that I hadn’t dropped to my knees for him, too.
And somehow, the buzzing in my head—sharp and relentless for days—had stopped.
There hadn’t been pain. I hadn’t had to give anything up. There’d been no power play, no guilt, only the gentle, grounding weight of his hands on me and the raw, unfiltered need in his eyes. I’d existed in the moment, let him take care of me, let myself feel how turned-on he’d been by me, by what he was doing to me, by needing me so much he couldn’t stop himself. It was dizzying and steadying all at once.
And for the first time in days, I felt quiet.
“I love you,” I whispered, the words barely audible between our breaths.
They hung there for a moment, fragile and fierce, and I marveled that I’d said them at all. I don’t think I’d ever said those words likethisbefore—where it meant something, where it cost something, where it left me bare and open.
“I love you right back,” he murmured, and I got my first honest look at him—he was exhausted. His eyes were bruised from lack of sleep; dark circles etched deep beneath them. He wasn’t in his usual sharp suit, but in sweatpants and a faded band T-shirt that clung to his chest. His hair was a mess, not justfrom my fingers yanking at it, but as if he hadn’t tried to fix it in days.
“You look like shit,” I murmured.
He smiled crookedly. “Thanks for that.”
“In a sexy way,” I amended, and he chuckled.
He gave me one last lingering kiss, then turned and pressed his hand to the keypad. The elevator jolted into motion and opened into the Cave, as if nothing had happened, even thougheverythinghad.
“Can you wait until I turn the internal cameras off next time?” Caleb deadpanned.
“Oops, my bad,” Killian shot back, not missing a beat.
Caleb raised an eyebrow. “You owe me for the trauma. That elevator needs holy water.”
“Add it to the expense report,” Killian replied with a smirk.
“Asshole,” Caleb said, then turned his attention to me. “Hey, Jamie.”
“Caleb,” I acknowledged. There was no sign of Sonya here, but another man sat at the far desk, suited and booted. He extended a hand for me to shake, which I did.
“Levi,” he said.
“Our cop on the team,” Killian explained.
“You have a cop on the team?”
“Of course we do,” he said as if that was a thing every Bat Cave had. “Look, let me show you what we have.”
“Me first,” I said, “Robbie went through some files and found things, check this.” I pressed the go button on the file upload, and Caleb whistled as files began to download to his secure area.
“That’s a lot of files.”
