My fingers traced the curve of her neck, mapping territory I’d never allowed myself to want before. Her pulse raced beneath my touch. Mine matched it, systems accelerating beyond parameters I recognized.
She pulled me down beside her on the bed, hands exploring with increasing confidence. Each brush of her fingers dismantled another piece of my conditioning. Each kiss erased another mission directive.
“Is this okay?” she whispered against my mouth.
No one had ever asked what I wanted. What I needed. What I chose.
“Yes,” I answered, my voice unrecognizable to myself. Human. Wanting.
Her hands slid under my shirt, warm against my skin. I shivered—not from cold, not from fear. From sensation without purpose beyond itself.
I should have stopped this. Assets didn’t feel. Assets didn’t want. Assets completed missions.
Protocol violation complete. Asset status: compromised. Retrieval team dispatched.
The voice grew distant, a radio losing signal. I silenced it with another kiss.
But I wasn’t an asset tonight. I was a man finding my way back to myself through her touch.
Maeve tugged at my shirt, a question in her eyes. I answered by helping her remove it. Her hands explored the scars thatmapped my history—a history I still didn’t remember—with gentle fingertips instead of clinical assessment.
My thumb brushed the red poker chip in my pocket one last time before I let it fall to the floor beside the bed. Whatever it meant, whoever I was, could wait until morning. Tonight was about who I was choosing to become.
For the first time since they unmade me, I chose. Not for the mission. Not for survival.
For her. For them. For the man I might become.
Chapter 10
Maeve
His mouth claimed mine with surprising tenderness, a stark contrast to the lethal precision that defined his every other movement. The kiss deepened from hesitant exploration into something hungry and desperate. My back pressed against the mattress as he followed me down, his weight a controlled pressure above me.
I broke away, struggling to breathe against the onslaught of sensation. My fingertips found the landscape of scars across his bare chest, mapping them like territory both foreign and familiar. Each raised line told a story—not just of violence inflicted, but of survival. Of endurance that matched my own.
I wanted to cover each of them with tender kisses, to soothe how they had been caused.
“I hate them for what they’ve done to you…” I murmured against his skin.
His muscles coiled beneath my touch. Pain flashed behind his eyes, tightening the corners of his mouth. “When I try to remember, it’s like reaching into fog.”
“Don’t,” I whispered, pressing my palm flat against his chest. His heartbeat thundered against my hand—proof of the humanity they’d failed to erase. “We don’t need your past. Not right now.”
His eyes darkened, not with desire alone but with something more complex—relief, confusion, hunger. “I want to see you,” he said, fingers finding the hem of my borrowed shirt.
A fair exchange—his vulnerability for mine. I nodded once, and the thin cotton slipped over my head.
The cool air hardened my nipples instantly. Rather than cover myself, I watched his reaction, needing to see what this meant to him. His gaze traveled slowly across my newly exposed flesh, but it wasn’t a calculated assessment I saw in his eyes. It was a wonder.
“Maeve,” he rasped, my name sounding like a revelation on his lips.
His hand slid behind my neck while the other curved around my waist, bringing our bodies together with deliberate slowness. The first touch of his bare chest against mine sent electricity crackling along my nerves. His skin burned hot, the ridges of his scars creating a friction against my softness that made me gasp.
When his mouth found mine again, he took control completely. The kiss started slow, almost questioning, before something broke between us—some final barrier of restraint. He deepened the kiss with a groan that vibrated through me, his tongue sweeping into my mouth with a thoroughness that left no room for thought.
My fingers dug into his shoulders as his mouth moved from my lips to my throat. The first touch of his teeth against my pulse sent a shiver through me that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with surrender.
“This is madness,” I whispered, the words escaping before I could stop them.
