Constant

He leaned over me, swiping everything off the desk behind me and leveraged my body so his fingers could reach deeper. I gasped at the sensation, the fulfilling feeling of him finding the most sensitive part of me.

  “Fucking missed this,” he murmured against my temple. He trailed kisses down the side of my face, the corner of my eye, my jawline, the column of my throat. His lips caressed the top of my breast, and with his free hand, he nudged my bra to the side so he could close his mouth around my nipple and suck.

  I let out a gasp of pleasure, encouraging him to suck harder, longer. His tongue flicked and swirled and then his teeth scraped in a way that drove me crazy.

  Squirming, I tried to sit up straighter, tried to find some position in which I had more control, but with clever pressure from the fingers still moving inside me, he coaxed me to lean back further, dominating my body and my senses and my desire.

  “Let go, Caro,” he ordered in that deep, growly voice. “Give in.”

  I leaned back on my hands, spreading my legs wider, tilting my hips for his benefit. His fingers moved in and out slowly, pressing deeper each time, bringing me closer and closer each time. Then his thumb pressed that sensitive bud right where I needed him the most, right when I needed him the most, and he gave my nipple another long suck, letting me feel his teeth and tongue and all the wicked heat of his mouth.

  And there was nothing left for me to do other than obey his command to let go. Lights burst behind my eyes and my entire body arched and tightened and became something else entirely. He didn’t stop moving his fingers or driving me wild with what he was doing to my breasts. I was at his complete mercy, totally and completely his.

  When I came back to myself, my appendages were warm, limp with satisfaction, but still his fingers moved, refusing to let my desire go to sleep. I reached forward, wrapping my hand around him, caressing the hard length I had missed for far too long. He shivered at my touch, a full body tremble that revealed his own need.

  “Better not,” he murmured with a wicked half smile. “It’s been a while.”

  I nibbled on my bottom lip, wondering just how long. He tugged my underwear off and stepped between my thighs.

  “Are you clean?” he asked, his voice only slightly more coherent than before.

  “There’s been nobody since you,” I promised him.

  His eyes darkened and his hands landed on the insides of my thighs, spreading my legs wider. “No one?”

  I shook my head. “I couldn’t.” Looking down, unable to stand the intensity in his gaze or the fear that swallowed my heart whole, I said, “It’s only ever been you, Sayer.”

  He nudged my head up with a hand under my chin. “There’s been no one for me either. No one has even entered my thoughts since you.”

  My eyes bugged. I hated to ruin the moment or call him a liar, but come on! Boys were different than girls. I loved sex, but my body had been perfectly happy to go into asexual mode when I didn’t have the trust and safety of a committed relationship. Frankie didn’t seem to have that problem, but I’d been with the same man since I was fifteen. I wasn’t exactly prepared to go out into the world and find my sexual freedom.

  But Sayer was this gorgeous, healthy, virile male. How could he have possibly waited for me? Especially after I hurt him so deeply? After everything I put him through, it seemed that at the very least, revenge sex was in order.

  “How?” I demanded of him. “How has there been no one since me?”

  His hand cupped my jaw, his thumb brushing over my cheekbone. With all the sincerity and raw, genuine truth, he held my gaze and said, “Because it felt like cheating. And I couldn’t. No matter how angry I was or frustrated or lost… I couldn’t make myself be unfaithful to you. I had no desire to be with anyone but you. So yeah, it’s been a long fucking five years. But it was worth it, yeah? Because now it can be you.” He slid his boxer briefs down and pressed himself against me. His mischievous smile came back and he leaned over me, forcing me to lie back on my elbows. “Also, prison helped.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh, knowing he was still telling the truth.

  I wrapped my legs around his back and trembled at the intensity of the pleasure. “Then we have a lot of time to make up for,” I whispered, turned on all over again by this incredible man that had remained faithful to me after all this time.

  He slid into me without another second’s hesitation and I gasped for breath at the full feeling. “Oh, my God,” I moaned, trying to wrap my head around his size and hardness and heat. “Oh, God, Sayer.”

  “Worth it,” he murmured against my breast. “So fucking worth the wait.” He shivered again, and stilled like he had to acclimate to the sensation. I was thankful for the second to get used to him as well. I needed to process this, us, that we were doing this again after so much time, after I’d run from him and after he’d chased me until he found me. In my racing thoughts, I was still flipping through his letters and trying to reconcile his presence in my town and in this office and inside of me.

  But then he started to move and I forgot everything I was trying to work through. I pretty much forgot the entire English language. We ceased speaking and flirting and treating each other gently in favor of treating each other much rougher—but in the good way.

  My heels dug into his back as he drove me closer and closer to that blissful edge all over again. I threw my arms around his neck, lifting my body up for an incredible new angle. He made a delicious sound in the back of his throat and I moaned something I didn’t even understand. It sounded like more, and he did not hesitate to deliver.

  He pulled back, taking in my face, and the way I gasped for breath. My fingers dug into his shoulder blades as I held onto him, letting him take as much as he wanted from me. As much as he needed.

  “So fucking beautiful,” he murmured. “You’re mine, Caroline. You always have been.” He pressed in deeper, making spots dance in my vision. “You always will be.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, my voice nothing more than a pant. “Always. I will always be yours.”

  His hands dug under my ass, lifting me to a better position for him. I let out a loud cry of pleasure as he went deeper and deeper until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.

  “I love you,” he murmured against my cheek. “I will always love you.”

  I barely found the sanity to respond, but my words were still truth, my lies were dead and buried. “I love you too,” I told him, feeling it to my bones, to my soul, to the very ends of me.

  We came together in an explosion of fireworks and passion, our bodies slick with sweat and sex. He didn’t leave me. Instead, he continued to press into me, wrapping his arms around me in the tightest hug. He buried his face in the crook of my neck, pressing gentle kisses there.

  He stayed like that for a long time and I soaked up every second of it. My arms firmly around his neck, my cheek resting against the top of his head, my legs still languidly wrapped around him. It was heaven. It was healing. It was everything I had been missing since the day I left him.

  “Gus is going to kill us,” he murmured against my skin.

  I looked down and laughed. We were definitely on Gus’s desk. Sayer’s sat untouched across the room, littered with the letters that had changed everything.

  “He just might.” Realizing that in order for Gus to be pissed off, he’d have to know that we had sex on his desk, I blushed fiercely. “Oh, God,” I groaned. “Let’s not give him all the dirty details. Maybe you could just tell him there was a problem with his desk. Like a chemical spill or something.”

  His laugh shook his chest, prompting him to hold me tighter against him. I savored the moment, relishing every second of his skin against mine. I had always loved this feeling. The raw heat of him. The feel of his hard muscle beneath soft skin. His chest against mine, his heart beating in tandem with mine.

  “I don’t know that Gus would believe a chemical spill ruined his desk.”

  “He should,” I said practically. “Depending on
the chemical, they can be very dangerous.”

  He laughed again and we had another few minutes of perfect peace, tangled together. But something shifted in him, quieted. I was suddenly afraid of what was next.

  He pulled back and I was startled by the serious look in his eyes, especially since I mostly felt like a limp noodle with zero strength to stand up or stay awake or even sit here by myself without his support. He’d taken everything out of me in the very best way.

  Apparently, I’d done the opposite to him and infused him with energy. The intensity inside him was practically vibrating his whole body.

  His voice pitched low, gravelly and sincere. “I don’t expect us to just pick up where we left off, Six. But we’re together now, yeah? That was you finally admitting this is real between us, that we belong together… that we still love each other.”

  “Y-you want to be together?”

  His expression darkened. “In my head, we never parted. You know, since you didn’t have the guts to break up with me.”

  “Are you picking a fight?” I almost laughed. He was absurd.

  “I’m trying to get on the same page,” he countered. “I don’t want to guess at what you’re thinking. I want to hear the words.”

  I thought about Juliet. I thought about all that I’d kept a secret from him. I thought about why I left to begin with.

  Did any of that matter now?

  Juliet was my daughter. I couldn’t deny the fighting instinct inside me to protect her, to want to introduce Sayer into her life gently and carefully and with her best interest always in mind. But at the same time, Sayer was her dad. Didn’t he have the right to know her? To be in her life and see how absolutely special she was?

  “There are things we have to talk about,” I told him. My phone started buzzing in my purse across the room. I tried to ignore it. “There are things I haven’t told you.”

  He gave me a look. “Caroline, you haven’t told me anything.”

  “That’s what I mean.” My phone started buzzing all over again. “I-I left for a reason. A very important reason.” The phone quit buzzing. Then started up again.

  He quirked a brow. “Do you need to get that?”

  The phone stopped vibrating. Only to start all over again a second later.

  “Apparently,” I told him. “I’ll call back. It will just take a sec. We should get dressed.”

  He stepped back, giving me room to slide off the desk. I realized I was naked and we hadn’t used protection and sex was messy. Grabbing some tissues nearby, I used them as discreetly as I could while Sayer got dressed behind me.

  For the few minutes it took me to dress, I felt unfairly exposed. The air grew thick with tension and weird with unsaid things. Was this what a one-night stand was like? Was it always this awkward?

  No, he’d said he wanted to be together again. He said he still thought of us as a couple.

  This was my issue. Not his.

  I took a steadying breath and buttoned my jeans. My phone had continued buzzing, so I finally reached for it in my purse, digging past the stolen items to find it.

  The daycare had called four times and Francesca had called seven. My pocket started buzzing and I nearly screamed until I realized it was my burner phone. Pulling it out, I didn’t even check the caller. There was only one person who had this number.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Where have you been?” Francesca shouted in the phone. “Did something happen? Are you okay?”

  How to answer that question. “I’m okay.”

  That was not the answer she wanted. “Then why the hell did it take you so long to answer?”

  “Geez, Francesca, I’m—”

  “Someone took her, Caro! Before I could get her, someone picked her up! The teachers had just called the cops when I showed up, but she’s already gone. I don’t know where she went. The cops are going to be here any second and I don’t know what to tell them–”

  My blood iced over with fear, turning my limbs brittle, paper thin. “Slow down, Frankie. Tell me the whole story,” I whispered, sounding calmer than I ever had. It was a façade, a tool to get the information I needed. I wasn’t calm. I wasn’t close to fucking calm.

  Sayer saw my distress and walked over to stand next to me. His hands landed on my shoulders, comforting, warming the frost, anchoring me to this planet.

  “It’s Juliet,” she wailed, full on crying now. “She’s gone! Someone took her!”

  “Who?” I roared into the phone.

  “I-I don’t know. Sayer maybe?”

  “He’s with me,” I answered quickly.

  I felt her surprised pause through the phone. She had questions but now was the wrong time to ask them. And my answers wouldn’t help the immediate problem at hand.

  “What’s wrong, Six?” Sayer demanded.

  “The cops just got here,” Frankie said. “You need to get here as fast as possible. They’re going to want to talk to you.”

  Sayer’s grip tightened in an attempt to get my attention. “What is wrong, Caroline?”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I told her. Another layer of ice froze my hands and face and lungs.

  “I’ll see what I can find out here,” she promised. Her voice dropped, infused with sincerity and a lifetime of surviving this bullshit. “We’ll find her, Caro. I promise. She’s going to be okay.”

  But was she? What monster had her? What were they going to do to her? What did they hope they could get from her?

  How could this have happened? I picked that daycare because of their security policies. Goddamnit, I was going to murder the son of a bitch that took her.

  “Caroline, you need to tell me what’s wrong,” Sayer demanded, taking the phone from me and closing it.

  I lifted my gaze and blinked slowly at him. For a half-second I was grateful for the hell he had been through the last five years. There was no way to prepare for the information I was about to give him, but at the very least he had been toughened, built stronger, sharpened to a double-edged sword that could withstand this blow.

  “You have a daughter,” I told him, voice rough with unbearable agony. “And someone kidnapped her.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Five Years Ago

  I was going to die. They were going to fucking kill me.

  Who takes meetings with FBI agents? Who?? Girls that have death wishes, that’s who.

  I remembered what Fat Jack looked like all bloated and disfigured and dead. Oh, my god, that was going to be me.

  Was there a way to get word to Sayer first? They would have to kill me. That was a given. But I didn’t want to be strung up by my feet. That was my one wish. Sayer would intervene on my behalf, wouldn’t he? I mean, he’d of course let them kill me. But he owed me some kind of dignity after five years together, right?

  I didn’t want to die upside down like some twisted version of the apostles. I didn’t want my tongue cut out or my hands chopped off. I didn’t want to be gutted.

  Mason Payne walked into the abandoned warehouse flanked by two federal goons. Some of my fear disappeared in light of misplaced pride. Was the big, bad, FBI agent afraid of little ole me?

  That put a promising spin on things.

  I pushed off the column I’d been leaning on and walked over to face the absolute bane of my existence. A chance meeting when I was fifteen years old had propelled me into a never-ending game of cat and mouse with this guy.

  Sometimes I was the mouse. And sometimes I was the cat. Today, I was the confused snake. I thought I was in control, but this could be the day when the cat figured out how to bite me in two.

  He promised this time was different, but Mason’s promises meant nothing to me. Mason took lying to an entirely different level. I mean, I was a professional liar too, but his were buried treasure chests and holy grails and the arc of the covenant—pretty and shiny, but the booby traps would kill you before you ever reached the prize. They were heavy with deadly consequences and dang
erously light on the reward. I didn’t build houses of cards based on promises of immunity or lessened sentences. I didn’t dangle plea bargains in other people’s faces pretending like they were Christmas presents.

  I didn’t use the law to manipulate, coerce and control.

  Coughing to cover a smile, I tried not to check out his clothes, which were significantly nicer than anything I’d seen him in before. And by nicer, I meant designer. The last time we’d “run into each other” had been three months ago at a fundraising party for a senate seat race. All of DC had come out in their best black tie to throw money around like it was confetti. Only Mason’s best black tie was from the discount bin at a men’s big and tall store. His cheap polyester and coffee-stained tie were a walking fire hazard.

  Of course I wouldn’t have missed an opportunity like that. The pakhan wanted a certain judge’s cooperation in an upcoming case. And I wanted the Cartier pearls that belonged to the wife of a certain judge. I had been posing as an aid for the judge until I could get the code to his super safe and find an opportunity to break into it. The job was taking longer than I had originally anticipated.

  So that meant attending a high-profile function—which I knew was a dangerous game in itself given the amount of law enforcement power present. The function wasn’t all aboveboard. I’d spotted Irish soldiers near the bar and an Italian underboss dancing with his wife. There was even a South African drug lord near the food table.

  But had Mason singled any of them out? No. No, he had not. And when he’d asked me to dance, I couldn’t say no. He’d given me shit about him being close to finding something on me and I’d given him shit about his sense of style.

  Out of the two of us, I was the only one with accurate information.

  Not that I believed I was completely untouchable. But so far, I’d covered my tracks. I’d been careful. I’d kept my hands clean and my nose clean and done my due diligence with every job. Save for the one he tried to run me down at when I was fifteen.

  Luckily for me, the man had no probable cause to arrest me or detain me or question me. He had nothing on me. He’d simply recognized me from a list of potential Russian-associated Sixes. And being the green little newbie to the bureau he was, had decided to take that opportunity to introduce himself with a spectacle in the most public of ways.