Page 55 of When Kings Fall

I felt his smile against my palm.

“Want to know why, lovely?”

He nodded and muffled a confirmation into my hand.

I sucked in a breath to steady myself for what I was about to put out there, what I’d wanted to for a while. Gazing at him, I uttered, “Because I love you.”

A whole slew of emotions flitted across his face.

Surprise.

Awe.

Excitement.

But most of all, pure happiness.

He eased my hand down and held it between us. “I love you too, Brianna. So fucking much.” He stroked my hair reverentially. “Everything begins and ends with you, Wildflower.”

“It does for me too.”

“Fuck. You have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear that.”

In the next second he had me squealing as he rolled on top of me.

His palms came down either side of my head, caging me in deliciously.

My whole body pulsed at his closeness, his heat, the sexy intensity coming off him.

“Uh uh,” he said, gazing down at me. “Not that.” He leaned in, teasing me as his warm breath fanned over the side of my neck causing goosebumps that had me trembling in the best way. “This.”

He brushed his lips over my throat and then he was planting soft and sweet kisses over my cheeks, my head, on my pendant, my forehead, making me giggle.

It culminated with a cute one to my nose that had my heart squeezing for him.

He eased away, pushing up on his hands. “As much as I want to sink into you, my Wildflower, I have no doubt that you’re sore from last night. And I need to finish working.”

He pushed off me and I sat up, but before disappointment could settle he wrapped his arm around me and tucked me into his side.

He grabbed his laptop with his free hand and settled it on his lap.

“How’s it going with that?”

He sighed. “Well, as you know I finally managed to access Royce’s backup server a couple of days ago after he disabled the original one I’d hacked into. He’s been trying to track Lynch’s movements too without alerting the fucker. It strongly suggests they’re not on friendly terms, especially when coupled with Kyle Trass hiding and using a false identity. It could’ve been him not wanting to get pulled back into Lynch’s shit—he regretted what went down with our kidnapping—but now it seems like a hell of a lot more than that. So, anyway, Royce has managed to pick up an additional three locations than I had already marked that Lynch has been at in the last few months. But it’s still not enough. He can’t nail him down either.”

“We need to discern some sort of pattern then.”

“Exactly. That, along with more chatter and sightings. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m also running my own developed facial recognition software but it’s going to take time due to the massive ground covered through all these sightings. I’ve written a program that will bring all of this together and be able to predict his movements going forward. Once I acquire a little more data. I’ve also sent a message out through the underground as Royce Humphrey pretending there’s an urgent need to meet with Lynch. That’s a long shot but still worth a try.”

“Wow, that’s beyond, Levi.”

He grinned. “It’s what I do, baby.”

I grinned back then told him, “I’ll bring Vixen in on this. I have a handful of them in similar underground circles. I’ll have them work on acquiring the additional data you need.”

“Perfect. Thank you. But are you sure you want to activate more of your girls while you’ve got the Peter Hall mission in progress?”

“It’ll be fine.” I kissed his cheek. “Speaking of that mission, where is Mason? And Colt?”

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