My breath hitches at the declaration, my limbs moving to straddle his lap. I lean down, holding his face in my hands. “Harkin, I—” I break off, clearing my throat. The soreness creeps in more fully with my emotions clogging the way.

“I don’t expect you to say anything back, sweetness. I know?—”

“Will you shut up, so I can tell you I fucking love you too?” The world stops around us as I let the words I’ve held close to my chest for months loose, and then it’s like time finally catches up at top speed.

His lips slam into mine with the ferocity of a starved animal. We’re all tongue and teeth and lips. My hips grind against his stiff shaft, tilting at just the right angle to sheath him to the hilt. Lost in the moment, I wasn’t sure we’d ever make it to. Harkin makes love to me until we’re both sweaty and breathless.

Coming down from our euphoria, I smile when he whispers against my skin. “Say it again.”

“I love you.”

FIFTEEN

HARKIN

Bonnie & Clyde - Rosenfeld

The silent night creeps in around us. The only light comes in from the crack of the barely open bedroom door. My eyes adjusted as the hours passed, letting me watch Keira as she slept soundly on my chest. I relish every minuscule detail, memorizing them for my own personal catalog: her hair a wild mess of long locks, the freckles dotted along her cheekbones, and her thick eyelashes resting close as she snoozes peacefully.

The mechanical latch of a door somewhere off in the house pulls me from my obsessive observations. Based on the two sets of quiet feet and the excited thudding of paws heading in my direction, James and Stacey have finally arrived. Sliding free from under Keira’s warmth, I kiss her forehead just in time for the excited pup to come charging into the room.

She pauses, dropping on her haunches when she sees me sitting up in bed. “Okay, fine. Take my spot, you spoiled brat,” Iwhisper and get up, making space for her to cuddle in next to her favorite person.

Throwing on a pair of sweats from my carry-on, I latch the bedroom door behind me quietly before heading in search of James. I find him getting set up in the small dining room off the kitchen. The coffee pot is already crackling to life, filling the space with its fragrant aroma.

“You guys could have waited until morning,” I say, grabbing a couple of mugs.

“It is morning,” he deadpans.

I look over at the time on the oven. Three forty-five displays in bright green. “The type of morning normal people adhere to.”

“Semantics.”

Ain’t that the fucking truth.

“Plus, suburbia with blondie was too domestic.”

“Right. You keep telling yourself that,” I tease, smacking him on the back and handing over the mug of black coffee.

“What went down once you intersected, Keira?”

“A mess of fucking massive proportions. It turns out she was visiting a friend of the ex-variety. One with skills to rival mine, apparently. She seems to have access to government databases I don’t mess with.”

“Interesting. I didn’t find anyone with those connections when I looked into Keira.”

“Well, if she’s as good as Keira thinks she is, that would make sense. But anyway, she told her about the situation. A little more than I would have liked, but Nikita said she’d do some digging and get back to us. I gave her my card.”

“We can’t bank on her knowing anything we don’t already know. I say we just get back to planning a trip to the coordinates you sent over,” James suggests.

“Were you able to get a copy of the blueprints for the building?” I ask.

“Yeah, my contact was able to pull them from the city. The problem is that the latest version is eighty years old, and there’s no mention of any remodeling done at the site. Based on the video you sent, compared to the prints, I can’t locate a possible area that would make sense. That room was subterranean. The prints only show maintenance tunnels below the body of the building.”

“That’s something. The building was originally a school, and then that portion closed, but they’ve kept the church up and running. If they’ve been bought off, I’m not surprised expansions or renos never made it into the city’s database,” I add.

“I can have someone go take a look and report back,” he offers.

“Yeah, based on the message with the video, they’re waiting for me. It’ll be a trap either way, but we might as well go in prepared.”