Page 15 of Oath
“No, you’re not.” I teased her and her soft laugh told me I was right. Then I nuzzled a kiss to her jaw. “Now, do me a favor and get the hell out of here. Go work on research with Alphabet or we’ll find another task for you. As hard as staying still and doing nothing is, Gracie, you are helping us. I promise.”
She stroked her fingers over my scalp, the caress light but it still sent electricity through my my system. “I do want to help—I want this to work. Whatever this is.”
Yeah, so did I. “You know we want you.”
“AB said I was one of yours too.” A small smile. “Still not one hundred percent sure how it will all work out. There are four of you and then there is me and?—”
“We’ll make it work,” I promised her. Another kiss and then I made myself put her down. “Be good for Alphabet, okay?”
“No promises.” She wrinkled that adorable nose of hers. “Sweet Cheeks?” At the doubtful tone, I laughed for real.
“You were trying to get under my skin.”
“And it worked.” She practically dared me to deny it.
“Hence the sweet cheeks.” When I raised my eyebrows, her grin just grew almost impossibly wider.
“I know, I’ll go and be good.”
She took three steps and I caught her arm to tug her back to me. “Grace…” Wrapping an arm around her shoulders to pin her back to my chest, I dipped my head to murmur. “Do you still love me?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. Not even an element of teasing to make me work for it. “Yes, I love you, Legend. I love all of you.”
Honestly, every fucking time she said it, it took me out at the knees. The ease, the way the words flowed off her tongue, but more the depth and the meaning.
“That’s how we make this work,” I said more determined than ever. “Trust me?”
“You drive a hard bargain.” But she rubbed her sexy little bottom right against my crotch as if to emphasize the words.
“You really are asking for it,” I growled and she laughed.
“Time for me to go now.” She pressed a kiss to my jaw before she pulled away. “Off to be a good girl with AB.” The jaunty little salute just made me shake my head.
Brat.
She was a brat and I didn’t want her any other way. She was also—happier. Color flushed her cheeks, and I made a mental promise tonotditch the conversations next time. Grace had all the words for us. She was putting herself out there and I needed to do the same thing.
Alphabet lifted his chin as Grace reached him and I nodded. “Look after her,” I mouthed the words and he nodded. No arguments there.
I made my way across the warehouse as they left via the side door. I needed to return to my circuit, but I also wanted to make sure they got off safely. Once they had, I returned to the quiet of the warehouse and resumed my vigilance.
Grace deserved a hell of a lot more than we were doing right now. Once we got all this done, once we wrapped this for Doc, found her sister, and dealt with the traffickers. I would prove to her how we could make this work.
Chapter
Five
GRACE
It seemed to take months, though it had really only been a matter of weeks for the guys to wrap up their mission for Doc. Even when I wanted to pace the walls, I fought against my own restlessness and impatience. They were doing exactly what they needed to do.
And me? I was keeping my promise… I stayed put when they needed me to stay put. I worked with Alphabet when he needed it, locked down when he had to go with the guys. I was neverfarfrom them, but I wasn’t on the front lines. I wasn’t a distraction.
Every single day I kept that promise felt like a betrayal to Amorette. One thing to come out of all that time, I found out how to haunt Reddit, Substacks, and more. I found all these nooks and crannies that dug into attorneys, their work, and their ethics. I learned things about the firm Amorette worked for that puzzled me.
They weren’tbadexactly, but their reputation in the area of law she focused on wasn’t the best. If anything, they were more known as high-powered criminal and corporate attorneys. The kind of work Amorette did for women in bad situations—almost all of it pro bono—was just public relations for the firm. Something they could use to scrub up their image.
Former associates who worked for them shared deep cuts on buried subreddits that AB found for me with his bots. The more I read, the more itpissedme off. Most of them were socially conscious, morally upright people—at least based on their posts. They’d gone into law looking tohelpothers.
