LOGINDAMIANThe bedroom is dark except for the faint silver of moonlight slipping between the curtains, painting stripes across the sheets. Elara’s request hangs in the air between us—raw, desperate, and impossible to refuse.I roll her beneath me in one smooth motion, bracing my weight on my forearms so I can look down at her. Her eyes are wide, glistening with fear and need tangled so tightly I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.“It’s not the last time,” I repeat, voice low. “But I’ll give you everything you want tonight. Every touch. Every breath. Until you forget there’s a tomorrow at all.”I kiss her slowly at first—deeply, and deliberately, tasting the salt of her unshed tears on her lips. My tongue strokes hers in lazy rhythm, coaxing her to open, to melt, to let me in. She sighs into my mouth, hands sliding up my back, nails digging into me just enough to sting.I trail my mouth down her throat, biting softly at the pulse point that flutters under my lips. She arches,
DAMIEN The video call is scheduled for 10 AM. I'm in the office by 8, going over every detail with Hayes and the operator who'll play the bank manager—Miller, mid-fifties, with grey temples, and expensive suit that screams old money and discretion. "Remember," I tell him for the third time, "you're not trying to convince him. You're doing him a favor. This whole setup is for his benefit, his security, his paranoia. You're the professional facilitating an unusual but legitimate transaction." Miller nods, his expression perfectly bland. "I've run ops in hostile territory where one wrong word meant death, sir. I can sell a banking transaction." "Good." I check my watch. "Elara and Sophia will stay out of frame. Hayes, your team is monitoring audio and video feeds. The moment Richard agrees to the location and time, we move into final positioning." "Already coordinated," Hayes confirms. "Snipers are placed on rooftops surrounding the vault. There's surveillance in every direction an
ELARA After Sophia leaves the room, the silence feels heavier than before. Damien is still holding me, his arms is locked around my waist, and his chin resting on the top of my head like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he lets go. I can feel the tension in every of his muscle, and the way his heart hammers against my ear. Sophia pauses in the doorway, turns back. “Are we insane?” she asks quietly. “Trying to trap someone who’s been three steps ahead this whole time?” “Probably.” I pull away from Damien just enough to meet her eyes. “But we’re also out of options. And I’m tired of being afraid.” “Me too.” She crosses the room in two strides and wraps her arms around me. “I just want this to be over, to be able to live without looking over my shoulder. I just want dad to finally be gone for good.” “He will be.” I squeeze her tight. “Soon. One way or another, this ends soon.” She nods against my shoulder, then pulls back, wiping her eyes quickly. “I’ll get coffee. We’re going to need it
DAMIANThe interrogation room footage is grainy, but the fear on James O'Reilly's face is razor-sharp. Hayes’s team didn’t need long. All they needed was six hours of strategic pressure, and whispered promise of handing him over to people who don’t bother with due process. He cracked like cheap glass.Richard approached him two weeks ago in Los Angeles. He knew his apartment number, his favorite bar, the exact day he’d been transferred out of New York because of me. He had convinced him with a million in cash. Later he sent him a burner phones for their communication, and hasn't met Richard face-to-face. Therefore there is no real trail to follow.“He’s a ghost,” Hayes says, pausing the video on James’s tear-streaked confession. “James was useful only until he wasn’t. Richard gave him nothing that leads anywhere.”I lean back in the leather chair. “Then he’s done his job. Let the NYPD have him. Attempted murder, conspiracy, bribery. Twenty-five years, minimum. Make sure he understands
DAMIAN The bedroom smells like her—salt, sex, and that faint vanilla from her skin that drives me fucking insane. She’s lying on her stomach across the rumpled sheets, completely bare, the late-afternoon sun striping her back in gold. Her ass is still faintly pink from my hand earlier, the marks I left like a signature. She’s reading on her tablet again, legs lazily swinging, oblivious to how dangerous she looks right now. Every small shift makes her curves move in ways that have my cock thickening behind the sweatpants I threw on after the shower. I’ve been standing in the doorway watching her for minutes. Letting the hunger build. Letting it burn slow. She hasn’t noticed me yet. Good. I want her off-balance. Want her dripping before I even lay a finger on her. I cross the room silently and climb up the mattress and it dips under my knee. Her head snaps around, her eyes wide with surprise before turning dark with hunger and want. “Damien—” I don’t give her time to finish.
ELARADawn is barely breaking, the sky outside the bedroom windows is like a bruised lavender. Damien is still asleep beside me, sprawled on his back, with one arm thrown over his head, his chest rising and falling in the deep, even rhythm of someone who finally trusts the night not to take anything else away.I watch him for a long moment, looking at the sharp line of his jaw, the faint shadow of stubble, the way the sheet has slipped low enough to reveal the cut of his hips and the thick outline of him already half-hard even in sleep.Heat pools low in my belly.I want to taste him. I want to wake him with pleasure so sharp it borders on pain. I want to remind us both that we still belong to each other.Carefully, I slide down the mattress, pulling the sheet lower as I go. He doesn’t stir.I settle between his spread thighs, my palms smoothing up the hard muscle of his legs, feeling the warmth of his skin, and the faint tremor when my breath ghosts over him.He’s beautiful like this







