by Chloe Barlow
The flood of passion, emotions, excitement, and sheer closeness built into a cresting tidal wave rushing through her body, until it crashed, sweeping away with it all her fear and leaving only intoxicating hope.
She gasped, arching upward toward him with the sensation, but he didn’t stop there. He sped his strokes within her, sending her back over the edge of blinding pleasure over and over. Claudia moaned so loudly, the sound could no longer withhold her release of sensation. She screamed aloud — unaware she’d even intended to do so.
Trey paused a moment, allowing her to process what she’d experienced.
Does he know I will never be the same, after this? she wondered.
After this moment of recovery, emboldened by the sheer euphoria coursing through her veins, Claudia decided to take advantage of the absence of her clunky pump. She hooked her left leg around Trey tighter, and used the leverage, along with the pressure of her hand on his waist to flip them over.
It took every ounce of her strength to keep the movement tight enough to prevent herself from flopping onto the floor and humiliating herself. Yet, it was worth it to experience the blissful sensation of straddling him again — albeit in such a different way than when they’d first met. He had slipped out of her body in the process, but she still felt the impact of his presence — as though he would always be a part of her.
Trey stared up at her with a delighted, but somewhat gobsmacked look on his face, before his lips broke into an open and honest grin.
“Easy little tiger, now you’re just showing off.”
They both started laughing. Claudia’s hair fell around them, capturing the mirth in a warm, dark cocoon around their faces.
“I guess you just bring that out of me. See, I’ve been fantasizing about taking you like this since I knocked you on your ass that first day. I hope you don’t mind,” she forced out through her giddiness.
Trey gradually fell silent, his smile turning into a serious frown. Reaching up with both hands, he smoothed her hair back and rested his grip along the sides of her head.
“Please always be whoever you really are when you’re with me.”
“No matter how much it may seem like that scares the shit out of you?” she murmured gently.
“Especially because of that.”
Claudia smiled tenderly, leaning down to kiss him and sliding her tongue along the bottom edge of his upper teeth, then venturing it into his mouth as she maneuvered him back inside of her with the movements of her hips.
His hands moved to her bottom, guiding her up and down over his still rock-hard length. He seemed to be touching some deep place within the hidden recesses of her body. It felt as though he was directly connected to her soul, yet she wasn’t frightened.
With each upward thrust, they breathed and moved as one, until she began shaking, and her muscles clenched in strong spasms around him. She screamed, even as Trey’s deep groans joined with her own primal sounds.
Claudia jerked a few times, before collapsing into the warm circle of Trey’s arms.
He kissed the top of her hair and she caught sight of the glistening lake through the wall of windows alongside them.
With a kiss of her own to Trey’s tattooed neck, she closed her eyes, feeling as though the stillness of their temporary world was holding them, as well.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Trey took a slow, deep inhalation of Claudia’s soft hair as he ran his hand along the curve of her bronze upper right arm. He’d been drawing the outlines of imaginary tattoos with the gentle swipe of his fingertips for some time, as she sighed with contentment against him.
They hadn’t let go of each other, except for the few minutes she’d taken to reattach her insulin pump and glucose monitor. He’d studied each of her practiced moments, even her decision to grab a granola bar from her purse on the coffee table, with the focused attention of a loyal apprentice. She’d teased him mercilessly for his open fixation on her blood sugar, but he’d been unfazed.
As soon as Claudia was back in his arms, he tried to ignore the fact that a mere yard away lurked the vital, yet unfinished, task before him. He was convinced Lexis and her team were behind David’s death, which meant they were a very real and imminent threat — especially if their sights were on Claudia, as Stephen suspected.
Trey had learned enough from chasing after her team with Stephen over the years that once you were a target of Lexis it was only a matter of when — not if — she would get you.
His brain knew he needed to get back to work, but his heart wouldn’t let him stop touching the petite beauty next to him. Instead, he stared out across the lake, studying each undulation in the still water caused by the occasional fallen leaf.
Lying there with her, he felt none of the cloying emptiness, or nagging desire to disappear, which usually consumed him after sex — it was quite the opposite, actually. For some reason he was filled with a surreal feeling of completeness, compounded by a need to be closer to her. It probably was a dangerous sign, but it did him no good to worry about it now.
He knew he didn’t fit into Claudia’s life for any kind of real future — not really. She may be a badass at heart, but the girl had spent her whole life convincing herself she wanted to be some kind of a comic book rules-bound G-Woman.
Trey might be in the throes of a full-on flirtation with legitimacy at the moment, but he was not stupid enough to think he could make it last. He knew himself well enough to be aware he was notorious for only being able to be “good” for a short period of time — and that didn’t even count the shit he was still hiding from Claudia. Secrets and walls may have been perfectly fine with the other women, but Claudia was different — special. She deserved better than that, than him. It was bad enough he’d let them both get in this deep.
The unavoidable fact was he’d have to fall from her branches someday, leaving her to grow and be strong without the poisonous effect of a past like his — a man like him.
“I finally get it,” Claudia murmured, breaking through the brooding silence, which had been settling like fog around his heart.
“What’s that?” Trey asked, moving his arm to secure her closer along the length of his body on the thankfully deep sofa beneath them.
“All these years, I never understood how guys could make girls act so crazy. The way my friends would chase after Wyatt…”
“Um, can we please leave your brother out of this moment?” he asked, moving his eager fingers to tickle the edge of her armpit.
“Shut up!” she screeched, laughing and squirming from the contact. With a hard pinch, she stopped him in his tracks.
“Ow! You’re brutal, woman.”
“You knew that when you met me, tattoo boy,” she challenged. After a beat, she eased her body up to meet his eyes. “Come on, you get what I mean,” she added, curling back down into the crook of his arm like a well-fed kitten. Looking back up at him with soft brown eyes, framed with the longest lashes he’d ever seen, she purred, “I’d see these smart, capable young women suddenly turn into illogical goo over some random dude they met at a frat party, or worse…on Tinder. It all seemed so stupid to me — a pointless distraction from our goals…”
“Are you saying I drive you nuts?”
Claudia looked down, swirling the index finger of her right hand over the Sanskrit shield on his shoulder. Eventually she stated, “Something like that…” Her hand moved up, tentatively running over the side of his neck. “What does this tattoo mean…the one on your neck? Is it a starling?”
“Good guess. It’s the first tattoo I ever got.”
“Why a starling, first? I mean, they’re kind of assholes…”
“I didn’t know birds could be assholes. You should work for the National Audubon Society with that kind of insight.”
Claudia laughed and responded, “I was pretty nerdy about nature when I was little. And don’t doubt it, birds can definitely be assholes. Starlings are some of the biggest dicks of them all. They’re very tr
eacherous. They’ll steal another bird’s nest, or leave their own eggs in a nest for another bird to feed and raise.”
The memory of A.J. gleefully naming their virus “Starling” sent a chill through his blood, enough to make him want to veer the topic away somehow.
“Have you ever seen starling flocks flying together?” he queried.
“I have. They wreak havoc on us in Texas. But they are beautiful. Like a dancing cloud, that lives and breathes with its very own mind.”
“And you think something that seemingly perfect can be bad?”
“Oh, yes. Absolutely. The idea that a creature being pretty or powerful makes every other bad thing it does somehow ‘okay’ is just ridiculous. I mean — even jerks need a gang.”
“You really are obsessed with doing the right thing, aren’t you, little one?”
“Of course. I may have been little when my dad disappeared, but before then I saw all too well what happens when people just care about themselves…hurting those around them simply because they can. That’s how starlings are, but people love them because on the outside they are so pretty and seem so exceptional.”
Trey squeezed her closer to him, cradling her in the crook of his arm, smiling at her moral indignation over a bird.
“Beautiful things can cloud the mind, that’s true. I know you make me downright stupid.”
“Oh, please,” she mumbled, but he could feel her mouth breaking into a grin against his chest. “But stop trying to change the subject. Answer my question. Why’d you get a starling, first?”
Trey breathed deeply, staring at the ceiling for a few moments before answering.
“It’s to remind me of someone I lost. And what I didn’t do to protect them.”
“Where is she now?”
“You just assume it’s a she?” he asked, moving his head to scan her face, and the inquisitive, dark brown gaze she’d leveled at him.
“I may be younger than you, old man, but I’m not an idiot,” she answered with a lightness, which didn’t match her intense eyes.
Trey swallowed hard. His instinct was always to deflect or shut down, but a new urge was taking over him — the yearning to share part of him with this extraordinary person.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want…”
“Her name was A.J.”
“Was?”
“Yes…was. She’s gone. A.J. is dead.”
“I’m so sorry. How… I mean… What happened?”
“For a girl trying to be a hard-ass fed, you’re awfully polite,” Trey teased, eager to change the subject, yet fully aware Claudia would never let it go until she got the closest thing to the whole story he was willing to give her.
“I met her my sophomore year of college. She was a genius with computers. A natural…like you,” he added, taking a moment to deal with the acidic shot of pain in his throat. “We made a powerful mimicking virus together when we were at Stanford. She named it ‘Starling.’ And that, as they say, was the beginning of the end.”
“Oh,” Claudia said on a heavy breath. He knew she wanted to ask more questions, but he breathed a small sigh of relief when she went back to stroking his shoulder tattoo.
“And this one? Is it Sanskrit?”
“Right again. This was my second, after the asshole starling, of course.”
“What does it mean?”
The tickling of Claudia’s fingertips over the flesh of his shoulder sent his body into intense arousal all over again, even if the content of their conversation was anything but pleasant. It hit Trey just how formidable a hold she had over him.
“It’s from the Bhagavad Gita. It translates roughly to: ‘I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.’”
“That’s pretty dark, even for you, Trey. I mean, jeez, that’s what Oppenheimer quoted when he saw the A-bomb being tested.”
He chuckled lightly. “Nothing gets past you. You must feel pretty lucky, being the only one getting to see what a miserable shit I am.”
“Like I won the lottery. Stop trying to distract me.”
“Fine. I got it in India, the year after I dropped out of Stanford.”
“Because of whatever happened with A.J.?”
“Yes. I learned no matter how well-meaning a person may be, they can still cause mass destruction. And we Adlers, well, we’ve cornered the market on it, because even the most seemingly beautiful emotions can leave nothing but waste behind them. I’d had enough. I decided it was safest for the world if I never engaged with anyone again.”
“But what about your friendship with Griffen, and the Taylor investigation?”
“I tried to draw lines there.”
“Then…what about…”
“You?”
“Yes,” she stated with a matter-of-fact sternness, sitting up with her legs draped across his lap. “What about me?”
“I’ve fucked up my philosophy royally with you, little one. But I don’t want to fix it, and that is terrifying as fuck.”
“Why?”
“Because nothing is so simple. Maybe if I’d met you before…when I was eighteen.”
“Nope. That wouldn’t have worked. I was eleven,” she answered, tickling his rib cage and grinning.
“You know what I mean, you tiny monster,” Trey answered, smiling for a moment, before falling back under the weight of his own resignation. “But the fact is no matter how much I may care for you, eventually, you’re going to want a normal life — with a sweet little Labradoodle panting in the backseat on your day off, as you go to meet friends at the dog park. I’ll only disappoint.”
Claudia straddled his lap, ruffling his hair with her right hand. “Hmm, that does sound nice. But I’ve always pictured myself adopting a rescue.”
“I’m serious.”
“What else is new?” she grumbled. “Come on! Stop worrying all the time. Why can’t you just be with me? Why do we have to know what happens next?”
“I can’t help it.”
“You know, most girls who get abducted without warning by a sexy tattooed older man with a mysterious past figure they’ll at least get some fun out of it. You’re too busy being moody. I’m sure there’s a moor around here somewhere. Want me to look on Google Maps?”
Trey grinned in spite of himself, resting his hands on her narrow waist before stating, “So I’m disappointing you? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Oh, yes. Well, not totally…”
“Good. All right, smart-ass, how about this? We take the morning off. I’ll find us an old movie in one of the many dark closets in this place.”
“Works for me,” Claudia answered with a smile, slipping her smooth legs off his lap slowly enough to make him rethink ever doing anything that required her body not be plastered against his.
As much as he’d wanted to hold her a little longer, Trey had taken advantage of his extended time alone wandering through the cabin to sort through his own thoughts.
Not since A.J. had anyone made him feel so full of foolish optimism. He just needed to find a cure for the Adler mania, which would inevitably come next — or was already beginning.
Proud of the movie selection he’d found on his reconnaissance mission, Trey made his way back to her with a spring in his step he couldn’t suppress. He grinned to himself at the sight of her hunched over a computer. She’d snuck away to dress in a pair of worn jeans and a thin long-sleeved shirt. Even from behind she looked like his thirteen-year-old wet dream.
Apparently, just like him, she was unstoppable when there was a problem to be solved.
“Okay, that took forever,” he boomed, and her shoulders stiffened when he broke her reverie. “If you can believe it, I’ve been ransacking this place the whole time.” She didn’t turn around, but he kept prattling on. “We’ve got some great choices. A couple of my favorites, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, or we could go full throwback geek and watch War Games. I feel like I can guess your choice. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone you watched a 1980�
�s Matthew Broderick pretend to be a hacker.”
Trey flipped a VHS tape in his right hand, feeling beyond happy and comfortable, until he saw Claudia spin around in her chair, the computer monitor glowing behind her in haunting backlight. Her sweet, young face was burning with a rage he’d never seen before.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Why don’t you tell me?” she demanded, standing and immediately planting her hands on her hips. She stepped aside and Trey’s mouth went dry at the sight of himself in grainy black and white, meeting with David the night he died. “Take your time and have a look. I’ve watched it a few times already, but I’m sure you’ll want some time to make up an excuse.” He opened his mouth to speak, but for once, he had nothing to say. “Oh, no quick and witty comeback this time?” she challenged. “You’re seriously going to play dumb right now?”
“How? I mean…”
“That’s the best you can do? Fine. I hacked into the federal prison’s surveillance. I figured I could make a little headway on figuring out who killed David. And what do you know? There you are.”
“It’s not what it looks like.”
“Wow. A blessed savant such as yourself, I thought you would be smart enough not to insult my intelligence.”
“Come on, calm down. You don’t need to worry about that…”
“Oh, I don’t? So you get to run every part of my life, is that it? I’m just supposed to trust you? You get to have all the information and I sit here in the dark, like an idiot? I get to fall in love with you while you control the world and call all the shots?” she demanded, tears welling in her eyes.
“You’re falling in love with me?” he questioned, though his voice was a hoarse whisper.
She tugged at the edge of her sleeves and averted her eyes from his.
“Stop trying to deflect me from what you’ve done. Do you know what a federal agent will think when they see this?”