Page 29 of Obsession
“Unless your knees need more time.”
My face burns so hot I have to look away. “You’re an asshole.”
“Yes, we’ve already established that.” he says, releasing me again and pushing to his feet. “And you’re going to show me where my route is bleeding.”
He moves to the map as I lean closer, finding the quarry spur, the access road, the cluster of handoffs that look safe only if you assume nobody is watching from the ridgeline.
“There,” I say. “If I were trying to confirm your route without moving on it yet, I’d sit here, here, and here. Not close enough to get made by the escort, but close enough to time the handoff pattern. You’ve been changing the roads, but not the rhythm.”
Saint goes very still beside me. “Explain.”
“You move like you’re avoiding tails, but your windows are too consistent. Anyone patient wouldn’t need to follow you. They’d just need to learn when the road starts getting used.” I glance at him, then wish I hadn’t because he’s looking at me with an intensity that makes the room feel smaller. “The Rogues make that mistake too. Canon thinks unpredictability means changing location. It doesn’t, not if the habit underneath stays the same.”
Saint studies the map for another long moment before reaching for his phone. “Moth. Office. Now.”
My stomach tightens. “Wait, don’t tell him I saw it through the window.”
Saint looks at me. “You did.”
“I wasn’t supposed to.”
“No, you weren’t.” His gaze drops over my face, and his voice lowers. “But you noticed anyway.”
The problem is that had this happened in my clubhouse, I would have been disciplined, shouted at, and ridiculed. I would have been made to feel smaller. I would have been told that wasn’t my job and even as they were using the information I gave them, I would be pushed out.
I brace myself for all of that, but nothing happens. Not even when a knock comes less than a minute later, and Moth enterswithout waiting for permission. His eyes move from Saint to me to the map, then to my bare feet, the oversized sweats, my flushed face, and the faint unsteadiness I probably haven’t hidden well enough. If he draws conclusions about what I spent the last twenty minutes doing, his expression gives nothing away.
Saint points to the map. “Quarry spur’s exposed.”
Moth steps closer. “Based on what?”
I wait for Saint to answer. He doesn’t. Instead, Moth just looks at me, suddenly waiting for me to explain. I give him the same information I give Saint, though my voice wobbles a little.
Moth stares at me for three full seconds before he looks at Saint, a chuckle pulling from his throat. “I told you he was operationally useful.”
Saint nods, dragging a hand down his face. “Great, fix it.”
Moth’s attention returns to the map. “I’ll redraw the windows.”
“No,” I say before I can stop myself.
Both men look at me. My mouth goes dry, but I keep going. “Don’t redraw all of them. That confirms you know someone’s watching. Leave two windows in place and create a false pattern around a dead drop. If someone moves closer, you’ll know which point they’re using.”
Moth’s face remains blank, but something in his eyes is almost dancing. “Damn, if you existed, why the fuck did the Rogues need a bailout?”
I just shrug, refusing to give up that answer. No one needs to know that all the big scary Rogue members never saw any importance in the information I knew unless they needed it. No one needs to know how useless they made me feel even when I wasright there.
Oisín
Bythethirdmorning,I understand the pattern well enough to hate myself for waiting for it. Saint doesn’t come to bed like other men might. There’s no softness to his arrival, no attempt to pretend the room is anything but his, no easing into the dark with apology or explanation. He comes in late, long after the clubhouse has shifted into that deeper nighttime quiet where even the bar sounds muffled by walls and smoke as he brings the outside in with him, cold air, leather, gun oil, whiskey, and sometimes blood. He says my name if he feels like it. Sometimes he doesn’t. Either way, my body knows the sound of the door opening before my mind decides whether to resent him.
Every night, I tell myself I should resist harder. Every night, the thought dissolves the second his hand closes around the back of my neck.
That’s the part I don’t know how to forgive. The wanting would be easier if it felt simple, if I could call it lust and file it away with every reckless decision I’ve made in dark rooms where no one knew my name. But Saint doesn’t touch me like a stranger anymore, and he doesn’t touch me like a man asking for anything.
He handles me like he’s already memorized the places where I’ll bend and then he just leaves before I wake up.
The first time, I told myself it was business. The second, I told myself it was habit. By the third, I understand that Saint doesn’t want to be there when the quiet wears off. He wants the relief my surrender gives him, the stillness afterward, and the way I stop fighting long enough to make his thoughts stop racing. Then he leaves before either of us has to look at what remains.
