Page 94 of Shades of Grey & Gold

And his tongue slides between my thighs. Slow circles at first, and then he sucks, long and hard. He slips a finger inside of me, another hand holding my hips, and the feeling of him all around me makes me moan.

He licks and a groan against my core from his lips makes my whole body tighten as I come undone.

By the time he comes back to my lips, I’m shaking.

Not from the cold.

From wanting. And from loving. From being loved in a way that leaves no room for doubt. He reaches over to the table beside the bed, ripping foil between us.

He settles between my thighs, and for one second, neither of us moves.

His forehead presses to mine.

“Look at me,” he says.

So I do.

I look at him as he enters me, slow and careful and devastating.

And it’s not fire this time.

It’s warmth. It’s exactly where I belong and as he presses into me again and again, I shatter all over again.

Chapter Thirty

Cal

Thethingaboutrunningthe Renzetti family while trying to be a different kind of Renzetti than every other Renzetti before me is that the world does not cooperate with the distinction.

I learned this from my father, just in the negative. He would have said the world cooperates with strength, an iron fist, and nothing else. I’ve spent my whole adult life trying to prove him wrong. Some days I’m more successful than others.

Today is not asuccessful day.

Nico drops into the chair across from my desk in one of our warehouses on the north side and slides a folder toward me without ceremony.

I open it. I look at the first photograph and I close it again.

My jaw flexes and my control slips.

“Where did this come from?” I grit out from between my teeth.

“Contact inside the Volkov network.” Nico’s voice is even, but his jaw is tight. “They’ve been asking around. Not about the territory. About you.” He taps the folder. “About Max.”

I say nothing.

Seeing a picture of us walking out of the restaurant last week has anger drowning out every reasonable thought that might be in my mind. The rational thinking is replaced by images of all their buildings and houses and setting them on fire, then driving home to Max to watch a good movie with the dog sprawled across our legs.

“They’re building a picture,” Nico continues. “They know you’re not like Dad. They know you don’t respond to direct provocation the same way. So they’re looking for what you do respond to.”

Building a picture.

I think about this morning.

Max at the counter making coffee, hair still down from sleep, humming something under her breath that she stopped when she heard me come in, embarrassed, which was one of the most endearing things I’d ever witnessed. Every day I find something new to love about her. The way she sits at her reading chair with her laptop balanced on one knee and her study notes on the other, balancing a pen and a teacup in one hand. The smile she delivers without fail when I walk in the door at the end of the day. The constant, adorable arguing for the sake of playing devil’s advocate. The way she looks at Bart and then at me with this quiet satisfaction at night, like the three of us are a thing that makes sense.

His words echo:They’re looking for what you do respond to.

“Double the detail on her route to campus.” I lean back in my chair, trying to erase the images of Volkovs with their throats slit from my mind while fighting the feeling of pleasure they give me. “And vary it. Different car, different driver, change the timing. I don’t want patterns.”