Chapter 137

**Hadassah POV**

The firelight flickers gently, casting a warm, golden glow that bathes the cabin in soft, shifting hues. Shadows dance across the wooden walls, their movement slow as the flames cradle the space in a quiet, tender embrace. The light wraps itself around every corner, softening the air.
“Are you going to ignore me too now?”
My eyes flick up at the reflection in the vanity mirror. Dried and dressed in a night robe with nothing underneath. I am seated at the table, just finished doing my hair, tying the yards of curls in a high bun, leaving two strays idle to frame my face. Ellis crosses his arms challengingly, striated muscles thickening as he stares down at me intensely. When I’m done, I whirl around on the backless seat and sprout up so I stand just beneath his nose, glaring up at him.
“I don’t know who she thinks is, coming out of nowhere and just dictating things like she knows everything.”
Ellis lifts an ironic brow. “Remind you of someone?”
I try to shove him back out of a lash of anger, but it’s like trying to move a stone wall.
“We are nothing alike,” I hiss back and I raise a warning finger. “And you if you ever—”
“Get that finger out of my face,” he cautions coldly.
He grabs my wrist and wrenches it behind my back, not before seizing the other to bind both of my arms and I writhe against him, fighting back futilely as we end up too close to the hearth. I surprise him by tilting my face up to capture his lips with mine and that instantly immobilizes him, his grip slackening until they slide back to his sides. I smile against his lips before I hold his face to deepen the kiss—and it ignites something in him as he backs me up against the surface of the wall beside the fireplace.
The surge between us crackles like electricity, charging the air with a palpable energy that pulses through my veins. It rushes between us, hotter than fire, a raw, burning current that set alight every nerve. The space between us tightens, alive with heat and intensity, as if the very air hums with the force of our intimacy. His kisses are scorching, each one feels like the flames in the fireplace flare at our shared intensity. So fierce, so all-consuming, it causes the rest of the world to thaw, blurring into the background.
He breaks away, looming above me, his eyes burning with raw desire. His eyes rake down to the single layer keeping my body from his and his eyes not holding just a demand but a plea. So with excruciating care, I slowly untie the nightgown, silk slipping off my shoulders. With his eyes transfixed, mesmerized by each movement as he sheds his own clothing dazedly until we are completely bare before each other.
With a smoldering look, he hoists me up so my legs can wrap around him, my breasts pressed against his chest as he carries me over to the bed. Our eye contact unbreakable as he lays me down on the bed and the musculature of his body comes upon me. Reaching down, he guides himself forward and I raise my hips slightly to meet him.
As our bodies connect, the full-bodied length of him, filling inside me with pleasurable pain. He threads my hand with his, raising them up to grip the headboard. Arching my back as I’m pressed further into the mattress and his penetration deepens faster and faster. His urgency increases, flooded with his need in a way that fulfills my own. The bed rocks as he slams one hand on the headboard to get even deeper and the mind-numbing sensation wrings out a cry from me—his strength and ferocity causes the bed to bang into the wall in time with my movements as a thrill rockets through me.
After a long, sheet-gripping, strained screaming interval—we are both shaking as the bed stills with our bodies, and total satisfaction settles over me like a clouded wave.
Ellis hovers over me again.
“Who said I was finished?”
Laughing, I shake my head vigorously. “No—”
Squealing, he yanks me down and lifts my legs whilst putting himself between them.
“You’re gonna want to hold on.”
***
**
**Emilia POV**

I wake up to an empty bed and right across from me. Calum is parked at the mahogany table positioned in front of the expansive window with a panoramic view. I rub my eyes as I scramble out of the bed, welcomed by the sound of rapid typing, fingers hammering on the keys. And I come up behind him to wrap my arms around him. And he gives himself the briefest of recesses to acknowledge me with a loving peck to my arm. And then he’s back to it with ultra focus.
“How long have you been up?”
With his eyes locked on the laptop screen, he says, “Just because we’re on vacation—doesn’t mean. I’m on vacation. I have to make sure our cyber security is airtight. We’re supposed to be untraceable, but hercules up there found us without a hitch. If he could, people like Orian with limitless resources would have no trouble doing the same.”
I perch my under chin on top of his head, looking around thoughtfully. “You don’t trust him?”
He snorts bitterly. “Other than Hadassah, I don’t trust anyone outside this room.”
“I get that, but what? Do you think he’ll lead Torin to us?”
“Even if it's by accident,” he says objectively. “We just can’t risk another breach—we still have the CIA on our ass. Every turn, there’s another enemy.” One hand moves away to wash his face in harried rush before his fingers pinch the flesh between his brows. “I feel like we’re moving in circles here—we get one book—Santos swipes it. We escape one attack just to be ambushed by Orian. One mistake could literally kill us all.”
I place both hands on his forehead to massage with small, soothing circles that steal a moan from him.
“That’s not all on you,” I say softly. “You’re not alone in this—none of us are. We’ve survived this longer and with the insurmountable odds against us. Honestly, we should be long dead. But we’re not. We’re gonna come out of this alive—all of us.”
“Together?” he asks with the weight a double meaning, one of which that exists in a future neither of us can predict.
I lift my head, dipping away, I lean close so my lips can graze his ear. “I don’t see any other alternative.”
He nods confidently, as if reassured. “It’s nice to hear it from you. Now go away, you’re distracting me.”
“I’m distracting you?”
“Yeah, so go.”
I pepper kisses along the ridge of his shoulder, sending a tingle through him that makes him shiver tightly. He tries to shrug me off but I hold on to the back of his throat to still him before my tongue glides up the column of his neck and he inhales a sharp breath. He bolts up and I turn away, screaming a laugh as I race for the door.
“You’re going to pay for that!”
I reach for the handle and just as I’m about to hold it down to open and leave—I’m scooped off my feet as he whisks me away.
***
I leave our bedroom after I’ve showered. I go only to get some water and to my rare delight; I find a shirtless Ellis chugging a bottle of water. He seriously has the stature of a muscular bear if it only stood on its hind legs. Sensing my approach, he cast a curious glance behind him before he turns and leans his rear against the edge of the counter.
“Where’s Hadassah?”
He looks back at me blankly. “In bed.”
“It’s past noon?”
“She’s sleeping in,” he says then downs the last of ounces of the water until the plastic crackles.
“She never sleeps in?” I say with narrowed eyes.
“She had a long night,” he says without a hint of humor or an imminent sign of a smile.
I nod knowingly. Before I go for the opened pack of water bottles to slip out one.
“We should have dinner together,” I propose.
Ellis jabs me with a look that almost makes me stumble. “Not us, you big brute. All of us, Hadassah and Calum,” I emphasize meaningfully.
He snaps a curt nod. “You want to orchestrate an intervention?’”
I scoff wryly. “Dinner, not a black ops mission.” I unscrew the cap of the bottle before I flip it on the counter with a dull rattle. “Just to force them into a room together. We need to be united, a single shift of focus is way too dangerous for either of us.”
He gives me this bestial grunt—a sound of accord?
I nod slowly, unsure of what to fully make of that. “Right… so it’s better to just surprise them with it. You can bring out Hadassah to the oceanscape restaurant on the prime floor—that way she can’t just storm off. Then I’ll bring Calum once you two are settled. Think of it as your first and official date.”
A wistful look enters his eyes like blooms curling around the cracks of stones.
“I think that’s the closest thing to a smile I’ll ever seen on your face.”
His eyes cut back into me and he wordlessly disposes of the bottle before he makes his move to leave.
“You’re forgetting something.”
He pauses, his head tips toward the ceiling exasperatedly before he turns back around to muse my observation.
“Outfits,” I say with a clap of my hands. “You need a suit, and I need to get Calum one, too. So you know what that means—shopping.”
“No?”
“Yes!” I fold my arms as I drop my weight to one side. “Hey, it’s not like you’re doing this for me. Besides,” I give him a jeering once over. “I don’t even know if any store on this ship will a suit big enough.”
“What am I supposed to say if she asks where we at, too?”
“Calum won’t leave the bedroom, believe me. So just say we’re doing a security sweep.”
A flicker of intrigue on this steel features. “What agency did you belong to?”
“That’s classified, soldier,” I say with guarded interest. “What Special Operations Forces did you belong to? Let me guess—Ghost Teams?”
“Task Force Black,” he says, guessing mine accurately, “the collaborative unit between U.S. and U.K. special forces? What is a law-bound operative doing in the thick of this—and don’t say its undercover work. I saw you shoot at SWAT back at that hotel—you a rogue.”
I chaff at the understatement. “Long story short, I am. But not that kind of rogue. I still have clandestine contact with my agency because I’m not the full-fledged criminal that you are. As if you can judge me—you worked for Torin.”
“I did,” he says remorselessly. “I sold my soul a long time ago. So why are you really here?”
“For the same reason you switched sides,” I retort with a harsh arch in my voice. “Love. Foolish and dangerous love.”