Page 64 of No Reason to Trust

She squirmed against him, desperate to have him inside her. “You’re punishing me, aren’t you?” she murmured. “Making me pay for walking away from you.”

His mouth curved into a smile against her breast. “Do you think I’m the kind of guy who’d punish the woman he loves? Torment her until she was begging?”

“I do.” Her breath stuttered out. “Absolutely,” she said, her tongue getting tangled in the words. “Do you want me to beg?”

“I’ve had many fantasies of you begging me to make love to you,” he said. “We’ll play with that another day. Today? I want to make you cry my name. Make you scream. I want to watch you fall apart. Then fall asleep on top of me.”

Without any warning, he slid down her body and put his mouth between her legs. When she came, screaming and bucking, he slid inside her. Found the secret place that made her sob out his name. And after she came again, he allowed himself to follow her over.

She lay limp beneath him, her eyes closed, her breath sawing in and out. He pulled her on top of him and wrapped his arms around her. Reached down for the sheet and comforter and pulled the soft fabric over their bodies. Then, beneath the blankets, he stroked his hand down her back, his hand both soothing and arousing.

Nestled in his arms, their skin touching from chest to toes, she let herself relax. Went boneless. But she was too jazzed up, too thrilled to be in Jake’s arms again. So she wrapped her arms around Jake and nestled into him. Sleeping alone at the Blackhawk Security compound hadn’t felt… right. She was always aware of the missing piece who wasn’t beside her.

He stroked his hand over her back. “Sleep, Livvy,” he murmured. “Rest. We can talk later. I’m gonna tuck you into my side and listen to you breathe. Savor the satin of your skin against me and enjoy every inch of your amazing body. You sleep as long as you want. We have all the time in the world to make up for the weeks we’ve been apart.”

She burrowed into Jake and loved the way her skin slid over his chest every time she breathed. All those sleepless nights caught up with her, because in minutes, she was sound asleep. Her last conscious thought was that she was exactly where she wanted to be. Exactly where she needed to be. And that was the first thing she’d tell Jake when she woke up.

Chapter 24

The next morning, they sat at Jake’s kitchen table, eating French toast and bacon. When he placed their meals on the table, she looked up at him, and her face softened. “You remembered what we had in Brooklyn,” she said.

He slid into the seat across from her and took her hand in his. Twined their fingers together. “Yeah. I want to replace those terrible memories with some better ones.” He reached across the table and smoothed his thumb over her lips. “And after the way we spent most of the night, I think we both need to load up on carbs and protein.”

Her cheeks heated with the memory of how they’d made love all night, and she smiled. She reached across the table for his hand and twined their fingers together. “I predict a lot of carb-heavy breakfasts in our future.”

“Absolutely,” Jake said. “As long as no one asks me why I’m losing weight, we’re good.”

After they’d finished their meal and Jake poured them both another cup of coffee, he reached for her hand again. “We have a big decision to make.”

“Yeah?” She tilted her head. “Like what side of the bed we each want to sleep on?”

“That’s really important, but we’ll get to that later,” he said, biting his lip. He was really enjoying this side of Livvy that he’d never seen before. “Where are we going to live?”

“Oh,” she said, freezing with a forkful of French toast halfway to her mouth. “Yeah,” she said, setting the fork back on her plate. “I’ve been too… busy to think about that.”

“Yeah, me too,” Jake said. “But we have to figure it out.”

“I don’t want…” They both spoke at the same time. Jake smiled and jerked his chin at her. “Ladies first.”

“I don’t want to live apart and have a commuter relationship,” she said. “Do you want me to quit my job and move back to Washington? I talked to Diana yesterday, and she said she’d take me back.”

“You snuck into headquarters and talked to her?” Jake frowned.

“I did.” Livvy sighed. “I didn’t want to go behind your back, and I wasn’t sure that would even be an option, but I needed to know.”

“Is that what you want?” Jake asked. “To move back here and get your old job back?”

Livvy tilted her head and stared at him. “I know I want to live with you. And if taking my old job at the FBI back is the only way to do that? Yeah. That’s exactly what I want,” she said.

“You sure you want to leave your Blackhawk Security job and go back to the FBI? I know how much you love your job there.”

“I do love my job at Blackhawk Security,” Livvy said. “But I love you so much more. I don’t want to spend half my time on a plane, and I don’t want you to do that, either.”

“I could transfer to the Helena office,” he said.

Livvy studied him. “Helena’s a lovely city, but do you really want to work in the FBI office there? There probably wouldn’t be a lot of… meaty cases in Helena. Not the kind of cases that would challenge you. The kind that would use all your skills. Do you really want to spend your professional life doing things like interviewing Nick Doyle about his father’s business?”

“That needed to be done,” Jake said, reaching across the table. “And it gave me a chance to reconnect with you.” But the thought of leaving the FBI office in Washington D.C. and moving to the small satellite office in Helena made his heart ache.

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