Page 64 of Code Name: Ghost

"Yes."

"Then listen."

I settle beside her, fingers tracing the line of her collarbone. Slow. Deliberate.

"I walked away because I had to. Cerberus recruited me. Fitzwallace understood that the threat from those who had held me wasn’t just to me alone, but to you as well. He knew that in order for both of us to survive, I needed to become someone else. I needed to forget the man who held your face in his hands and dreamed about a life with you."

She shudders. Her knees draw up instinctively, but the cuffs keep her open, stretched, vulnerable.

"Why?" she whispers.

I lean in, my voice a breath against her skin. "Because focusing on those who had all but destroyed me and having some kind of control was the only thing keeping me alive. If I had stayed with you, Cherise… I would have broken. And I couldn’t afford that."

My fingers trail down her hip, slipping between her legs.

"You never broke," she says.

I push two fingers inside her. Wet. Tight. Ready. She gasps, hips lifting.

"No," I growl. "But I never healed, either. I wasn’t ready to… not until you walked back into my life. And now you're mine."

I fuck her with my fingers in slow, unrelenting thrusts. Not fast enough to push her over, but deep enough to make her squirm.

"You won’t come until I say."

"Nick… please…"

I twist my fingers, angle them up.

"You want release? You beg. You give me the truth."

Her lips part. Her voice is barely a whisper. "I—I still love you. I never stopped. Even when I thought you were dead. Even when I hated you."

“Even as you married and built a life with Hector?” I ask, trying to keep the bitterness from my voice.

“Especially then. I tried to bury you deep in my memories, but I held those memories dear and when they began to burn the brightest, they lit my way back to you.”

I groan, low and deep. When I pull my hand away, she cries out.

"Not yet."

I move down the bed and replace my fingers with my tongue. I lick her slowly, every stroke precise, a command.

Her hips buck.

"Still."

She moans, breath ragged.

"Please, Nick… please… I need?—"

"You need what?"

"You. Please, I need to come. I can’t… I can’t hold it."

I bite gently at her inner thigh. "You will."

Then I take her again with my mouth, one hand gripping her hip, the other covering her ribs to keep her still. I work her mercilessly until she’s thrashing, moaning, begging without words.

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