Page 81 of Betray Me
“Belle.” My name on his lips sounds like a prayer, rough with emotion I don’t dare name. “There’s something I need to tellyou. About my family, about why I really approached you that first night at Shark Bay.”
Ice floods my veins. Another betrayal, another revelation that nothing I’ve believed about us is real. “What?”
“My father didn’t just launder money for your parents’ operations. He was part of the inner circle—one of The Architect’s direct subordinates.” Max’s words come in a rush, like he needs to expel them before he loses courage. “I’ve known about the network since I was fifteen, Belle. I’ve been planning to bring them down for years.”
The world tilts around me. “So your interest in me was—”
“Strategic at first, yes. You were Richard Gallagher’s daughter, positioned to have access to information I needed.” His grip on my hand tightens, as if he can anchor me to him through sheer force of will. “But Belle, everything that’s happened between us—everything I’ve felt, everything we’ve built—that’s real. That’s mine, not his mission or anyone else’s agenda.”
I should pull away. Should feel betrayed, manipulated, used once again by someone I trusted. But looking into Max’s eyes, seeing the naked fear there—not of physical harm, but of losing me—I recognize something I’ve never encountered before: genuine love tangled with genuine deception, creating something too complex for simple categorization.
“How do I know?” The question escapes before I can stop it. “How do I know where the mission ended and you began?”
“Because I’m telling you now, when I don’t have to. When it would be easier to let you believe the fairy tale.” His free handcomes up to cup my face, thumb brushing across my cheekbone. “Because I’m choosing you over the mission, Belle. Over justice, over revenge, over everything I thought I wanted.”
“Max—”
“I love you.” The words cut through my protest like a blade through silk. “Not the spy, not the asset, not the source of information. You, Belle. The woman who makes terrible coffee and argues with news anchors and still flinches when someone touches her unexpectedly. The woman who chose to testify against her very own parents because she couldn’t live with their crimes. The woman brave enough to hunt monsters in the shadows.”
The declaration should feel like manipulation—after years of being told what people thought I wanted to hear, I’ve learned to distrust pretty words. But there’s something in Max’s voice, in the way his body trembles against mine, that speaks to truth rather than performance.
“I love you too,” I whisper, the admission scraping raw against my throat. “And I hate you for making me feel this when everything is so fucking complicated.”
His laugh is broken, desperate. “I hate myself, too, sometimes. But Belle, whatever happens next, whatever we have to face—I need you to know that choosing you is the first purely selfish thing I’ve done in my entire life. And I don’t regret it.”
The honesty breaks something open inside me, some final wall that’s been keeping me separate from genuine connection. Before I can overthink it, before fear can paralyze me, I close the distance between us and kiss him with a desperation that surprises us both.
He responds immediately, arms coming around me to pull me closer, and suddenly we’re no longer sitting on a rotting couch in an abandoned hunting lodge. We’re suspended in our own private universe, where the only things that matter are his hands on my skin and the way he says my name like a sacrament.
When we finally break apart, both breathing hard, neither of us tries to pull away. I let myself get lost in the warmth of Max’s body, the reassuring solidity of him, the first pure moment of connection I’ve experienced without calculation or contingency. We don’t talk again, no pretty words or promises we’re not sure we can keep. Instead, we help each other strip off the layers of practicality we wear like shields.
Kisses taste like forgiveness, teeth grazing flesh with the sharp promise of pain. Hands chart terrain already familiar, exploring planes and angles and edges as if cataloging secrets.
I straddle him on the couch, letting my hips move with deliberate precision. Feeling his skin against mine, the friction sparking tiny fires under my eyelids. Wishing it could last forever, until the dawn breaks us like a beautiful dream.
There are no elaborate plans, no analysis, or cross-references, or goals beyond this moment. Just me and Max and the need to feel closer to one another.
I lift my dress, push my panties to the side, and Max unzips his jeans just enough to expose himself. Slowly, almost reverently, he reaches for me, tracing wetness with gentle fingertips.
I brace myself with one hand on his shoulder, the other wrapped around his cock. Find the angle, let him guide me. Let him sink into me.
The slide of him makes us both sigh, and I wrap my legs around his waist to take him deeper. Fill myself up and close my eyes. Feel the universe narrow to a single point of light in a dark, dark world.
Together we move, the ancient rhythm of bodies joined at their cores. A dance older than pain, older than loss. A desire to escape what can’t be escaped, no matter how much the mind tries to plan.
So we fuck like it’s a penance, our hips acting out sentences spoken in tongues older than the earth. Moving in counterpoint, never still. Always seeking.
His fingers find my clit, strumming to the stuttering beat of our hips. My free hand tangles in his hair, pulls, demands his undivided attention.
On the periphery, shadows lurk and watch and wait. But tonight, here, with this man and his darkness and his infinite tenderness, they fade into the night.
Because if Max Brooks is a lesson, if my time with him is a temporary glimpse of a possible future, then I’m ready to accept its cost. I’m ready to pay it forward instead of back.
“I love you,” he breathes in my ear, his cock hitting the deepest spot, his fingers sliding along my wetness.
“I love you,” I answer, breathless and afraid and excited.
We fuck harder, faster, until it hurts. Until the slide of him, the heat and friction, the impossible fit of it all threatens to split me down the middle.
