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  Reid didn’t speak, turning me quickly toward the wall. My fingers splayed on the tile and my diamond ring sparkled as he pulled my ass toward him and kicked my feet apart. My breathing hitched as his finger found my folds and plunged inside.

  My gasp echoed against the tile as a second finger with the perfect curl was added. My knees bounced at the unbelievable friction.

  “I love your cunt.” Reid turned his hand as his thumb pressed against my tight ring of muscles. He pushed his thumb deeper, penetrating my anus.

  “Oh,” I panted as I pushed toward his touch.

  “Your ass is so tight.” His lips came to my ear as his large body enveloped mine. “Sweetheart, if I wanted to punish you, that’s what I’d do.”

  My fingers grasped at the tile as a strange chill flowed through me. I wasn’t sure where it came from. We’d done anal before and it hadn’t been punishment. I knew and trusted my husband. However, before I could respond or analyze my reaction, Reid plunged his cock between my folds and deep into my core.

  There was no inch by inch, no slow burn. In record time, he was balls deep. One of his large hands wrapped around my waist while the other came to my back, bending me so he could get impossibly deeper.

  Willingly, I complied, my core stretching with each thrust and my breasts swaying with his rhythm. “Yes,” I panted as heavy breaths added to the shower’s steam. In and out, over and over, he plunged.

  I could lose myself in not only the mindboggling sensation, but in the emotion. The closeness was what I’d been ready to beg for. The intimacy we shared. Throughout the years, Reid’s love had given me what I never realized I needed or what as a child I could not have even imagined existed. In return, my love for him had grown each day.

  Together, we were unstoppable.

  Holding my hips, he moved faster and faster. Each plunge caused my fingers to blanch as he dove in and out. This wasn’t making love. This wasn’t a tender reunion. This was fucking. This was spearing me to my core, splitting me open only to put me back together.

  Harder and harder.

  My pussy clenched as an orgasm exploded without warning.

  “Reid...oh my God...”

  He didn’t slow as I struggled to keep my footing, and my hands slipped over the wetness.

  Again, wrapping one arm around my waist to hold me steady, he also reached for my chin and pulled my face backward until his lips were again at my ear. His breathing sent warm puffs of breath through the shower’s mist over my sensitive skin. “No one touches you, no one but me.”

  “Yes.” It was all I ever wanted.

  Still holding my chin, he continued to pound, our wet skin slapping against one another. “This cunt is mine.”

  “Yes.”

  “Say it, Lorna. Say it out loud.”

  “It’s yours. I’m yours. All of me.”

  “Your cunt. Say it.”

  I was lost to his deep tenor, his demanding thrusts.

  His hand slipped to my neck. “Say it.”

  “My cunt.”

  “Who touches it?”

  “You.” My pulse raced as I complied, feeling not only adoration for his possessiveness, but as if I were on a precipice where a deep dark hole could take it all away.

  His hand slipped to my breasts, pinching and tweaking my hard nipples. Pain shot through me and straight to my core. My mind was totally back on him.

  “And these, who touches these?”

  “You, Reid. Only you.”

  His hands slid lower over my skin until he again gripped my hips. His thrusts slowed as his breathing grew deeper. Sliding one hand around to my stomach and lower, he found my clit.

  I called out his name, my voice reverberating through the shower stall as a new orgasm overtook me.

  Reid’s roar joined the echo as my body detonated. Fireworks exploded behind my closed eyes. Shock waves caused my core to clench around his pulsating cock. I had no control as my body spasmed and I panted for breath.

  Easing himself from me, Reid wrapped his strong arm around my waist. Without it, I wasn’t sure I could stand. The next thing I knew, the water no longer flowed, and I was lifted from the floor, cradled in Reid’s arms.

  As water dripped from my long hair, I laid my cheek against his wide chest. He opened the shower door. Once we were in the bathroom, he gently sat me on the vanity. Spreading my legs, he stood between them. With a sly grin, his stare moved painfully slowly from my freshly fucked core, up over my breasts, and finally to my face. As if his dark eyes had lasers, his gaze left my flesh warmed in its wake. My nipples grew taut and my core throbbed as I scanned all of his perfect nakedness. If we were done, his cock was unaware.

  Palming his cheek, I smiled. “That was...exactly what I needed.”

  “Now that I fucked you, I want more.”

  Placing my arms behind me, I leaned back, purposely pushing my breasts toward him. “I’m glad. I want more of you too.”

  His smile faded as he ran a large finger over my left cheek. Even without seeing, I knew that he was looking at my worst bruise, the one with the deepest discoloration. Before I’d awakened, a plastic surgeon had reconstructed my cheekbone.

  I reached for his hand. “Please don’t.”

  “It makes me so damn angry.”

  “Reid, please see me, not the bruises. I know it’s not easy, but I need you to stop looking at me with disgust.”

  “Disgust?”

  “I see it in your eyes.”

  “Bullshit.” He took a step back and scanned me again. “There is nothing about you that disgusts me. You’re fucking perfect. It’s at me, Lorna. You are...”

  “A mess,” I offered.

  “My fucking mess.” He reached for a plush towel and helped me from the vanity. “I’m wrapping you in this because if that pink pussy stares at me for another second, I’m going to fuck you again.” He tucked the edge of the towel under itself.

  In my mind, that dark hole was still too close. I didn’t know what memories I had buried, but I knew with my man I was safe and secure. He’d keep me from falling. He’d hold me tight. He’d love me as he always had. For that and so much more, I wanted to show him that I was still me, his wife.

  My lips curled upward as I reached for what he’d just secured and loosened it. As the towel fluttered to the floor, I grasped for his hand and tugged him toward the bedroom. “Last night, you said I could be on top.”

  Reid

  As the steel door opened onto 2, the room and its occupants came into view. This was my sanctuary. It was where I had done some of my best work. Whether it was cracking security, breaching firewalls, increasing the Sparrow assets, or utilizing government satellites and metropolitan traffic cameras to discover someone’s identity or location, I had done it. I’d developed programs that were far more advanced than some of the highest-touted systems in the world. And yet as I stepped into our oasis and took in the familiar scents, technological sights, and overall atmosphere, my usual sense of ease was replaced with my burning need for revenge.

  While it was still early, Mason was dressed in his casual daily attire, not much unlike mine. Blue jeans, cowboy boots, and today it was a thermal shirt. It was autumn in Chicago, but no matter the season, when it came to dealing with capos and business around the city, Mason preferred to keep his tattoos covered. His long hair was damp from his shower and loose, framing his face. My difference was a short-sleeved shirt, canvas loafers, and dry hair.

  Lorna and I had made our bed a detour following our shower.

  Patrick on the other hand was wearing his customary gray suit with leather shoes. Today’s suit was a lighter shade of gray and his tie was a solid darker gray. I imagined his closet looked more like a store rack with the same clothing repeated over and over. The only significant color change came in his tie collection.

  “Nice of you to join us,” Mason said as he lifted a mug of coffee to his lips.

  Palming my hot mug, I sneered. “Fuck off.”

  �
��I see you woke on the wrong side of the bed...again,” Patrick said as he typed away on a keyboard.

  I hadn’t awakened on the wrong side of the bed. And if I had, it was quickly reversed. Fucking Lorna was the best medicine in the whole damn world. Watching her come apart in the shower and again in our bed as her vibrant emerald eyes rolled back, her neck arched, and her breasts hung precariously close over my face, was something I could do every damn minute.

  She’d asked me to see her, not her injuries.

  I did.

  My wife was an amazingly strong, stunningly beautiful, intelligent, independent woman. I saw that. I wanted to lavish her with adoration for her survival of what many couldn’t endure. I also saw my failure in her wounds.

  Mine not hers.

  Instead of responding to Patrick’s comment, I walked behind him and peered at the screens before him. “What do you have?”

  The screens were filled with graphs and tables. There was a search engine running with numbers flowing at untold speed, looking for a match on something.

  “Mason’s working on some shit that went down in Garfield Park last night. Two rival gangs decided to fuck each other up. Afterward, a clerk and customer were shot at a liquor store.”

  I walked to my chair and sighed. Placing my coffee mug on the desk, I said, “Tell me that someone gives a shit about who took the ladies. Tell me that is someone’s fucking priority besides mine.”

  Halfway through my speech, the steel door opened again, and Sparrow entered. Dressed to the nines in attire and accessories that cost as much as a small country, he was ready for Michigan Avenue. It was the first time he’d been dressed for Sparrow Enterprises since I’d returned to Chicago with Lorna.

  “You’re leaving the tower?” I asked.

  His head nodded. “Yes. My assistant has been on my ass about meetings I’ve missed.” That would be Sparrow’s personal assistant at Sparrow Enterprises, the legitimate side of Sparrow. She’d been with him since nearly his acquisition of and ascension in the real estate empire, and she understood the balancing act Sparrow performed while not being fully informed as to what he did outside the office—that he literally ran a city and fought constant battles for that supremacy.

  “Araneae told me to go and put out fires,” Sparrow said, going to the coffee machine, placing a pod inside, and hitting the button. When he turned, he had a lopsided grin. “If you assholes must know, I think her words were something about my hovering becoming overbearing.”

  Mason scoffed. “Sterling Sparrow—overbearing. I’m glad that overdue news bulletin finally came through.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t sure how much longer we could keep it under wraps.”

  Sparrow darted a dark-eyed glare toward Mason, but instead of responding, he turned to me. His expression was again serious. “It’s my priority. Finding the identity of the kidnappers is all of our priority. I get that Lorna has needed you. We do too. Last night while the shit was happening at Garfield Park, the preliminary lab results came in from the forensics team we sent to the underground bunker.”

  Our capos had discovered two underground bunkers in the wilderness of Montana. The trackers in our wives’ shoes had lured them there. Mason recognized the setup and thankfully, we didn’t lose Christian or Romero to the trap. One bunker was blown to rubble. The other was able to be searched.

  Patrick hit a few keys and the large overhead screens that had been rotating images from around Chicago, now filled with a photograph of what appeared to be a cell. “Mason, do you want to tell them what Laurel said?”

  Mason leaned back in his chair. “Doc said she believes Araneae and Lorna.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Why the fuck wouldn’t she?”

  Mason raised one hand as he stood, his chair rolling the opposite direction. “Let me finish. She said that she believes the women don’t remember anything. She’s been running tests on their blood draws. I don’t get all of it, but she’s been able to identify some similar compounds to her formula. She says the amounts...” He took a breath and shrugged. “Fuck, she can tell you herself.” He looked at me. “I’m sure you’d get it better than I do.”

  We all had our specialties. Intelligence wasn’t lacking in any of us. Our differences strengthened our team, not weakened it.

  “What did she say?” I probed. “Tell us what you can.”

  “It appears that they were both given similar dosages.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He shook his head. “We don’t know. It could mean that whoever had them has perfected the formula.”

  Rightfully so, Laurel would be more concerned with the formula. My focus was on my wife and Araneae. “Will they get the memories back?”

  “Doc said they could. She said one of the most...fuck, she had a word. Basically, the best stimulus for memory is from our senses. Smell is the most powerful. The next is sound and then sight. Taste and feel fall near the end. So a smell could be the trigger to retrieving their memories, or a sound, like a train whistle or even a phrase. Last of the prominent senses is sight.”

  “That’s where these pictures come in,” Patrick said.

  We all looked up at what appeared to be a cell.

  “Laurel,” Mason went on, “believes that the ladies should be shown the pictures to see if they elicit something.”

  “No.” The answer came resoundingly from both Sparrow and me.

  Mason was still standing. “Hear me out. Laurel said she could introduce them in one of their sessions.”

  “They’re not fucking sessions,” Sparrow said. “My wife doesn’t need therapy.”

  His denial made me bristle. The little bit of talking Lorna had done with Laurel seemed therapeutic. I didn’t give a damn what they called it. I was for it. However, at the moment, a battle over semantics wasn’t worth fighting

  “Fine, when they chat,” Mason replied.

  I looked up again at the picture. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen it. “You said that lab results came in from the forensics team?”

  “Lorna’s blood was found in this cell room along with someone else’s.” Patrick hit a few keys. “We’re doing a search of the data banks to see if we can get a DNA match.”

  “It wasn’t Araneae’s?” Sparrow asked.

  “They found Araneae’s in a hallway near the entry. Since most of her wounds were on the soles of her feet, we’re thinking that’s why her blood was there.” Patrick let out a long breath. “Lorna’s was found in a greater quantity along with the unidentified individual’s.”

  “Could it be Nancy Pierce’s?” Sparrow asked.

  Laurel had worked with Dr. Dixon to determine that the woman found did have significant genetic markers in common with both Mason and Lorna. There was no question: she was their mother.

  “No,” Patrick replied definitively. “The other larger splatter was most definitely from a different individual. Currently, individual X.”

  I recalled Lorna’s dream. “I need to talk to Laurel. Is she staying here today or going to the institute?”

  “Here,” Sparrow said. “Laurel is the target. She made a list of some essentials she needs from her lab at the Sparrow Institute. Mason and I have Sparrows collecting whatever she wants.”

  “Her and Mason’s apartment isn’t big enough,” I began, thinking of the logistics. The space she had at the Sparrow Institute was so large, most wasn’t even utilized.

  “There’s room on this floor,” Sparrow interrupted.

  “This floor?” Patrick and I questioned together. This floor had always been only us. Always. The four of us, no one else.

  Sparrow turned his stare to us. “Don’t we have other things to discuss?”

  From the look on Mason’s face, I had the feeling that Patrick and I were the only uninformed participants in this conversation. The decision had been made.

  “What do you want to ask Laurel?” Mason inquired.

  “I want to better understand what you’re saying.” It wasn’t one hundre
d percent accurate. I wanted to be more specific with Laurel about Lorna’s dream. Casually bringing up the subject of Missy, Mason and Lorna’s sister, wasn’t what was needed to keep us focused.

  Sparrow looked at his watch. “My day is fucking packed.” He looked at me. “Are you up for a trip?”

  “A trip?” I wasn’t ready to leave Lorna.

  “DC.”

  “A visit with Edison Walters?”

  Edison Walters, a senior legislative aide, has been a staple in Washington DC for over thirty years. During that time, he has worked closely with various legislators from all parties. He’s stayed securely in the background, helping to research and draft various bills.

  The seemingly benign aide had an alternate identity that was known to very few. He was, in reality, Top, the top commander of the Sovereign Order. The man had more power than five-star generals or even the president, and yet in his everyday life, he answered to junior congressmen and -women. Little did they or most know that Walters could say the word and World War III would begin, top dignitaries would disappear, or crowned princes would meet their demise.

  “I don’t like this,” Mason said. “Top doesn’t welcome visitors. I should go alone.”

  “It’s time for breakfast,” Sparrow said, tilting his chin toward the steel door. “Lorna was up there when I left as was Araneae. If they can both be out and about, we’re giving them a full kitchen. This discussion can wait.” He turned to Patrick. “I hope Ruby will be there. It’s nice to have her home.”

  The worries of the world momentarily disappeared from Patrick’s blue eyes and a smile spread across his lips. “I’m learning that teenagers and mornings don’t always mix.”

  We began to collect our coffee mugs and head for the door when Patrick added, “I don’t think Ruby is as upset about being summoned home as Maddie expected. Ruby was happy to be back at the academy, but she’s also excited to welcome her new brother. This way she has an excuse to stay near Maddie.”

  As Sparrow placed his palm over the scanner, Patrick’s computer made a noise.

  “What?” I asked.