Книга - My Royal Surrender

My Royal Surrender
Riley Pine


He served at Her Majesty's Pleasure……now he's serving at his own!Max, bodyguard to the Royal Family, puts his country first. But his loyalty is tested when he’s paired with his ex-lover to stop a new threat to the crown. They must infiltrate an illicit sex den by playing a couple looking for thrills—and Max hates how much he loves it. Is the true danger their enemy…or the red-hot desire they can’t deny?







He served at Her Majesty’s pleasure...

...now he’s serving his own!

Max, bodyguard to the royal family, puts his country first. But his loyalty is tested when he’s paired with his ex-lover to stop a new threat to the crown. They must infiltrate an illicit sex den by playing a couple looking for thrills—and Max hates how much he loves it. Is the true danger their enemy...or the red-hot desire they can’t deny?


RILEY PINE is the combined forces of two contemporary romance writers as you’ve never seen them before. Expect delicious, dirty and scandalous swoons. To stay up to date with all things Riley Pine head on over to rileypine.com (http://rileypine.com), for newsletters, book details and more!


My Royal Surrender

Riley Pine






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


ISBN: 978-1-474-07149-9

MY ROYAL SURRENDER

© 2018 Riley Pine

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


Contents

Cover (#u187190e0-20a3-51b5-82e2-2458b8916bee)

Back Cover Text (#ud3dddc2a-9436-545c-b08e-169c6aac10aa)

About the Author (#u132541d1-42c0-5ecd-adc7-04d5ffe940f1)

Title Page (#u1f4c3e16-62da-5c60-9ee8-f0362ab65a1b)

Copyright (#u5f2f38f3-888d-5200-b299-6f3e474600ff)

CHAPTER ONE (#uacac3cb6-744b-459a-885b-43d3f19a8728)

CHAPTER TWO (#u95e8871d-242a-4424-be4a-562057faf25c)

CHAPTER THREE (#u30f50627-480c-5372-9c00-7b9ec6effc4a)

CHAPTER FOUR (#u40d3b276-3977-4663-a4e6-e12dbe9fd994)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)





CHAPTER ONE (#u80f63736-7de3-52f2-b998-5f3b7978a93b)

Z


I GAPE AT my outfit in the gilded full-length mirror—if a fishnet chemise, red leather G-string and matching choker with the word slave bedazzled across the front in black crystals could be described as an outfit.

“Oh no. No. No. No. Not a chance in hell.” My vigorous head shake doesn’t budge a single strand of thick hair from my lacquered topknot. “I can’t step out of this room. Look at me! I’m practically naked.”

It’s not as if I’m a prude, either. On the rare occasion that I’m granted R & R, I’m more than happy to rock a skimpy bikini. But the French Riviera isn’t waiting outside these walls. Feather and I are in downtown London, and I can’t appear in public without proper knickers. I might be undercover...but I deserve proper underwear.

“But, love, that’s the whole idea, innit?” Feather, an avant-garde designer on the payroll of the British Intelligence Agency, smooths her asymmetric skirt while fluttering an impressive set of false eyelashes. “It’s the perfect cover. One look at your jubblies and no one in the Lion’s Den will imagine you’re a kick-ass secret agent. They’ll be too busy wanting to reach for a paddle. You look well fit.”

“Oh, joy.” My gaze connects with hers in the mirror and my whiskey-brown eyes narrow in mock ferocity. Feather’s bright blue lipstick matches her eyes as she winks.

I don’t return her saucy smile because lighthearted tone or not, Feather isn’t joking. And while ridiculous, this situation isn’t remotely funny. The Lion’s Den is London’s most notorious kink club, and in less than an hour I’ll be walking through its depraved black doors, all my goods on full display.

This is what I’ve wanted. Plotted for. Dreamed of.

But in these dreams, I was always fully dressed.

“Come on.” Feather clicks her tongue like a scolding schoolteacher. “Don’t be a brat.”

I exhale a frustrated breath, but damn it, she is right. I have to suck up my reservations for the good of the mission—and in this case that means going undercover to help British Intelligence as a BDSM aficionado. It’s a far cry from last week, when I sported a chic Chanel suit and nude Louboutin heels while running the Hong Kong office for the Order, a top-secret international agency whose mission is simple: protect the world from itself. Order agents are carefully curated and come from all nations and walks of life to prevent wars, dispose despots and foil terrorist attacks. Sometimes we help out partners such as the CIA, Mossad or, in this case, my home country of jolly old England.

No one in mainstream society knows the Order exists, and it’s better for everyone that way.

I’m a trained assassin, fluent in seven languages, an expert in poisons and knife play. I’ve worked my currently bare arse off to become a powerful, take-no-shit woman. Not someone who enjoys wearing a collar and parading about like an overprimped lapdog.

“I was instructed to pass along the final mission briefing after you were dressed.” Feather hands over a sealed manila envelope. It’s marked with a black marker slash—Z. That’s how I’m known in the Order. All agents are assigned a random one-or two-letter name, our true identities protected even from those we work with. The name I was born with, Lora Summers, only daughter of a Cornwall couple whose boat sank off the coast of Calais, doesn’t exist anymore. My records were purged right down to my birth certificate.

I’m a ghost. I’ve been one for years.

To work in the Order means to sacrifice the individual for the good of the group. Husband. Children. Simple Sunday mornings doing crosswords and eating leisurely breakfasts. Lives civilians take for granted, little acts of normalcy, have been denied me for the better part of two decades. But as I enter my early forties I can’t help reconsidering my place in the world.

Maybe it’s a midlife crisis, but the thought niggles like an itch that I can’t scratch.

What if I want a new life?

“I’ll fetch you a glass of cab sav,” Feather mutters, the pucker between her plucked brows revealing a twinge of annoyance at my recalcitrance. “I know it’s your favorite, and you need to loosen up before the Dom arrives.”

My heart skips its next beat as the room’s temperature seems to rise ten degrees.

The Dom. The Dominant. The man who is supposed to play the role of my master.

I try to snort and roll my eyes. As if.

Feather snickers and I know I’ve played the part she expects. Agent Z is a wordly badass.

Little does she know.

As Feather clicks out the hotel room door in her high-heeled boots, I rip open the envelope with shaking hands. The mission brief is printed in a pale green ink, sourced from the Nightshadow plant found only on the southern coast of an islet off Sumatra. The Nightshadow ink will fade in a few more minutes...leaving the paper utterly blank and these words undectable.

Mission: Lion’s Den

Posing as “King” and “Princess,” you and your assigned partner will infiltrate the Lion’s Den and attempt to connect with club owner Dante Price. When not presiding as the ruler of Britain’s kink underworld, Price allegedly smuggles arms to terrorist cells throughout Central Asia in return for heroin. We need concrete proof to get an arrest warrant. This means gaining his trust and being believable in your respective roles. Please note that sex acts (real, not simulated) and BDSM role-play are to be expected and embraced for authenticity. Both you and your fellow agent have been cleared for sexually transmitted diseases as per Order policy, and your hormonal birth-control shot is up-to-date.

It’s not until I finish reading the mission that I taste the metallic flavor of blood. I’ve bitten the inside of my cheek so hard that I broke the flesh.

The sight of Dante Price’s name will do that to a person.

Me more than most...

Dante Price is the baddest of bad guys. He makes a business out of chaos, profiting from human misery. Now he is mine for the taking. Not that this is a surprise.

I’ve waited to get him for years. It’s finally time, and I’m ready. But that doesn’t mean it will be easy. In fact, this will be the hardest mission I’ve ever done in more ways than one.

“Fuck me,” I mutter, dropping the note to the floor.

“Sorry, love, it appears that will be my job,” a deep voice growls from my left, and just like that the balcony door slides open, and in steps a blast from my past. The moment I’ve been waiting for with equal parts anticipation and dread.

He’s over six feet tall and built like a swimmer, all broad shoulders and a trim waist; his flat abs are shown off to perfection by the tight tee over a pair of faded, low-slung black jeans. His close-cropped dark hair is flecked with strands of silver that match the small, sharp spikes gleaming along the arms of his leather jacket.

“Max?” My voice is nothing but a squeak. Not exactly the sultry, bored intonation I’d been rehearsing for weeks in anticipation of this encounter.

“Agent X,” he corrects coolly, his icy expression traveling my exposed body. “Nice to finally meet you in person...Agent Z.”

“I...” A lifetime flashes past me in the span of seconds. This powerful silver fox with the wolfish expression was my first lover. After falling for each other at Frasier Academy, the Highland boarding school we both attended once upon a time, we stole away for a weekend to France. Maybe a cramped bed at a dodgy inn isn’t the most romantic place for two teens to lose their virginities, but it was for me and Max—because it was us.

Before words like duty and mission replaced hope and love.

“Right. Well. You and I are going to have some serious catching up to do.” He mutters the understatement of the year before glancing at his Rolex with a frown. “But that little reunion will have to wait. We’re going to be late if we don’t leave now.”

It’s only then that I register the tic in his jaw. The quiet, suppressed fury.

He is seriously pissed about this situation, and I can’t blame him.

The room seems to spin, but I don’t falter or faint.

He disappeared at eighteen, breaking my heart into a million tiny pieces. It wasn’t until ten years later, well after I became Agent Z, that I discovered the full story of what happened to him. He had been recruited by the Order, as well.

I should have stayed away. But just over three years ago, I emailed him from the Hong Kong office, a short, perfunctory message on an arrest for a sex trafficker from Belgium.

He responded, asking a few clarifying questions, and we struck up a conversation of sorts.

And against every bit of my common sense, I eventually asked for a meeting. He had no idea I was Lora from Frasier Academy. He just knew me as Z. And I made damn sure he never saw my face. At my request, he wore a blindfold to every one of our meetings. I wore one, too. Mostly. It was for protection. So we couldn’t betray each other if we ever fell into the wrong hands.

And so we began our torrid little affair.

In this way, I was able to have my lover back. He never recognized my voice or my body. I had more curves with age and made sure when I spoke to him it was only ever in a husky whisper.

I deceived him.

Now he knows the truth, and I don’t have time to explain. Tonight we are assigned to a job where we are to revel in desire, where I’m to serve his every command. And from the way his nostrils flare as he opens the door, holding it for me, I realize that I’m about to be literally and figuratively fucked.

“Ready, Princess?” X asks.

But his expression is hard. I would bet he doesn’t take deceit lightly. If the tables were turned, I’d be hell-bent on revenge, and I wonder with a tinge of both fear and desire if he feels the same.

“Of course, Your Highness,” I drawl. “Lead the way.”




X


My molars crush against each other as we slip into the Jaguar limousine; any more pressure and they’ll shatter. The driver, a junior agent who can barely grow peach fuzz, closes the door behind us before reappearing again in the driver’s seat.

“Pardon me for saying so, but I’m quite looking forward to this assignment, Agents X and Z. Your missions are legendary, both of you.” His enthusiasm is mixed with his northern English accent. “I mean, X, that time you drove a Rolls-Royce onto the top of a train and then had to jump off? With an Edenvale prince in the car with you, no less!”

I open my mouth to cut him off, but the bloke barely takes a sip of air before rambling on again.

“And Agent Z—you wing walked from one plane to another, entered the aircraft from the storage hold and landed the beast after both the pilot and copilot had been poisoned. And you got them to the hospital in time to save them!”

I raise a brow at this, turning my attention to Lora. I mean—Agent Z.

The woman who has been fucking me—and with me—for years.

“That was you?”

She simply shrugs.

The rook—the Order’s name for agents in training before they earn their crow’s-feather tattoo—opens his mouth to speak again, but I press the button to close the soundproof partition.

“Thank you. That will be all for now,” I say as the tinted glass slides shut, his eager young profile disappearing before he can protest.

The kid doesn’t realize this gig isn’t all about catching bad guys. It’s about learning that the world isn’t black-and-white, but merely shades of gray.

And the scantily dressed woman beside me is the grayest of gray characters.

Z stares out the window as we pull away from the curb, and I stare at her thigh-high black stiletto boots, the smooth-as-silk skin of her legs barely covered by the black netting of her—hell, I don’t know what you call it, but whatever it is, it shows off every dip and swell of her curves. Beneath it, she’s covered by a leather G-string and ruby-red pasties that form an X over each nipple as if she’s marked them just for me. Coincidence—or another one of Lora’s attempts to further toy with me? It doesn’t matter. She looks bloody fantastic, and though I would never admit it to her, it will require little effort for me to play my part tonight. We’re the same age, and if I saw her on the street I wouldn’t imagine she was a day over thirty. Whatever genetics are in her lithe body deserve a prize.

Fuck her for fucking me all those times and knowing it was me.

“You never struck me as the type who played games,” I say with practiced nonchalance. If she thinks I’m going to give her a big dramatic performance, she’s got another think coming. She’s played me with ice-cold precision for years, so I’m dialing the temperature to Antarctic levels.

She rolls her eyes but doesn’t peel her gaze from the window.

“And you said you loved me and disappeared without a trace,” she snaps. “Potato, po-tah-to, Max. You were playing your little spy games years before I was even recruited—years when I didn’t know if you were alive or dead. Don’t try to tangle with me or I’ll tie you in knots.”

“X,” I say, my jaw tight. “I’m Agent X now. You want to know what happened when they ripped me from my life at Frasier? Max Vandenberg died a thousand deaths until nothing of him remained. All that’s fucking left is X.”

She finally turns her head, her dark eyes meeting mine. “If you ever really loved me,” she says coolly, “you’d have known it was me even with the blindfold. But you didn’t. You never had a clue.”

As if choreographed to her words, the car rolls to a stop.

The driver knocks on the partition. I tap out Morse code in response, permitting him to open the partition.

“King... Princess...we have reached our destination. Welcome to the Lion’s Den.”

I straighten my spiked jacket over my T-shirt and open the door to the dark alley that hides the club’s entrance. I unclip the leash from my belt and turn to Z, tossing it onto the seat next to her.

“Should be as easy as jumping from one plane to another,” I taunt. “Or as lying to a lover.”

A muscle ticks in her jaw as she lets loose a soft growl.

“Careful, love,” I tell her. “You’re the sub, remember? You need to sell it.”

She sneers at me as her knees fall open and she clips the leash to a ring on the crotch of her G-string.

I grab the free end and give her a slight tug, imagining the cool metal sliding against her folds.

My cock goes rigid, traitor that it is. But I take satisfaction in Z’s slight squirm against the leather seat.

“When I say come, you come,” I tell her, then lead her out of the car. It takes every ounce of effort not to allow my mind to wander to the dalliances we’ve shared over the years. The vise grip of her pussy on my cock. Goddamn it, she’d open so wide for me. She gave me everything except for the truth.

For the seconds we stand next to each other, she leans close and whispers in my ear. “If we make it out of here alive, I’m going to kill you.”

I chuckle, though I know it’s only partly a joke. Agent Z’s reputation with the blade is legendary. As is her talent for escape. No one can capture her.

“I look forward to it, Princess.”

And then I stride farther into the alley, the slack on the leash the determiner of how many paces she’ll walk behind me.

Yes, we’re playing our assigned roles, but it also allows me to case our surroundings and for her to have my back should I miss anything.

Not that I ever do.

I count the doors, none of them lit, and stop at the fifth one—an indistinct black door recessed in the nondescript redbrick rear wall of the building.

A camera above the door clicks and whirs as we approach. Then the door falls open, revealing a dimly lit stairwell.

I wrap the leash around my hand and give it a soft pull.

Z sucks in a sharp breath and my nostrils flare. Fuck. I capture the scent of her erotic aroma.

“Tell me what’s on the other side of that ring,” I say, because it’s either that or throw her up against the wall and take her bareback, thrust my cock in her to the root, make her milk every last drop of come out of me and see if that gets my head on straight.

She grits her teeth. “Make me.”





CHAPTER TWO (#u80f63736-7de3-52f2-b998-5f3b7978a93b)

Z


I HATE HOW my toes are cramped inside these ridiculous pointy boots. I hate the way the glue from my pasties itches my sensitive areolas. I hate the way London’s autumn night chill pebbles my exposed skin with gooseflesh. But most of all, I hate how wet I am. I swear if I look I’ll see my arousal shimmering on my thighs in a telltale gleam.

My body is compact and muscular, an instrument of death, honed to fatal precision, and yet with Max—no, X—looming over me, smelling vaguely of pine, oiled leather and mountain rain, my defenses crack. A part of me, a part that feels quite achy at present, wants to rub against his powerful form like a feral cat in heat, purring that he can use me any way that he sees fit. To acknowledge him as my master. My G-string is soaked and my mouth waters, remembering the velvet feel of his cock on my tongue.

But I got to where I am in the Order by being competitive, and I am compelled to answer the challenge in his eyes.

“As you wish,” he growls and tugs me forward.

The wet leather of my G-string goes tight against my pussy, the cold metal of the leash ring skimming my clit. But I don’t allow so much as a whimper to escape my lips. Keeping my face carefully bored, I clip down the steps behind him, concentrating on my balance and cursing the day that I ever begged my parents to send me to Frasier Academy. My life would have been easier if I never knew this man existed, because ever since I’ve been trapped in his orbit, it’s as if he exerts his own gravitational pull.

No matter how many years I’ve known him, I can’t get used to his presence. He’s as addictive as heroin. The sexual chemistry between us could blow up Western Europe.

He glances behind and scowls. “Eyes down, Princess.”

“Excuse me?” I bristle.

A muscle in his jaw ticks. “So help me, my sub will be well trained. Turn your gaze to the ground. You don’t make eye contact with anyone unless I order you to, is that understood?”

“Fine,” I spit. He’s right. I have to be professional. Even if my job is requiring me to play a role that I hate.

He tugs my leash. “Yes, sir.”

My breath hitches as my pussy responds to the pressure, and he snorts.

“Yes, sir,” I mumble, lowering my gaze, my cheeks pink not from embarrassment but barely controlled fury. And still I want to lick every contour of the muscles beneath his Dom outfit.

“I might enjoy this gig after all,” he says, almost to himself.

I glare at the floor, unsure whom I hate more. Him? Or me and my damn weakness.

And just like that we are at the bottom of the stairs. X pushes apart thick black velvet curtains, and we enter the Lion’s Den.

Throbbing Euro trance music mingles with the sound of a woman’s breathless moans. I dare a quick glance to my left to see a woman trussed up in what appears to be clothesline as a muscular man in head-to-toe latex pumps her slit with a fat crimson dildo while tugging her nipple clamps. A crowd gathers around them, clearly enjoying the spectacle from the way they stroke their exposed erections or finger their shaved pussies. At their feet, slaves kneel, heads down, men and women, all submissives waiting on the pleasure of their masters.

On the other wall, a young man is chained to a giant metal X while a dominatrix in a purple corset and crotchless panties paddles his exposed ass with an ebony cane.

Sprawled across a dining table in the center of the room, a nubile blonde stretches out, her naked body covered in small pastries. Dominants lounge in chairs around her, occasionally plucking a delight from her body as if she was nothing but a dessert plate.

Shocked, I return my gaze to the ground, grateful for a moment not to be the one in control. My thighs tremble as heat licks my core. It’s like entering a sexual circus and erotic fun house.

It’s not that I’m a prude. After all, for the last three years, I’ve been X’s secret lover, allowing him to penetrate me in anonymous cars and hotel rooms all over the continent. But here I am out of my element. Cries of agony and ecstasy hit me on all sides. It’s as if I’m a child, Alice of Through the Looking-Glass, and entering a wonderland of sexhibition.

“Hello, hello,” I hear a woman purr in a throaty voice, addressing X. “Your little one is delicious.”

“She is, isn’t she?” X answers smugly, as if I’m a toy he’s proud of.

And for the moment, I suppose that’s exactly what I am.

“There’s going to be a black-sheet party starting in the red room soon, very exclusive, invitation only.”

I don’t flinch. I don’t give a sign that I recognize this woman. That she might view me as her friend.

Her name is Caro, and I’m about to stab her in the back—not literally, of course, unless she happens to get in my way. I have to be ruthless to succeed in this mission.

“Oh?” From the sound of X’s voice, the frost and ice made flesh, he feels the same way.

It’s not as if I’m unprepared for the mission. I did my research on fetish clubs. But even still...the butterflies darting around the pit of my stomach seem to have developed quite a case of stage fright.

“I’d love to play with your slave, if you’re into sharing.”

I jerk. No! That wasn’t part of my plan.

Caro is taking advantage. I’ve been cultivating her friendship for years, a target who has been a henchwoman to the most wanted man in Europe. But she’s a pain in the ass, and any traces of guilt I feel about my coming betrayal vanishes in an instant.

“I’m not,” X snaps. “But I’ll accept the invite.”

Caro offers a sultry giggle. “This is your first time here, is it not? I make it my business to know all the clients.”

“You own this place?” X asks nonchalantly; as if he could care less.

“Me?” Her giggle turns to an outright laugh. “Not at all. Daddy does.”

Daddy. My lips almost twist in a sneer.

“I’m not a big fan of small talk,” X announces abruptly. “Go ahead and lead the way.”

“Okay, but if you aren’t taking part in the fun, you need to stand on the side and remain quiet.”

“Understood.” X tugs my leash, and with a delicious shudder through my pussy, we’re off again.

Daddy is Dante Price. The lord of this hell. And he is here, watching somewhere close by, and Caro is his head henchwoman.

A few twists and turns down a narrow hallway and the music fades into the background, even as the moans increase. My boots are washed in a rich red light. We must have arrived.

Without raising my chin, I dare to lift my gaze.

Busted. X is staring right at me. But that’s not what causes me to gasp.

It’s the fact that behind him, undulating over a twenty-foot mattress covered in black silk sheets, a full-on orgy is underway.




X


My jaw tightens as I tug Z’s leash. I can feel her hesitation. Despite her outfit and willingness to play slave to my dom, she isn’t prepared for this.

“I meant what I said,” I whisper in her ear. “I don’t share.”

This time when I yank the cord, she follows more freely. She trusts my word, and she has no reason not to. I’ve never lied to her—aside from when I disappeared over two decades ago.

A chorus of moans erupts from all ends of the giant silk-covered mattress. A woman propped on her hands and knees gives oral pleasure to a man while receiving the same from a woman who lies beneath her. What seem like disembodied hands reach for Z. Before I can step between her and one of her admirers, someone succeeds in grabbing a handful of her net chemise.

She opens her mouth, likely to scream, so I don’t waste a second. I cover her lips with my palm and wrap my other arm around her torso, wrenching her free.

“She’s mine,” I say coolly, dragging Z to a corner alcove, the last remaining free one in the room.

I know that Z can hold her own against anyone in this room, but I also know that she is out of her element here, whereas I’ve frequented clubs such as this across the globe. Never, though, with a partner and certainly not one who in my younger years took both my innocence and my heart.

Despite my feelings about Z’s betrayal, if anyone else in this room lays a hand on her, I’ll cut the appendage off before the assailant has time to blink.

I hold her body flush to mine, my cock rigid against her lush, firm ass.

“Twelve o’clock, nine o’clock, six o’clock,” I whisper.

She nods, noting each alcove that hosts a dom and a sub in “private” one-on-one sex play.

From the intelligence I’ve collected, Price doesn’t engage in the group acts, but he watches them. Those he finds most entertaining he invites into his private viewing room. All we need is to get a private audience with him and then we plant the seed. “Do you remember your role?”

She slams her ass into my cock, and I grunt from both the pleasure and the pain.

“I take that as a yes,” I growl into her ear.

Anyone who wants to do business with Price needs an in. This is ours. Once we get an official invite, we become business associates of an arms trader who wants to check out Price’s inventory.

I wrap my end of the leash around my wrist and spin Z to face me.

“Nothing we haven’t done before, right?” I say bitterly. “And I’ve got something that’ll make it like old times.” I pull a silk blindfold from my pocket and tie it over her eyes.

“Fuck you, X,” she hisses.

I grin. “That is the plan.” Then I press a palm to her shoulder. “Now kneel, Princess, and show me how you worship your king.”

She obeys, playing the part of the good little sub. But once on her knees, she does nothing more.

“Did I stutter, Princess?”

“No, Highness,” she answers, whatever expression her eyes hold hidden behind the blindfold.

“Then tell me why you pay no reverence to your liege.”

My cock throbs behind the zipper of my jeans.

“Because.” She shrugs. “I’m a bad little princess. You’re going to have to make me worship.”

If we don’t give Price a worthy show, then this evening was for nothing. So I grab the knot of hair on her head and yank it hard. Because of the blindfold, she doesn’t see it coming, and she cries out as her head jerks. Then her ruby-painted lips part into a devious smile.

“Worship,” I growl, giving the leash a slow tug, knowing the metal ring rubs along her folds every time I do.

She unbuttons my jeans and lowers the zipper, and there it is again, the smile that tells me this agent is far more trouble than I anticipated.

She rips my jeans to my ankles, nodding at the small weapons in each slot of the hidden holster that only she can see.

“What’s the matter, X? Don’t trust me?”

I raise a brow. “Not even a little bit,” I say without hesitation.

She simply grins, then licks me from balls to tip—knowing despite her mask that I was commando inside my jeans.

She sucks me to the very base, and I grit my teeth to keep from roaring like a goddamn caged lion. Immediately, my body responds like I’m a teenager who needs one thing—to coat her throat. I begin to move my hips in time to her bobbing sucks, growling with pleasure as she exhales through her nose, controlling her gag reflex.

My fingers twitch, itching to bury themselves in her hair and imprint my taste on her tongue.

Damn it. I love every second of this assault.

If I am the dom, why the hell does it feel like she is the one in control?

“No,” I grind out, realizing more than one thing feels off. “This is not the show Price wants.”

I pull Z up and pivot her so she is against the wall. Then I lift her hands above her head to where handcuffs hang from a bar attached to the small alcove’s ceiling.

I lock her there—arms raised and wrists shackled, her blindfold securely fastened.

“Pick a safe word,” I tell her. “Quickly.”

“Why?” she taunts. “You don’t scare me.”

“Not for here,” I tell her. “For when we start working with Price. If we ever get separated—if you’re ever alone with him and need out fast—we need a code word.”

She bristles. “What if you need out fast? Why do you assume I’ll be the one in trouble? Because I’m a woman? Honestly, X. I could kill you before you even knew I betrayed you.”

“Maybe,” I say. “If I still trusted you.”

I pull another piece of silk from the pocket of my jacket and gag her, partly to play our role and partly so she cannot press the issue.

“The safe word is La Seine.”

She thrashes as I strip to nothing, and I relish her reaction.

The first time we met as anonymous lovers was in the back of a limousine parked along the Seine River in Paris.

But it is also the place where at seventeen we spent the weekend holed up in a cheap inn where she gave me her virginity and I gave her mine.

Fucking hell, I was a fool. She all but told me who she was years ago, and I missed every goddamn sign. I wonder now at the betrayal she must have felt at finding her first love—a trained assassin and spy—unable to recognize the girl who should have been his.

I tear off her G-string and slam into her to the hilt. The thrashing stops. Instead, our bodies pulse in time with the music beyond the walls. I lift her booted legs, and she hooks them around my waist. How I want to rip the gag from her mouth and kiss her until the decades between us melt away. But this night isn’t about Max and Lora. It’s not even about X and Z. It is a mission. A job. A means to an end.

This isn’t tender lovemaking. It’s a hard fuck.

And it doesn’t change the fact that every thrust sends the memories swirling.

Her back slams into the wall, and she bucks against me.

It’s our first year at Frasier. I sneak up to her table in the library where she sits alone and pull the book from under nose.

Slam.

“What are you reading?” I ask, wrinkling my nose at the old Agatha Christie mystery.

Slam.

“Nothing, now that you’ve stolen my book. Return it, if you don’t mind.”

Slam.

“Take it, then. If you can.”

Slam.

She stands from the table as I hold the book high above her head. But in mere seconds she has my arm wrenched behind my back, and the book falls to the floor.

Slam. Z cries out around her gag and I’m breathing heavily.

“I’m Max,” I say grinning, my captor still standing behind me.

“Lora,” she says. “And you will never interrupt me when I’m reading again.”

It took me years to win her over, but when I did, she was mine and I hers. But we aren’t lovesick teens anymore. And despite what it does to me to touch her like this, I remind myself of who we are now—performers, saviors, killers. Am I a fool to think we can be lovers, too?

I slide my hand between the place where we join and roughly pinch her wet, swollen clit between my thumb and forefinger. Z arches against the wall and squeezes her legs around my torso. My cock pulses inside her as we both rocket into oblivion. My cock throbs as her body wrings me dry.

“I think I’m in love with you, Lora.”

“I think you’re crazy, Max. We just met.”

She was right then, and hell if she isn’t right now. When did the crazy start? On the Seine two-plus decades ago? Three years ago in that limousine? Down the street from the Royal Edenvale Hospital the night I left the post I’d held on my longest mission, with the royal family? Or was it everything in between?

I’d wanted to see her face, each and every time. Because despite her claiming I had no clue, on some level I must have known. But none of that matters now. Loving Lora or Z or whoever she is now puts lives at further risk. We will complete this mission and I will ask for reassignment as far from Agent Z as humanly possible.

It’s the only option that gives us the greatest chance at survival.




CHAPTER THREE (#u80f63736-7de3-52f2-b998-5f3b7978a93b)

Z


AS MY POWERFUL ORGASM ebbs and my shattered gasps return to a normal pattern of breathing, I uncurl my toes and sag limply, held upright by the handcuffs dangling from the ceiling. Blindfolded and gagged, I know how weak I must appear to every depraved leer in the red room, and look they surely do. I swear that I can feel their curious gazes crawling over my flesh like spiders.

A soft cloth presses between my legs, and I jerk at the unexpected contact.

“Shh. Easy now, Princess,” X croons, his breath heating the sensitive shell of my ear. “Aftercare is an expected part of the scene. The dom always looks after his sub once they are finished.” As he speaks, he expertly cleans his come from my folds, and despite my best effort, a furious tear breaks free, trickling down my cheek.

I feel X’s confident movements falter.

“Lora.” His voice is a low rasp. Not Princess. Not Z. Lora.

Another tear joins the first.

“What’s the—”

His question is broken off by a slow clap.

“Magnificent performance.”

I stiffen, recognizing that sultry purr. It’s Caro, turning up again like the proverbial bad penny. At least she’s not blowing my cover or Max would ensure I’d be fucked in a way that caused me considerably less pleasure.

“While you’re not winning any kink contests, you two have a most intoxicating chemistry, which hasn’t gone unnoticed. Daddy watched the whole scene, and I’m pleased to say that you’ve piqued his interest. He isn’t prepared to invite you into his private playroom yet, but he asked me to invite you back tomorrow. This is a great honor.”

“I’ll check my calendar.” X’s response is frosty, arrogance infusing every syllable. He is perfect for this cocky dom role, acting like getting noticed by the dark god of the underworld is nothing out of the ordinary, as if our entire mission isn’t relying on just such a meeting.

“Well...” Caro sniffs, obviously deflated. “If you come, Daddy has one more rule.”

“I don’t play by anyone’s rules but my own,” X snaps.

And the truth in his annoyed snark causes my sensitive inner muscles to clench even though he just wrung an earth-shattering orgasm from me minutes ago.

I force my dry throat to swallow, willing myself to get it together. I’m not a fifteen-year-old girl anymore, bringing my dog-eared copy of A Room with a View out to read beneath the ancient oak tree that grew alongside the rugby oval. While pretending to be engrossed in E. M. Forster’s worlds in Italy and England, I always maintained an awareness of Max as he locked shoulders with his teammates, pushing, shoving and battering in a seething mass of rucking.

I’d find myself rereading the same page time and time again, too entranced by the look of utter focus on Max’s face, the power emanating from his body and the near-palpable force of character.

I’d look away whenever he glanced my direction, pretending to study the clouds or a frolicking squirrel.

“He wants her.” Caro reaches out and strokes my neck with what feels like claws, jerking me back to the present moment. “This little one is exactly his type.”

Don’t I know it.

My gorge rises. I’ve turned down Dante’s advances for years, dangling the promise of my body like a carrot on a string. It seems his patience has run out at last. No doubt fueled by watching my little display with X.

I let it get personal.

Who is the idiot here? Me.

Shit.

“Touch her again, you’ll answer to me.” X’s voice is deadly serious.

The Max I used to know was intense about sports, but off the field he liked nothing better than to joke around with his mates...or tease me ruthlessly.

Agent X, however, doesn’t make jokes. Only promises. And his word is his bond.

“Is that a promise?” The woman sounds curious.

“We’re leaving.” X unlocks my handcuffs and tugs my leash.

“Wait!” I fumble to take off my blindfold, my fingers tingling as blood returns to my hands.

Then the blindfold drops and I see Caro nearly nose to nose. Her body is perfect and her dark skin is without a single blemish. Her bronze lips twist into a smug leer. “Like what you see, sugar?”

I don’t wait for X’s order before dropping my gaze to the floor. It’s not that I dislike my looks, but I’m nothing special. Average height. Average weight. Brown hair. Brown eyes.

I could be a kindergarten teacher or a librarian.

I wonder if I’d have been happier in a simple life. And I think I know the answer.

Yes.

Somewhere behind me a woman begins to come in loud whimpers and suddenly I’m exhausted. This night is all so sudden and confronting and confusing.

My worlds have collided, and I feel thrust into a strange new universe.

X leads me from the club without another look or comment, and by the time we get into the waiting limo all I want to do is speed to my hotel, slip into my pajama pants and binge on online baking competitions until I fall asleep.

Instead, X doesn’t release my leash.

“Why did you start crying in there?” His voice is tight, almost husky with some repressed emotion.

I look away, glaring out the window at the rainy London streets. The truth is that I don’t know where my tears came from.

I thought I’d cried myself dry over Max. What we had. What we lost all those years ago. But apparently, when it comes to my first love, I have a reservoir of feelings.

I cry for a future denied me. One where I work a nine-to-five job. Live in the country with Max and have children.

Now, at my age, the promise of children is almost denied to me...unless I can find a way to get out.

But to buy a new future would sell out my past. Nothing comes without a cost. If I walk away from the Order, I walk away from my entire life.

“Lora, look at me when I talk to you,” he growls.

“You don’t get to command me outside the Lion’s Den,” I mutter as we pull up in front of our hotel. “Remember what’s real and what’s not. In the real world, you don’t own me.”

His eyes burn a deep midnight blue. “Is that a fact?”

“Ugh.” I roll my eyes. “Whatever.”

“That’s the best you can do? I seem to remember a more extensive vocabulary.”

“I’ve learned the value of brevity. Go fuck yourself has such a ring to it.” I rap on the window to our driver. “Can I get my key, please?”

The young driver turns around. “Your key? There’s only one, miss.”

“You’re kidding,” I growl.

X chuckles. “What did you expect? If anyone follows us, we have to look like a believable couple. And in this case, it means sharing the penthouse suite in the Shangri-La Hotel. The Order moved our belongings in while we were at the club.”

Ugh. Of course.

My daggers are all upstairs in my suitcase, so I have to settle for a death glare. “If we are living in forced proximity, I can’t be responsible for my actions. I might smother you with a pillow in your sleep.”

“I’m a light sleeper,” he says. “But I’m sure we can find something to pass the time.”

X

We ride up in the elevator in icy silence, glaring at the rich velvet wallpaper. Every time I open my mouth to say something, I think better of it and close it again.

She may have deceived me for a few years, but I kept her in the dark for decades. How do I begin to apologize for that?

There aren’t words.

So I give her her space—as much as I can in the small box we’re in.

She stalks ahead of me when we get to our floor, straight to our room and through the door, not bothering to hold it for me.

“Shit, Z,” I mumble as I stick my foot in between the door and the frame before it slams in my face.

I slip inside and already hear the shower running in the bathroom. It takes everything in my power not to barge in there, to throw the curtain open and demand her attention as in the Lion’s Den.

“Space,” I mutter, reminding myself that what we just experienced was likely beyond her realm of comprehension or preparation. She needs time to let it settle.

So I stay in the suite’s small living area, raiding the minibar and spreading out a feast of tiny bottles and delicacies across the glass coffee table. Before I can dig in, though, I’m hit in the face with a pillow, then a folded blanket.

Z stands in front of me in a plush white robe, the exposed skin on her chest and neck pink—likely from the scalding shower I’m sure she took. Her wet dark hair spreads long over both her shoulders.

In the twenty-plus years I’ve imagined her, I never anticipated seeing her like this would knock the wind clear out of my chest. She looks exactly the same.

It seems cruel to have her look so unchanged when everything else is different.

“You’ll be taking the couch,” she says coolly, her jaw tight, even as her whiskey-brown eyes hit me like a shot.

No woman has ever kicked me out of her bed after sex, but then, we weren’t exactly in anyone’s bed tonight.

“Understood,” I say. “Appreciate the amenities,” I add, holding up my pile of linens.

She spins on her heel, heading toward the bedroom.

“Lora, wait,” I call after her.

She stops but doesn’t face me. “No one has called me that for years,” she says softly. “Yet when you say it, it’s like everything melts away and we’re seventeen again. It makes me think you’re Max when I know full well you’re not.”

I blow out a long breath. “You know if I could have told you, I would have. Don’t you?”

She turns now, and tears streak her cheeks. “One night I fall asleep in your arms in my dorm room, and the next morning you’re gone. No word. Not then, not ever again. Can you imagine how it felt? Did you hear my heart break? I swear I almost died from the pain.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “I was just a kid, Lora. And a moron. All those IQ tests they made us take? They were entrance exams. Apparently, my scores were such that the Order feared if anyone got their hands on me before they could put me through the program, I’d end up a weapon rather than a protector.”

She scoffs. “It’s all semantics. You’re a weapon. I’m a weapon. It’s just a matter of who got to us first.”

She’s right. Yet something in what she said sets off a warning bell.

“Who got to you first, Lora?”

She doesn’t flinch, her gaze remaining steady.

I stand and stalk toward her. Once in front of her, I cradle her face in my palm and ask the question again.

“Who got to you first?”

Her dark eyes burn with twenty-five years of fury, and in a blink she has me slammed against the wall, a blade at my throat, the cold metal taunting my skin.

“The. Order,” she growls through gritted teeth. “Who the hell got to you?”

I disarm her in the fraction of a second, spinning her so now she’s flush against the wall.

I press my cheek to hers, feeling her chest rise and fall with her quickening breaths, her perfect tits rubbing up against me.

“If we’re on the same team, love, why the hell are you armed?”

She lets out a bitter laugh. “The same reason you wore that hidden holster to the Lion’s Den. Don’t make me break your nose, Max. I wouldn’t want to mar that beautiful face of yours, but I’ll do what I have to.”

I retreat a step and hold up my hands in mock surrender.

“I’m not the enemy, Lora.”

She turns around, her shoulders sagging a little. “Neither am I.”

The problem is, in our line of work, you never can tell.

Several seconds pass before I finally let my shoulders relax.

“Nice work tonight, Agent Z,” I say stiffly. And I mean it.

“Go to hell, Max.”

There’s the feisty Lora I remember. I can’t help it. I grin from ear to ear.

She rolls her eyes and then stalks to the bedroom, the door slamming behind her so hard that it rattles the Impressionist paintings dotting the wall.

I take off the ridiculous spiked leather jacket and toss it on the marble floor. Since our bags are all in the bedroom, I decide to sleep in the jeans—and the ankle sheath that lies beneath...

Forget all personal connections. They will either betray you or be used against you. That goes for family, friends and even lovers. Consider anyone other than the agents you work with either an enemy or a liability.

That was the first thing they’d told me when the Order removed me from Frasier Academy. From the second I agreed to be an agent, I was forced to cut all ties outside the organization.

For twenty-five years I’ve been an orphan and a ghost, a man with no name, no past and no future. Only the next mission.

I prepare my makeshift bed and crawl in as exhaustion hits me like a runaway train. The couch is lumpy, but I’ve dealt with worse. Yet as I drift off, I swear I hear muffled cries coming from Z’s room. I lift my head, and this time the cry is unmistakable.

Ice enters my veins.

If someone is hurting her, they are dead. But their dying will take time and I’ll make sure every second is filled with inescapable pain.

I unsheathe a blade and creep soundlessly to her door. I slip inside, my senses on high alert, dagger raised to strike.

That’s when I see her, alone in the bed wearing nothing but a Frasier Academy T-shirt, panties—and her own sheathed dagger at her ankle. I suck in a breath, for a second seeing the young girl I fell in love with. Has she kept the shirt as a memento of us—or is she playing with me, getting me to let my guard down because of a bloody memory? I hesitate, but only for a second as she thrashes right and left, a hectic flush on her cheeks as she sends the covers askew. This is no act.

I put my weapon away as my chest tightens. What horrors has she seen other than this night? If I had to venture a guess based on my own experience, I’d say it was more than any one person should be expected to handle.

I slip my dagger in its hiding spot and crawl cautiously into the bed. Dreaming or no, it is a dangerous thing I do with a woman I don’t fully trust and who has no reason to trust me.

“It’s okay, Lora,” I whisper. “It’s just me.”

Her eyes open wide, and she pulls a handgun from beneath her pillow, aiming it unerringly right between my brows.

“It’s me,” I say again. “Max. I just thought you might need—”

She drops the gun next to the phone on her night table, then burrows into my arms.

“Only for tonight,” she whispers, scooting closer. “Because I don’t want to be alone, even if the alternative is you.”

I huff out a laugh, pulling her to me. “Understood.”

Her lips press to my ear, as gentle as a petal plucked from a rose. “And if you try anything like we did in that club, I’ll castrate you before you can pull a weapon.” Sharp teeth nip my lobe to punctuate her warning.

No matter how soft and supple she is, her body is a deadly weapon. She knows a hundred ways to kill a man with her bare hands. And yet I’m not afraid. Shit. I can’t get close enough.

“Of course,” I say, grinning. “Whatever you need.”

And because I haven’t slept in days, I surrender to it now, Lora nestled in my arms. She hooks an ankle around mine, and we sleep, bodies tangled, chest to chest, and dagger to dagger. The lights of London seep between the curtains. Bad guys are out there. Plotting. Planning. But that’s not my concern right now.

Enemy or liability means nothing, if only for the next few hours.

I breathe in the jasmine scent to her soft hair and for a moment revel in this most unfamiliar of feelings...

Peace.





CHAPTER FOUR (#u80f63736-7de3-52f2-b998-5f3b7978a93b)

Z


I SLIDE OUT of bed before dawn. X might be a light sleeper, but I’m an expert at moving through life undetected. I’d have died a thousand times otherwise. In the bathroom I grimace at my reflection, the dark rings under my eyes hinting at a restless night. I’ve always looked younger than my years, but today it’s as if the past has descended. My gaze looks ancient. I look like I’ve lived a thousand lives and I’m on edge from dreams that I can’t fully recall. Only that they’ve left my stomach tied in a series of sickening slipknots.

Usually when I’m unsettled, sex helps calm me, but no way am I going to be mixing business and pleasure on this assignment.

This time your business is pleasure, an invisible devil on my shoulder whispers.

I bend over and splash icy cold water on my face, washing away the traitorous impulse of my body to crawl into bed with X and wake him up by taking his cock in my mouth.

“No,” I mutter, giving my reflection a stern wag of the finger.

I’ll have to resort to plan B. When I can’t indulge in a sexual release, running takes the edge off. It’s in no way a pleasure, but it pummels my mind into order, allows me to sweat out stress.

I creep out of the bathroom, grateful we are in a suite, and change into yoga pants and a pale blue running top in the predawn dark.

I’m slinking to the door when the light turns on. I freeze, like a cat caught in the cream.

X, dressed in black athletic wear that makes love to his muscular frame, regards me coolly. My heart accelerates like I’m doing interval training.

“Going somewhere, pet?” he asks.

“You can see that I am,” I snap, embarrassed to be caught scuttling away. Mortified that I needed the comfort of his arms last night. Frustrated that I’m craving his body heat more than my next breath.

“I’ll join you.” Not a question. God, he’s such a cocky man. And damn if I don’t love it.

“Ha.” I roll my eyes, pretending to care less. “Trust me, you can’t keep up. I run six-minute miles when I let loose in the parks.”

“Impressive.” He drops his chin, a hint of a smile tugging the corner of his wide lips. “That’s fast.”

“I know.” I don’t fuck around when I run. I beat the pavement like a horde of zombies are hot on my heels. It’s the only way to get a much-needed endorphin rush, to clear my head of cobwebs.

“I’ll try to keep up.” He kicks back a foot and reaches to squeeze his ankle, pulling his leg in a deep quadriceps stretch.

His pants do nothing to disguise his rock-hard thighs, or the visible bulge.

“You can try.” I force my appraising gaze away and stalk to the hotel door. “But trust me, you’re going to lose.”

“We’ll see about that,” he growls as I march into the hallway.

Our elevator ride is tense. He’s standing three feet away and yet it’s as if I can feel him against me, his touch branding my skin.

He doesn’t look my direction. He says nothing.

I hate him right now. This was meant to be my time. A chance to outrun my demons. And yet now I’ll be truly chased by an actual devil from my past.

I purse my lips into a grim smile. At least I’m going to kick his ass into next Sunday. There’s something delicious about that fact.

We walk through the deserted but sumptuous lobby. Shangri-La is a five-star hotel and spares no expense, from the eight-tiered fountain to the marble columns to the cut-crystal chandeliers. It could be tacky but is more old-world Hollywood glamour. This is the type of hotel couples would pick out for their honeymoons or romantic getaways. Not to crash after spending nights in BDSM dungeons.

I refuse to make eye contact with staff, wondering if any of them recognize me from my nearly naked fishnet look last night.

We step out into London’s early morning and the road is quiet, traffic not yet buzzing to life. Four classic black taxis idle at the hotel cab station, two bellboys in tailored uniforms shoot the breeze by their desk, and an elderly man is walking his beribboned Pomeranian, but otherwise we are the only ones out and about.

I set my GPS watch and reach to where my iPhone is strapped to a running armband.

“Which way are we going?”

“My plan is to hit the main parks... Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Green Park and St. James Park.” It’s a fun loop and one of my favorite runs in London.

X opens his mouth, but I start my Spotify running playlist and whatever he says is drowned out by Tom Petty’s “Runnin’ Down a Dream.”

Without another word, I take off in a dead sprint. He doesn’t catch up with me until Notting Hill station.

I’m surprised. He’s quicker than I anticipated.

I’ve worked hard to be fast. When it comes to the Order’s comprehensive physical exams, I’ve schooled most of the men in the Asian offices. I don’t bulge with muscles, but I’m strong, my body nothing like a frail model. Instead, I’m compact and confident. I’ve been training for years.

I glance at X, who offers a smug smile.

“Hello,” he mouths.

I can’t wait to wipe that grin off his face. I’ve been going easy. Time to get my motor going. Pumping my arms, I up the pace. He lunges, trying to match me. He’s powerful, built for sprinting, but I’ve trained for endurance. I’ve got a series of ultramarathons under my belt and have conditioned my body to accept and even crave the pain.

Might come in handy in the Lion’s Den, the little devil on my shoulder purrs.

I don’t turn around until I’m passing Royal Albert Hall, sweat slicking the skin in the valley between my breasts.

When I do, the path is empty.

I’ve lost him.

I should want to pump my fist, but instead I’m more aware than ever that I’m alone.

Like usual.

How I prefer.

But I can’t quite tune out the cool wash of disappointment in my belly.

Did I really want X to chase me?

I start running before I answer my question.

If I’m going to survive this mission, it’s critical that I don’t overthink.

All I can do is breathe in and out. And survive.




X


Lora’s fast as the devil. I’ll give her that much. Secondary school may have been decades ago, but she’s stronger than she’s ever been.





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