Under the Rose

by Nolan, Kathryn

  “Say that again.” I fucked her in slow, smooth strokes, slipping in and out of her body with ease. Teasing her inner walls with the pad of my finger.

  “You’re good at this, Sam,” she breathed. I slipped another finger in, and her face broke out in a satisfied, teasing smile. “Really fucking good.”

  My name on her lips sent a bolt of possessive lust coursing through me. How could sex feel this vital this immediately? An entire career spent within the confines of a hierarchical bureaucracy meant suppressing my inner desires was as natural as breathing to me. And now here was Freya—spread on my lap with my hand beneath her dress—and I already never wanted it to end. It was a wicked action with no grander intent behind it. No outcomes, no close rates, no higher-ups to impress with your ability to toe the line. This—this slick, seeking discovery—was unplanned and spontaneous.

  She writhed as I buried my mouth against her ear, inhaling the sugar-scent of her hair. “I should have done this for you while studying for finals,” I said. “Helped you with stress relief.”

  “What a way to learn.” She moaned loudly, head back. “Oh, god, we’d never have made it to graduation. And keep moving your fingers just…just like that.”

  “Now who’s bossy?” I couldn’t stop licking her nipples, sucking her breasts into my mouth, biting her neck. There was so much beauty suddenly available for my enjoyment, and my head spun with the intensity of it all.

  “Oh, god,” she sighed, “oh, god, oh, god.” She was starting to flutter around my fingers. I let my palm graze her clit, and her toes curled on the dashboard. “Please fuck me.”

  I didn’t stop my fingers, but I pulled back, staring at her. “What did you say?”

  “Fuck me,” she said. “Please.”

  Eyes heavy-lidded, lips parted—Freya the temptress had me utterly enthralled. If I’d had a pen and paper, I would have written her a hundred letters, secret codes and all.

  With a groan, I slipped my fingers free and dragged her up until she was straddling me, our faces barely an inch apart.

  “Freya.”

  “Sam.”

  I stroked the hair from her face until her eyes opened and met mine. Arousal and trust burned bright in all that green. “I want you to drag me into the back of this car and fuck me senseless, Agent Byrne.”

  I didn’t need to be told twice.

  I lifted her off my lap, then she was crawling into the backseat—breasts bare, dress torn, hair wild. She crooked her finger at me, and I was on her in an instant, palm to her chest and shoving her back down. She reared up, kissing me roughly while I unzipped my suit pants. Freed my cock and stroked it as she leaned back on her elbow, breasts heaving. Hoisted her legs high on my back and lined my cock up at her entrance, our eyes locked in a dance of challenge and submission.

  “Wait, wait,” I said.

  “No, no, don’t stop.”

  “Condom,” I panted out. “I don’t have a condom.”

  Freya yanked me down by the collar until our mouths met. “I trust you to save my life out there. I trust you with this. I’m clean and protected. You?”

  I nodded, feeling a tightness in my throat I couldn’t source. “You trust me out there?” We couldn’t stop kissing, every sentence fraught with heavy breaths, our lips like magnets, unable to stay apart.

  “You’d protect my life, wouldn’t you?”

  “Always,” I said. It was what partners were supposed to do. Even when disagreeing. Even when arguing. There was no doubt in my mind.

  “Fuck me bare,” she said.

  I kept our lips close, hovering. And I slid my cock inch by sweet inch inside her.

  Immediately we cried out together, muffling the cry with our mouths—she was tight, wet, hot, everything. She fell back against the seat—one leg on my shoulder, the other held down by my hand for leverage. I flexed my hips and fucked back into her. And she arched, fingers scrambling for purchase. I thrust hard, and her answering wail almost set off my own climax. It was hot and ragged and desperate and real. The sound was stripped of our bickering and competition—it was purely her.

  “I don’t want to hold back with you,” I bit out. Gave her a brutal rock that flicked a devilish smile across her face.

  “Then don’t,” she whispered, breasts bouncing with every thrust.

  My hand left her leg to close lightly around her throat, thumb tugging at her chin. Her expression dared me to refuse her demand. Every hard and fast thrust was met by her body, arching to meet mine.

  I gave into the years of restrained sexual frustration and fucked Freya Evandale like I was more beast than man. The car rocked with our movements, and we weren’t silent, no. She moaned, and I grunted. She scratched, and I bit. She pushed, and I pushed back. I sat up on the seat, pulling her with me, and guided her back down over my cock. Pistoned her fast on my lap and took her breasts back into my mouth. It was the messiest, sweatiest sex of my life. And the orgasm waiting at the base of my spine was going to destroy me. I tried to linger, tried to slow us down with soft kisses and deliberate rolls of my hips.

  But she and I had never played things slow.

  “Sam, Sam, yes, Sam,” she chanted, head thrown back.

  “Don’t you dare quit saying my name,” I growled, leaving a bite on her throat. “And when you come, you say it.”

  “Make me come,” she shot back, before sighing into my mouth again. Freya was part princess, part viper, and I needed all of her. I wrapped the golden strands of her liberated hair around one hand. Kept her head still and plundered her mouth. Reached between our bodies and found her clit with my thumb.

  She screamed against my mouth. Screamed my name. She rode me hard, rhythm uncontrolled, and I kept my thumb right on that bundle of nerves. Freya was gorgeous in her wild ecstasy, and I didn’t wait a second longer. Was surprised I’d held out as long as I did. Freya pressed my face to her chest as I groaned out the longest, most intense orgasm of my life. My mouth opened against her sweat-slicked skin, inhaling her. I was panting hard, arms shaking from holding her tight. She was positioned the same, running her fingers through my hair, soothing me.

  We were silent for a long, long time. There was no trainer calling time. No fellow recruits laughing around us. Nothing to cut through the intensity of our bodies touching.

  I felt it all. I felt it change me.

  “I’d protect your life too,” Freya said softly—so soft I almost missed it.

  “I know,” I panted. “I know you would.”

  I kissed her gently along the collarbone. Her jaw. Brushed our lips together as our eyes met. The windows were fogged, clothes torn, marks all over our bodies. We were still tangled as one, a storm of intensity rippling between our shared gaze.

  “Sometimes…” I started. Gathered my courage. “Sometimes I’m still angry with you because you left. You left me.”

  Her lips parted. “Angry? About Quantico, you mean?”

  I nodded, running my nose along her skin. She smelled so good.

  “Oh, Sam,” she said quietly. “I didn’t think you’d care. We were competitors. We fought constantly. I thought you’d be happy not to have me in the way of the number one spot anymore.”

  I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Competitors can still be friends. Friends tell each other things.”

  She assessed me for a minute, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. If our electric attraction to each other was the third rail of our relationship, the concept of friendship was truly taboo.

  “You’re right,” she finally said. “Friends do tell each other things.”

  “You were set to graduate with top honors,” I said. “My father told me you were the most promising new recruit they’d seen in years. That’s high praise, coming from him.”

  Freya closed her eyes, like what I’d said was hurtful. “I couldn’t do it.”

  “What?”

  “I couldn’t handle it,” she said, eyes opening. Shining with tears. “From the first day I arrive
d until I officially left, I suffered from severe anxiety and panic attacks. Racing thoughts, night terrors that led to insomnia. I spent every second nervous, upset, and so tightly wound I couldn’t think straight.”

  I thought about that feeling I had in my chest all the time at the FBI—like my sternum was being crushed by a herd of elephants. And I’d never, ever withstand the weight. Freya felt that way too?

  “You were in pain?” I asked.

  “A lot of pain. All the time,” she said. “I hid it very well.”

  My arms tightened around her back, pulling her even closer. I couldn’t stop staring at her, as if the act alone could undo her suffering.

  “You and I shared a similar dream,” she said. “I knew I’d be an extraordinary agent. I was too smart and too analytical and too focused not to be. But even if you’re good at something, and even if you might have wanted it before, it doesn’t always mean it’s the right fit. The right fit or the healthy fit.”

  That sentiment short-circuited my brain waves. It went against every aspect of my father’s strict perfectionism.

  “You could have told me,” I said, wrestling the emotion from my voice.

  Freya’s thumbs stroked across my cheeks. She seemed as surprised at the anguish in my tone as I was.

  “I hid it from everyone, Sam. Except my mother, who came for a weekend visit and could tell right away I wasn’t feeling like myself. Special Agents have extremely high-pressure jobs, as you well know. If I felt like I was panicking every single second while training, imagine what it would have felt like throughout a thirty-year career?”

  “It would have felt like a responsibility,” I said firmly. “It’s the highest duty to serve as a federal agent. There’s a lot of honor in the Bureau.”

  “Honor had nothing to do with it,” she said sadly. “I prioritized my health over the needs of the Bureau, as much as it hurt. As much as it still—” She stopped. Shook her head. “It was a tough decision, but it was a failure of the best kind. I quit for the right reasons.”

  That nervousness was coming back into her gaze though. Was this the source of her anxiety on this case? Did Freya feel like not enough?

  “Did I make it worse?” I asked, brow furrowing. “Always pushing you and competing? Always making you feel—”

  “No,” she said. “No, not at all. I’ve been a competitive overachiever since the day I got my first A. If I wasn’t competing against you, it would have been another student. And I was always, always competing against myself.”

  Freya settled more firmly on my lap, brushing a strand of hair from my forehead.

  “I’m sorry. You told me at the library, and I didn’t expect to feel…” I thought back to that day, the feelings that had compelled me to put a pen to paper and write my first—and only—love letter. “Sad. I’d gotten used to kicking your butt in class.”

  Her smile lit up the dark car.

  “I was so sad,” I repeated—seriously this time. “I never, ever let myself admit it. But I missed you so much, Evandale. And I’m very sorry that the last thing I said to you was that you were making a mistake.”

  “Yeah, real dick move,” she said, smile growing. “But you couldn’t have known. I didn’t tell a soul.”

  I pressed a kiss between her breasts, rested my head there.

  “I missed you so much too,” she whispered. “When I told you I was leaving, I almost begged you for a hug.”

  “Why?” I asked, even as I squeezed her tighter.

  “Because part of me knew you were put on this earth to protect me.”

  Words froze in the back of my throat. I didn’t feel worthy to receive these secrets of hers, these feelings. And she must have sensed my hesitation because she giggled against my ear. “Although let’s be honest. If you and I had hugged it out, we would have definitely had sex on one of the tables in the library.”

  That startled a husky laugh from me. “Did you also…want that?”

  “To fuck you in the library? Hell, yeah.”

  I was growing hard again—and not because the gorgeous blonde on my lap was slowly, slowly grinding against me. The dam had broken, and now we couldn’t stop touching and talking.

  “There was this one study room on the fifth floor,” I rasped, staring at her. “I used to fantasize about fucking you in it.”

  “The soundproof one?” she teased.

  My palms danced along her rib cage, fanning across her breasts. She bit her lip, twisted her hips.

  “You know the one?”

  “I might have the same fantasies.”

  She was flirting with me now, her joy filling up the small, dark space. I fluttered my fingers down her side, and she shrieked, head thrown back. I took advantage of her distraction to flip her onto her back, settling between her spread thighs.

  “Sam?” she said, sighing a little as I kissed her throat.

  “Hm?”

  “Do you ever feel that way at your job now? The way I felt at the academy?”

  I stilled.

  Freya the Mind Reader.

  And I wasn’t going to be able to hold back the truth much longer—if she hadn’t already figured it out. Especially not tangled together like this. The intimacy was softening the edges of my own secrets.

  “I have extremely high stress levels, per what’s expected of me.” Such a robot.

  “Your health is more important than the Bureau. No matter how vital your job is.”

  Strands of her hair kept brushing against my skin. “I wish my father felt that way.”

  Stupid again. She was chipping away at the lies I held dear.

  She kissed my cheek. Wrapped her arms around me and held on tight. “I wish he did too, Sam. I really do.”

  A fast buzzing sound erupted from Freya’s purse in the front seat. She made a frustrated noise, turning toward it. “Should I get it?”

  “Could be Abe.”

  I sat up reluctantly, releasing her to grab her phone. I reached into my gym bag where I kept a clean change of clothes. “Do you want my, uh…sweatshirt?”

  She looked down at her chest with a cheeky grin. “You don’t like this look on me?”

  “I love that look on you,” I said.

  “This is Delilah’s dress, by the way. Looks like you’ll be buying her a new one.” She took the sweatshirt, pulling it over her head. It was gigantic on her, but it said Quantico across the front, and the look of her in it had my heart pounding.

  “I’ll buy her ten new ones,” I promised.

  Freya slid her glasses back on and pulled her hair into a bun.

  “Oh shit,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Birdie’s getting messages on the Under the Rose site.”

  That same anger and disappointment rose in me again. Closing this case will go far in helping me trust you again, Samuel.

  “Can I see?”

  She showed me. The first one was from Thomas. Where are you two? We’ve been knocking on your hotel room door for hours.

  She glanced sideways at me, as if seeking permission. “Abe said no.”

  Then her fingers flew across the keyboard. We’re truly sorry. Julian and I need to shore up some reserves for tomorrow. Pre-bids were higher than we anticipated for the Sand letters.

  “You’re just going to call it out?” I asked. But I was more intrigued than I realized—even going against orders.

  “What’s the harm now?” she replied.

  We need to make sure Roy doesn’t get them, Thomas pinged back. And we have not finished our conversation about our plan of attack.

  “I hedged heavily during this conversation because I didn’t want to corner us into a situation we couldn’t get out of,” Freya explained. “Things are tense. I think Roy’s blackmailing Thomas because he knows Thomas stole Ward’s Don Quixote. But Thomas doesn’t want to pay. And he doesn’t want Bernard to know about Roy’s threat. And no one seems to want Roy to purchase those letters tomorrow.”

  “Maybe this is a
distraction,” I said. “This secret society is in a fucking crisis. If they spend the night battling it out over money and alliances, you and I could sneak off with the letters.”

  She tapped her chin. “That’s not a bad plan, partner. In fact, I’d say that’s the kind of plan an expert private detective would come up with.”

  “You think so?”

  She nodded. “We might lack Bureau resources, but we’re nimble as hell. We get close to people. Getting close to people opens avenues of justice I never thought possible before. I know the FBI feels like the only true way to fight crime, but Codex does a damn good job too.”

  That buzzing in my veins was back and heightened—a combination of adrenaline, sleeplessness, and wild, backseat sex. We were close to our suspects—faster and more intimate than I’d ever gotten while working in Art Theft. There was a thrill to it I hadn’t expected. It felt personal. It felt fucking real.

  “I concede your point,” I said slowly. “Codex has done excellent work.”

  “I know we have.” She smirked. “My point is that you would make a damn fine PI.”

  My hands gripped her hips, shifting her closer on my lap. “That might be true. But I’ve got a legacy to uphold at the Bureau and a father who’d like nothing more than to see me become Deputy Director when the time’s right.”

  Her fingers sifted through my hair again. “I know it. I also believe that without the burden of Andrew Byrne’s legacy, your genius and talent could shine even brighter. No external pressure, just your motivation and drive. No one else’s.”

  I wasn’t quite sure what to do with that revelation. The FBI might be the primary source of my emotional pain, but the thought of leaping from the nest—and disappointing my father—was too scary to contemplate.

  But before I could overanalyze Freya’s words, my beautiful rival wrapped her arms around me and held on tight. A big, bold hug that melded our chests together and allowed her to rest her head on my shoulder. It was a hug of friendship, and compassion, and tenderness—a hug from a woman who truly saw me.

  Maybe taking a leap with Freya by my side would make things less scary. Maybe I didn’t need the FBI after all.

  I grazed my lips along the column of her throat. Licked deeply into her mouth for a lingering kiss that left us both breathless.