“I don’t.”
“Alfred grew ill with a mysterious sickness which he eventually recovered from,” she explained. “And George left him for his doctor.”
“Ice-cold,” I said.
“Right?” she said, smiling. “But for this moment in time, as they wrote these words—hidden messages and all—the only thing that mattered was their passionate love. It’s why they’re beautiful. We hunt down a lot of epic historical tomes or great works of literature at Codex. These are mere records of our humanity, which makes them even more special.”
“Do you think they loved each other, even if they argued constantly?” I asked.
“Yes, I do,” she said. “I think, deep down, they only argued because they were afraid of how powerful their love was.”
“Freya, listen,” I started to say, voice ragged. Two police officers and a paramedic were moving quickly toward the stage.
“We did it,” I said softly, redirecting. “You and me.”
She cracked a cheeky smile. “I’m fucking happy, Sam.”
I laughed. “Fuck, I mean…me too.”
“How do you feel?”
I felt night and day from the way I’d felt during my “incident” at the Bureau. This feeling of joyful elation didn’t even bear comparison.
“I feel accomplished,” I admitted. “I feel like we did something good for the world.”
“That’s how I feel too,” she agreed. “George the writer and Alfred the poet would be proud. Your mother loved poetry, didn’t she?”
The unexpected mention of my mother brought instant happiness. I thought about her every day. But the week after she passed away, my father made it clear she was not to be spoken about in our house. My young, healthy, ever-vital mother had died from a brain aneurysm in her sleep when I was twelve—a swift, unexpected death that carved my father in half. He kept his external grief for her short. Secretive. For a long time, I’d try sharing memories of her on her birthday or during certain holidays. His responses were glacial and curt.
In many ways, I was starved to share her memory with anyone who would listen.
“She did love poetry,” I finally said. “She read it every single night. Sometimes she’d read poems to me before I fell asleep. But if I woke up, searching for her, she’d be sitting in the kitchen. Tea and a blanket. Just reading. She always said poetry influenced her dreams, made them more beautiful.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “You remembered that?”
“You told me all about her once,” Freya said. “During one of our late-night study sessions when we were loopy from lack of sleep. I always think about her when I’m in the poetry section of bookstores.”
“You think of my mother?”
“Of course,” she said.
A swell of emotion threatened to knock me down.
“I always think of you when I go to bookstores,” I said. “I would go to that old bookstore you loved near the academy. If I was missing you.”
She brushed the hair from her face. “Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“That love letter you told Cora about…was it for me?”
The police officers and the paramedic descended upon us—Abe alongside them. I knew it was going to be a long night—we’d be questioned and give our statements, and I wasn’t going to be able to ignore the incoming call from my father. Besides, Freya and I might have dismantled an actual black-market antiquities ring. It was a big fucking deal.
My truth, however, demanded to be liberated.
“Ms. Evandale, I need to look at your throat,” the paramedic was saying. And Abe was talking to the agents. And another agent was on the phone with the Bureau, confirming my badge number.
“I’ll stay with Freya,” Abe told me, with a look more knowing than I expected. “We’ll probably see you at the closest police station. Scarlett is shocked and thrilled that we have the letters. But they’ll need to be authenticated. And the story is going to be everywhere.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said. “Did we make all the wrong decisions? Make things messier?”
“Not at all,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder. “You made all the right decisions.”
I let out a massive sigh of gratitude. It had been years since I’d been told I’d done anything right at all.
“Special Agent Byrne?” That youngish-looking agent was extending a cell phone my way. “The Deputy Director of the FBI wants to speak with you?”
“I’ll take it, thank you,” I said, watching the paramedic as he examined Freya’s throat. Abe was talking to her softly, and whatever she was saying was making him and the paramedic laugh.
“Sir,” I said into the phone.
“Abraham informed me of tonight’s outcome.” My father’s clipped tone lacked all emotion. “I heard the retrieval was a success.”
“Yes, it was,” I said. I didn’t need to say more—he had staff members who’d relay all the pertinent details. I chewed on my next words carefully. “Thank you for the help and the resources. It was needed.”
“As discussed, I’ll expect you back in Virginia tomorrow,” he replied. “The hearing will be in the morning.”
I heard the clear, bell-like sound of Freya’s joy, and it had my chest constricting with yearning. I want more time.
“I’m sure some events from this evening will shake out through the Bureau and end up on your desk in Art Theft,” he said.
I watched Ward being hauled off in handcuffs. He looked furious. “Yes, sir, I believe they will.”
“Eleven a.m. will be your hearing decision,” my father said. “Please confirm you will be here.”
Freya had a small bandage on her throat but looked otherwise unharmed. She kept glancing at me shyly as she answered the medic’s questions. I couldn’t actually process what it had been like to watch Roy put a sharp object to her beautiful throat. Our simulations at Quantico were fake. There was no real danger.
This had been the first time I’d ever felt her life was at risk. And the resulting emotions were immeasurable.
Fury. Fear.
Passion. Yearning.
Nothing could have stopped me from protecting her in that moment. Not ten guards or one hundred. I was unstoppable.
“Samuel,” my father snapped. “I will see you tomorrow.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a barked command.
“I’ll try my hardest but can’t promise anything,” I said and ended the call. The phone rang again, and I handed it back to the young officer. “You can ignore it.”
I was escorted back through the basement, up the elevator, and out into a waiting squad car. I knew what was going to happen next—had conducted plenty of interviews myself—but I wanted Freya. Needed Freya. But as I glanced behind me one last time, the crowds of people converged in front of her and Abe.
And she vanished.
42
Freya
The clap of thunder rattled my windowpanes. Minerva hissed and bolted as lightning lit the angry-looking sky.
“Candles, check,” Delilah said. “Tea, check. Blankets, check.” She touched my chin, looked at the bandage on my throat. “Pain meds?”
“Not needed,” I said. “Honestly. It barely broke the skin.”
After Sam and I had both been questioned by federal agents at the police station—separately—Delilah had taken me home. It was well past midnight, and a vicious summer storm had landed over the city of Philadelphia. Rain pelted the windows, and I was grateful for candles and a cozy mountain of blankets. The adrenaline was starting to ebb, and I felt drowsy and punch-drunk.
She rubbed my arms through the blankets with a look of concern. “Frey.”
“Yeah?”
“I thought you were going to get hurt tonight,” she said. “I don’t know what I would have done if that had happened.”
“Having you in my ear helped,” I said. “I knew you had my back. You always do. I trusted you to save me. And I trusted…” I swallowed hard. “I trusted Sam to save
me.”
Her face softened with sympathy. “The connection the two of you have is practically tangible.”
I bit my lip but didn’t say a word.
“When did you have sex?”
I hid my face behind the blanket. “Can you read minds?”
“I can read my best friend.”
I glanced at the pelting rain, wondering where Sam was right this very instant. I’d seen him on the phone, and based on his body language, I guessed it was his father.
“We had sex in the back seat of his car yesterday morning,” I admitted.
Delilah smirked. “I’ve also enjoyed sex in a vehicle with Henry.”
“Girl, I know it.”
“It must have been very intense.”
I started to make a joke—per the usual—but found I couldn’t. It was late, and I was exhausted, and I’d had a knife pulled on me not three hours earlier.
“I’m terrified of my feelings for Sam,” I said.
“Is he going back to Virginia?” she asked.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that he will,” I said. “He was born to be an FBI agent. It’s in his blood.”
“I’m not sure about that,” Delilah said, standing and kissing the top of my head. “If you think you’ve been hiding your feelings for Sam, you have no idea how obvious he’s been these past few days.”
“What do you mean?”
“That man is in love with you, Freya,” she said. “Like hearts-in-his-eyes love. So keep trusting. Because I’m guessing you’ll figure it out.”
I watched a drop of rain slide down the window. Lightning illuminated the framed picture of my mom and me, dressed up as FBI agents. “All those years,” I said, “we did nothing but argue and fight and compete. But we were never apart from each other. I worked hard to convince myself I was annoyed by his presence. Except we waited for each other outside the library to study every night.” I smiled at the memory, so sweet now. “Who willingly studies with their archnemesis every single night for hours?”
She grinned. “Nemeses in love, my dear.”
I covered my face again. “We were fighting our feelings.”
“I know,” she said, mirth in her tone. “Henry knows. Even Abe knows. Strangers on the street know. The moment I saw the two of you together in our office, I would have bet my life savings you loved each other.”
“Oh, god,” I wailed. “Henry and Abe know?”
Delilah crouched down until we were eye-level. I tugged the blanket down, blowing the messy hair from my forehead. “Frey.” She was fighting amusement. “Frey. The man shot someone for you tonight. Sam’s not your enemy.”
My pulse fluttered like moth wings, body and mind fully accepting what I’d realized while kissing Sam Byrne in the elevator.
I’d let him into my heart. There was no going back for me.
“He’s my love,” I said.
Her smile widened. “He most certainly is.”
“And he’s amazing at sex.”
“That is also extremely obvious.”
“I have to tell him how I feel,” I said, softly this time. Serious.
Delilah nodded. “You can do it,” she said. “You were extraordinary tonight. I’m truly proud to be your best friend, Frey. Always.”
Her warm praise lit me up. I wrapped the blanket more tightly around my shoulders and beamed at her.
“Thank you,” I said. “I never thought I’d have a real friend like you. When I was younger, I, you know, didn’t always have the nicest time with friends. You taught me that friendship is real. And it means everything to me.”
“Well, you can’t get rid of me now,” she teased. But her eyes were shining.
“I don’t plan on it,” I replied. I held her hand, squeezed it hard.
Delilah blew me a kiss before slipping out the door. I exhaled, forehead pressed to my knees, thoughts a riotous mess. The minute I’d looked up and spotted Sven and Ward with their guns on Sam, years of training and self-confidence had snapped back over my bones. I’d never felt stronger than slapping that gun from Ward’s hand and punching him in the face.
But even more than that—Sam and I had done it. We’d gone undercover, together, as book thieves. Infiltrated a secret society. And we got the damn letters back. I’d done that with the man I loved. A man who believed in me.
I’d done it because I’d believed in myself.
The sharp knock was barely audible through the rumbling thunder. Blanket wrapped around myself, I shuffled like a burrito and opened the door.
It wasn’t Delilah though.
It was Sam.
The lightning flashed, highlighting the muscled edges of his big body outlined in my doorway. He was soaked to the skin, the rain plastering his white tuxedo shirt to his broad, ridged chest.
“What are you doing here?” I breathed. He was the most magnificent thing I’d ever seen.
“I did write you a letter,” he said. Another rumble of thunder. “The night that you left Quantico, I got drunk on contraband whiskey and wrote you a love letter.”
Those words stopped me cold. “A love letter?”
“I didn’t know that’s what it was at the time,” Sam said. “It had been years since I’d been allowed to fully feel my emotions. Which is why it was always easier to fight with you. Less complicated than kissing you. Less complicated than fucking you.”
Both of us were staring, panting heavily. The rain fell in a sheet behind him, drenching the pavement.
“And much less complicated than falling in love with you.”
“Sam,” I said, voice wavering.
“In the letter I begged you to stay. Not because of your career. Not because of the FBI. I asked you to stay because the thought of not seeing you every day broke my fucking heart. And I was brokenhearted until the day I graduated. After that, I worked hard to forget that feeling. Too complicated, too messy. But the moment you walked into Abe’s office and I saw you again…” He stopped, voice raw. “I’ve lived the last seven years in darkness. You turned on every light in my life. You are the light, Freya.”
Tears spilled over, rolling down my cheeks. It was too much, this dismantling of the walls we’d built to protect us from our love.
Sam’s fingers gripped my cheeks, brushing away the tears.
“I’d never known true fear until I thought Ward was going to shoot you,” I whispered. “But until that point, I wasn’t scared. Even with a knife to my neck. You’re the person I trust the most in this world to save my life.” I pressed a kiss to his palm. “Because I’m in love with you.”
Then I grabbed his soaking wet shirt and yanked him into my house.
43
Freya
Sam kicked the door closed and lifted me. My blanket fell to the floor, and my arms wrapped around his neck.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, studying the bandage.
“No,” I said. “Not in the least. Nor am I fragile.”
His muscles shook—and I knew it wasn’t from effort. Sam Byrne could hold me over his head and run the bleachers of a stadium without breaking a sweat. He was restraining himself. And I didn’t want restraint.
“What do you want?” he whispered.
In response, I tore off my glasses and crashed our lips together. Yanked on his hair and devoured his mouth with every ounce of my fear and trust and protection and gratitude that he was alive. And safe.
And mine—at least for the night. He responded just the way I wanted. Turning and slamming me against the nearest wall, shaking the bookshelves and various paperbacks. Another clap of thunder rolled past, muffling my cries as his hot mouth roamed my throat, cautious of the bandage. In a second, I was wet from the rainwater on his skin. Shivering at the onslaught of violent sensation. I needed to be naked and I needed Sam naked. As usual, my partner read my mind, sliding my body to the ground and raising my sweater over my head. He hissed as he took in my bare breasts, rubbing a hand across his mouth.
“Take off your fucking
pants, Evandale,” he rasped.
I did as I was told. I was completely bare, my hair down and loose around my shoulders.
The expression on his face was undeniable—it was love and hunger twisted so beautifully I could have cried. Sam—still clothed, still wet—dropped to his knees in front of me and pressed his face to my stomach, breathing in.
“If anything had happened to you,” he murmured, “I don’t know what I would have done. Freya. Freya, I don’t—”
“Shh,” I said, stroking his hair. “I’m here. And yours.”
His mouth descended to my stomach with hungry, open kisses as his palms smoothed across my aching nipples. His mouth joined his fingers, and I held his head in place, body arching off the wall. It was a worship I’d never known—this wild, wanton devouring. He was noisy, groaning, whispering against my skin, lapping at my nipples with such skill my head spun with the pleasure of it. We were still in my fucking foyer, and I was already boneless and ready to be taken. With a growl of appreciation, he scooped me up and walked us into my living room. Laid me down easily on the soft rug, then stood over my body.
“Spread your legs,” he ordered, loosening his tie. I did, marveling at the way his wet shirt clung to his pectoral muscles. His pants were tented by an erection I remembered well. He looked fucking huge towering like this, a dirty superhero about to do filthy things to the woman he loved.
“Slide that hand between your legs and touch your clit,” he said.
Very, very dirty.
“Isn’t that your job?” I sassed back.
“Fucking do it,” he commanded.
Sam Byrne started slowly unbuttoning that soaked white shirt, and my hands were moving of their own volition. Every button revealed golden skin, ridged abs that flexed as he watched me. He shrugged, and the shirt fell from his magnificent shoulders. My finger landed on my clit, rubbing once, and I was already half-gone.
“I used to wonder about you at night. In the dorm room across from mine at the academy,” he said, staring between my legs as I rubbed myself. He dropped his pants. Dropped his underwear. Fisted his own cock in time with my fingers. He was gorgeous. Thickly muscled thighs, abs for days, and that huge, perfect cock. “Did you ever touch yourself and think of me?”
Under the Rose Page 26
