CHAPTER 68
The morning arrived not with gentle sunlight, but with the harsh, buzzing intrusion of the motel’s fluorescent light filtering through the thin, drawn curtains. The silence was thick, broken only by the intermittent traffic noise from the highway outside.
Lauren woke slowly, heavy and exhausted, her muscles aching in a combination of operational fatigue and intense, unfamiliar intimacy. Her eyes fluttered open, scanning the cheap ceiling. The memory of the previous night—the terror of Valerius, the bullet extraction, and the desperate, consuming passion with Ryle—hit her in a single, visceral wave.
She was alone in the bed.
She realized she was still completely naked, tangled in the coarse, damp sheets, her body throbbing with a delicious ache that was undeniable evidence of
