Chapter 21: Sunlit Devotion
The first sliver of sun cut across the Los Angeles basin, a razor of molten orange slicing through the smog. It crept over the sill of Rebel’s loft window, across the floor, and finally climbed the edge of the rumpled bed.
It found her.
Sammy was on her back, one arm flung above her head, the sheet tangled low around her hips. The light painted her in increments: a gilded stripe along her thigh, a sheen across the flat plane of her stomach, a halo in the tousled black river of her hair fanned across his pillow. She was all pale skin and soft shadows, utterly still in the deep, trusting sleep that comes after being thoroughly wrecked.
Rebel watched from his side, propped on an elbow. He had been watching for an hour, tracing the slow journey of dawn across her body. His chest felt too tight, a peculiar ache that was equal parts wonder and a deep, territorial hunger. This was his. This quiet, this peace, her. He had stolen it, curated it in his fortress of glass and wire, and the sunlight making her glow felt like a divine endorsement of the theft.
He moved with a silence born of long practice. The mattress barely sighed as he shifted, kneeling on the rumpled sheets between her spread legs. He didn’t wake her. He wanted the transition from dream to reality to be seamless, blurred at the edges by his mouth on her.
The gold light pooled in the hollow of her pelvis. He leaned down, his breath a warm whisper against her inner thigh. She smelled of sleep and him and her own sweet, musky scent. He inhaled, committing it to memory.
He moved between her thighs with predatory patience. His tongue, when it touched her, was a slow, deliberate point of heat. He traced a lazy, teasing circle around her clit, which was soft and small in her sleep. He did it again. And again.
A faint sigh escaped her parted lips. Her brows drew together slightly in her sleep. He repeated the motion, a little firmer now, a little less circuitous.
She whimpered. A soft, broken sound that went straight to his core.
Her hips lifted, a sleepy, instinctive tilt offering more.
He let her hover there for a second, denying the contact she sought, before he swooped. One hand pinned her right wrist to the mattress above her head. The other slid under her left thigh, hiking it higher over his shoulder, opening her completely to the dawn and to him. Then he devoured.
His tongue flattened, lapping at her with deliberate, worshipful strokes. He savored the sudden hitch in her breath, the way her gasp caught and turned into a low, breathless moan as consciousness returned. He licked into her with the same possessive hunger as the night before, deep and claiming. He added two fingers, curling them up and inside, finding that perfect, yielding spot.
She arched off the sheets, a silent, taut bow. “Rebel—” His name was half-syllable, half-groan.
He didn’t let up. His rhythm was relentless, a focused cadence designed to dismantle. He watched her face, her eyes fluttering open, hazy and unfocused, then squeezing shut as sensation overwhelmed her. He watched the delicate cords in her neck stand out, the flush spread from her chest to her throat. He owned every twitch, every gasp, every choked-off cry.
When she came, it was a silent, violent unraveling. Her body seized, her free hand fisting in his hair, not pushing him away but holding him there, anchored to the storm. He rode it out with her, gentling his tongue but not stopping, drawing every last shudder from her until she collapsed back onto the mattress, boneless and panting.
He crawled up her body, kissing the damp skin of her stomach, the valley between her breasts, the frantic pulse at the base of her throat. He settled his weight on top of her, cradled her face in his hands. Her eyes opened, pupils blown wide, staring up at him with a dazed, sated awe.
“Good morning,” he murmured, his voice gravel.
She blinked slowly, as if reassembling the world. “What… what time is it?”
“Early.” He kissed her, letting her taste herself on his lips.
She kissed him back, lazy and deep, then her body went stiff. “Oh, shit. Caleb. My dad.” She tried to sit up, but he held her down, not forcefully, just firmly.
“It’s barely seven,” he said. “The dinner’s tonight. You have time.”
“I need to go home. Shower. Find my battle armor.” She pushed at his chest, and this time he rolled off, letting her scramble from the bed. She stood, gloriously naked in the full sunrise now, and grabbed his discarded t-shirt from the floor, pulling it over her head. It drowned her, the hem hitting mid-thigh.
He stayed on the bed, watching her pace. The shirt was his. On her, it was a flag of ownership.
“My phone’s dead. Caleb’s probably sent a search party.”
“Your phone’s on the charger,” Rebel said, nodding toward his desk. “It’s been on since four AM. It’ll show you woke up at Shantel’s, had breakfast, and are now heading home. All the location data is pristine.”
She stopped pacing and looked at him. The awe in her eyes had faded, replaced by something more complicated. “You already fixed it.”
“I told you,” he said, sitting up. “I’m keeping this.”
A shiver went through her, though the loft was warm. She walked to the desk, unplugged her phone, and watched it power on. Notifications flooded the screen—texts from Caleb, a few from Shantel. She scrolled, her brow furrowed.
“He texted ‘love you,’” she said softly. Then she looked back at Rebel. “He trusts you so much.”
Rebel stood, pulling on his jeans. “I know he does.” He crossed the room to her, stopping just inside her space. “That doesn’t change what happened here.”
“I know.” She tilted her head up to him. “It just makes it feel heavier.”
“Do you regret it?”
“No.” The answer was immediate, sure. “Do you?”
He thought about the monitors behind her, the hidden feeds, the years of watching. He thought about Caleb’s voice, frantic with brotherly concern. He looked at her, in his shirt, in his space, her mouth still swollen from his.
“Not for a second.”
She reached up and touched his cheek. “Okay.”
He drove her back to Holmby Hills in the silvered quiet of the morning. The mansion looked like a sleeping beast, all sharp angles and reflective surfaces under the soft light.
He stopped the truck at the security gate, but didn’t pull into the driveway. “You good?”
“I’m good.” She leaned over and kissed him, quick and hard. “I’ll text you. About the dinner thing.”
“Don’t,” he said. “Assume your phone, your car, maybe the house, are being monitored now. Your dad’s bringing Martin. Assume nothing is private.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “You’re serious.”
“Deadly.” He brushed his thumb over her bottom lip. “Old habits. Just be careful.”
She nodded, a new wariness settling in her shoulders. She slipped out of the truck and walked towards the gate, his t-shirt just visible under the jacket she’d pulled on. He waited until she was inside, until the ornate front door closed behind her.
Only then did he pull out his own phone. He opened a secure, encrypted app. A single feed was live—a camera with a view of the Jade foyer, from a sensor in a smoke detector.
He watched her drop her keys into a ceramic bowl, kick off her boots, and stand for a moment in the vast, silent entryway, looking small and out of place. Then she squared her shoulders, the goth mommy armor visibly clicking into place, and marched towards the stairs.
Rebel closed the app. He sat for a long time, engine idling, staring at the imposing house. The lie was in motion. Sammy was inside. Caleb was relieved. Their father was coming.
And he was right here, in the one blind spot they’d never think to check. The guardian. The intruder. The man who had just watched the sunrise from between her thighs, and who would now watch everything else from a screen.
He put the bike in gear and pulled away, the hum of the servers in his loft already calling him back to his altar of blue light.