He kept going, driving into me with a focus that bordered on obsessive. I felt him tense, hips slamming forward one last time, and then he groaned, loud and unrestrained, and I felt the heat of him inside me.
He stayed there, motionless, breathing hard against my neck.
We didn’t move for a long time. The house was silent except for our breathing, the slow return of heart rates to normal.
When he finally pulled out, it was slow, careful, almost apologetic. He rolled to his side, arm around my waist, pulling me in tight. My body ached, but in a way that felt earned.
We lay there, tangled, not talking.
After a while, he said, “Move your stuff in here tomorrow.”
It wasn’t a question.
I smiled, letting my head rest against his shoulder. “Okay,” I said.
He kissed the top of my head, then let his eyes close.
Down the hall, Emilio was still asleep, the house holding its breath for the next crisis. But for now, there was just the warmth, and the certainty, and the knowledge that I belonged here, in this room, with this man.
I let myself fall asleep, no backup plan, no escape route, no contingency. Just this, just now, and the promise that in the morning, we’d start again.
Together.
Chapter Thirteen
~ Hooper ~
The house was still dark when my phone started vibrating on the nightstand, the screen turning the ceiling blue in a single, fast pulse before going black again.
The alarm wasn’t due for another twenty, which meant either Rawley was already awake, or someone else had decided the day was going to get interesting.
I blinked twice, tried to clear the sleep static, and checked the bed. Liam was still dead to the world—flat on his stomach, one leg kicked out, his face pressed deep into the pillow.
There was a line of drool working its way from the corner of his mouth to the seam of the sheet, and the only thing moving was the slow, even rise of his back.
The sight of it made something in my chest want to go soft, but the phone was still buzzing, so I forced myself upright and checked the message.
Rawley:Two vehicles on county road since 0435. No plates. Not locals. Keep your comms hot.
No “morning.” No “sorry to wake you.” Just the facts, the way we’d both been trained.
I slid out of bed, careful not to rock the mattress or jostle Liam, and moved quiet as I could to the chair where I’d dumped my jeans the night before. The fabric was still warm from the radiator, and I moved through the act of dressing with the practiced speed of a man who’s spent too many mornings this way.
I checked the window, but the world outside was still nothing but a blue-black blur, the kind of dark that feels solid in the lungs. The porch light, set on a motion sensor, threw out a thin yellow crescent over the top step, but nothing moved in the yard.
The wind wasn’t up yet, so every sound from outside the walls carried clean: the pop of the cooling pipes, the thud of the water heater, and, somewhere in the distance, the low idle of a truck running too long in neutral.
I grabbed my jacket, then moved down the hall, heel-to-toe in my socks. Before I hit the stairs, I ducked left and cracked open the door to Emilio’s room.
He was a lump in the center of the crib, tiny hands balled into fists and pinned up by his ears, the pose so symmetrical it looked staged. His hair stuck up in tufts, soft and almost glowing in the thin gray of the baby monitor nightlight.
His chest rose and fell, not with the panic of an infant in trouble, but with the slow, cocky calm of someone who knows they’re untouchable for at least another hour.
I watched him for a full minute, just to be sure, then pulled the door shut behind me with a click so quiet even my own ears missed it.
Downstairs, the kitchen was colder, the tile leeching heat from my soles. I didn’t turn on any lights. Instead, I moved through the house the way you do when you know exactly where every corner is, every creak and low beam, every surface that will betray you if you don’t step right.
I went from window to window, keeping low and at an angle, never letting the outline of my head break the glass. It was a habit, and like all habits, it had been born out of necessity.
