Tomorrow, this gets locked back down.
Tomorrow, I revert to the cold, professional handler. I become the wall she can’t climb.
Tonight, I just need to make it through without crossing a line I know, absolutely, I won’t be able to uncross. If I go down that hall. If I check on her.
I turn away from the hallway.
I need to burn it off.
I need to burn this off. I need to replace this heat with cold. I need to replace this softness with iron.
I sit on the edge of the couch and retie my boots, pulling the laces until they bite into the instep. I grab the tactical axe from the gear bag, the Winkler Tomahawk with its weighted head and micarta handle, designed for breaching doors, skinning game, and crushing skulls. Up here, it holds a simpler purpose.
I unlock the side door. The heavy deadbolt slides back with a solid thunk.
I step out into the white.
The cold hits me like a physical blow. It’s ten degrees below zero, the wind chill dropping it to twenty below. The air cuts thin, sharp as a razor, instantly freezing the moisture in my nose.
I don’t chop the wood. Not yet.
I walk.
I force my legs to churn through the waist-deep drifts. I patrol the perimeter, turning the physical exertion into a punishment. I check the north face. The east ridge. I scan the tree line until my eyes water from the wind and the cold burns the heat out of my skin.
I stay out until my fingers go numb inside my gloves. Until the shivering starts, violent and uncontrollable. Until the biological need for warmth overrides the physical need for her.
I return to the house.
The deadbolt slides home. Thud.
I strip off the outer layers, leaving them in a pile by the door. I move back to the den. The leather couch feels cold. I lie down, pulling the wool blanket up to my chin. I wrap my hand around the Glock on the floor.
I shut my eyes.
I wait for the black.
But the black doesn’t come.
She comes. She visits me in my dreams.
Sleep acts as a traitor. It strips away the discipline, the training, the walls I build to keep the world out. In the dark, the defenses crumble.
The dream hits vividly. High-definition.
She isn’t sleeping in the guest room. She’s here. Straddling me. The weight of her sits heavy and real on my hips. Her hair creates a curtain around us, shutting out the storm, shutting out the mission.
She doesn’t look scared. She looks hungry.
Her hands, those capable, surgeon’s hands, track the scars on my chest, mapping the damage. She leans down. Her mouth brushes my ear. She whispers my name, but it lands like a command.
Boyd.
I reach for her. I grip her hips, burying my fingers in her flesh. She’s wet. Heat radiates from her, searing through the denim, searing through me. I surge up to meet her. No hesitation. No protocol. Just the friction of skin on skin, the slide of possession.
I take her. I drive into her with a violence that should terrify her, but she meets it. She matches it. She rides the edge of the storm with me, her nails digging into my shoulders, her breath hitching in a rhythm matching my pulse.
Mine.
