She didn’t say it like a concession. She said it like a choice. Like she knows exactly what she offers and understands the weight of it. She offers me the one thing I crave more than air.
Control.
I shut my eyes for half a second.
That’s the problem.
I don’t turn around. If I do, I’ll see her watching me. Measuring the effect. Feeling it. And I won’t give her that, not tonight.
“I know.”
Two words. Low. Certain. They carry more than agreement: acknowledgment. Acceptance. A promise wrapped tight in restraint.
The drip continues. Slow. Deliberate.
I force my lungs back into rhythm. I rebuild the walls in my head: protocol, perimeter, purpose. Anything to keep my focus where it belongs.
Because if I let myself lean into what she just said, into the way my body responded to her willingness, I won’t just be making coffee.
And the fact that she knows it.
That’s what makes it burn.
9
Touching the Scar
IRIS
The morning light is a weapon.
The light reflects off the endless, pristine snowpack outside the glass walls, amplifying into a blinding-white glare. Sterile. Indifferent. It illuminates the dust motes dancing in the cold air of the house.
Inside, the silence hangs absolute. Not empty. Charged, heavy, and static, like the air in the seconds before a lightning strike. It presses against my skin.
I walk toward the living room, clutching a mug of black coffee with both hands. The ceramic burns hot in my palms, grounding me in the physical world. I need grounding. My dreams were a chaotic mix of fire, ice, and the heavy weight of a man’s hand on my neck.
A sound from the den.
Hiss. Thud. Hiss. Thud.
Rhythmic. Wet. Exploring.
It sounds like a machine venting steam.
I stop in the doorway, my bare feet gripping the cold hardwood.
Boyd’s there.
He’s doing push-ups. Not the casual, maintenance exercise of a gym-goer. This is punishment. An exorcism.
He wears only a pair of gray sweatpants, worn thin at the knees and hanging dangerously low on his hips. The waistband dips with every downward movement, revealing the sharp V of muscle, the iliac furrow, pointing unmistakably to his groin.
He’s a map of terrifying violence.
The morning light catches the sheen of sweat coating his skin like oil, highlighting every ridge of muscle, every valley of scar tissue. He’s built from corded steel and trauma. A jagged white line runs from his left shoulder blade down to his ribs. Shrapnel? A knife? It looks like lightning struck him years ago, leaving a permanent record of the damage.
He moves with terrifying precision.
