“You criticize.”
“That I can do.”
His thumb brushed gently beneath my eye.
“Sleep.”
“Whistle first.”
He did.
Two short.
One long.
I closed my eye.
The sound moved through me.
Find me.
I tightened my fingers around his hand.
“Answer.”
Reid leaned close.
“I’m here.”
Sleep took me with his voice still warm against my skin.
When I woke again, evening had darkened the apartment.
A lamp glowed over the dining table.
Reid sat beneath it with his laptop open and a pair of reading glasses low on his nose.
I had not known he wore glasses.
The discovery felt strangely intimate, like seeing a private version of him that the photographs had missed.
Marlowe lay on the floor between us, guarding the room in his sleep.
I watched Reid work.
His brow furrowed when he concentrated. His fingers moved quickly over the keyboard. Every few minutes, he paused and rubbed the bridge of his nose beneath the glasses.
He looked tired.
He also looked safe.
The word came without effort.
Safe.
Not because Reid could prevent every terrible thing.
No one could.
