Page 136 of The Fire Line

They were going to have to talk about it. Preferably after coffee and after Jay’s ass stopped throbbing.

Beside him, Harris inhaled deeply and came awake. His eyes opened unfocused, settled on Jay, and narrowed with recognition.

“Good morning,” Jay said. “Sleep well?”

“You always wake up talkin’?”

“Usually I wait until I have an audience.”

Harris closed his eyes again, but his arm remained across Jay’s waist.

Jay glanced down at it. “You planning to keep me here all day?”

“Wasn’t aware I was.”

“You’re very possessive in your sleep.”

One blue eye opened. Then Harris removed his arm.

“Rude,” Jay said.

“Thought you wanted out.”

“I mostly just wanted attention.”

“Well, you got it.”

Jay rolled carefully onto his back. Too carefully, apparently. Harris pushed himself onto one elbow, fully awake now, his gaze assessing.

“You hurting?”

“A little.”

Harris stared at him.

Jay sighed. “Okay, a little more than a little. I’m sore, not injured, and before you decide this was entirely your fault, you were the one trying to slow down.”

Harris’s jaw tightened. “Should’ve known.”

“How? Through experience with the activity you had never done before?”

“Could’ve figured it out.”

There it was again: Harris’s belief that sufficient attention ought to make him responsible for information nobody had given him.

“I knew better,” Jay said. “I chose to ignore what I knew because apparently I become an idiot when sufficiently horny. Two fingers was ambitious.”

“Two?”

“You were there.”

“Didn’t know there was a required number.”

“There isn’t. Bodies are not standardized equipment. You just… have the dimensions of something requiring county permits.”

Harris’s eyebrows rose.

Jay closed his eyes. “That sounded more flattering internally.”