Page 260 of What We Burn

I laugh. He smiles in a way that transforms his whole face and makes him look ten years younger and approximately four hundred percent more dangerous.

“I was terrified though,” he says.

“Of what?”

“Of wanting you. Of how much I wanted you, how fast. I’m supposed to be the one who thinks three steps ahead, who weighs every risk, who doesn’t let the personal compromise the operational.” His thumb traces my cheekbone. “And then you let me into your apartment.”

“Did I let you in? Or did you let yourself in?”

“I knocked.”

“Oh yeah. You said you were being a gentleman.” I giggle at the memory. “And then you were very quickly railing me against the refrigerator. You know we put a dent in the door, right?”

He laughs at that, drawing a crooked S down my chest with his finger. “I used to think the only way to be safe was to be alone. That if you brought people close, it was just more targets for the universe to aim at. But you—” He pauses, searching my face, the words catching on some internal splinter. “You made it so the thought of not having you was more dangerous than anything I’d ever faced. That’s fucked up, right?”

“Only if you’re a coward.” I thread my fingers with his, holding our hands up against the light. Mine look smaller than ever in his grip. “You’re not a coward.”

“I’m not, but—” He shakes his head. “Every day I think I’m going to fuck this up. That you’ll get tired of being wanted by all five of us. That one day you’ll want something more normal, that you’ll choose just one and it won’t be me.”

My chest goes hot, and for half a second I taste the sick possibility of that version of the world—one where I have to choose, one where Holden and I aren’t together.

“I can’t choose,” I say. “Couldn’t. In fact, I’d rather die.” It sounds so dramatic as I say it, but I mean it—fuck me, I mean it more than I’ve ever meant anything, and not just because Holden is currently turning my bones to pudding with aftershocks. “You’re one of my guys, Holden—mine. And I’m yours. And I know it’s messy, and I know it’s fucked up because I expect you to share me, but I’d literally kill any woman who tried to touch you. Seriously, that’s how I feel. And it’s what I want. You’re it for me. Even if you’re not the only one.”

He pulls away, but only enough that he can look at my face. “Good,” he says. “Because that’s exactly the life I want.”

“Holden.”

He leans down and kisses me, slow and deep, and the tenderness in it is so different from the sex we just had that it feels like a different language.

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you too, detective.”

He kisses me again. And when we come up for air, I start to pull away—we have things to do, reasons we came here, a whole apartment to sort through—but his arm hooks around my waist and drags me back.

“Not yet,” he murmurs against my mouth. “Five more minutes.”

“You said five more minutes twenty minutes ago.”

“And it was the best twenty minutes of my day. I’m extending the pleasure.”

I settle into him. His chest is warm and solid and his arm is heavy across my waist and for a moment, I let myself be nothing but present. In this apartment. In this bed. With this man.

“We really need to get moving,” I say eventually. “Amy is expecting us. And we’re supposed to be packing my stuff to take to your house.”

“Ours,” Holden says.

I look at him.

“The house,” he says. “You called it mine. It’s ours.”

The word blooms in my chest. I lean over and kiss him—soft, quick, the kind of kiss that says everything and takes nothing.

“Ours,” I repeat. “I like the sound of that.”

“Good. Because Milo was busy drawing up a chore chart this morning and your name is already on it. He’s also half-finished with his cross-stitch.”

“He’s not coping well with not working. I can’t believe Fenrir locked him out of his own system.”