Page 63 of The Final Cut

“Timer?” Ever asks.

I glare at him over Reva’s shoulder. “I will murder you.”

Reva shifts. Barely. I curse under my breath.

She smiles against my jaw. “Problem?”

“No.”

“Good.”

She goes still then. Completely still. That’s worse.

Her arms rest around my neck. Her body stays locked around me, snug and wicked and pulsing gently with every breath she takes. I can feel everything. The damp heat of her. The small tremor in her thighs. The way her heart is beating fast against my chest.

I grip the edge of the chair behind her.

I can win this.

This is not hard.

I can do⁠—

Nash says, “Two minutes.”

I bare my teeth. “I didn’t ask.”

Reva tightens around me, and my hips jerk. The sound I make is beneath me as a person.

Her eyes widen with delighted offense. “Was that⁠—”

“Nope.”

“Because it sounded like⁠—”

“No.”

Ever makes a thoughtful noise. “Interesting control issue.”

“You are dead to me.”

Reva does it again. Small, deliberate. A tiny clench of muscle, barely enough to count as movement and more than enough to send sweat breaking along my spine.

My forehead drops to her shoulder.

She laughs. The laugh changes everything.

The room, the morning, the fight, the dead nurse, the swamp, the hospital. None of it goes away. The pain stays where it is. The fear too. But Reva laughs in my arms with me buried inside her, and for one reckless second the whole house remembers how to breathe.

I lift my head.

Her face is flushed. Eyes bright. Smile wicked and shaky at the edges.

“You’re cheating, damnit.”

She lifts one shoulder. “You said I couldn’t handle you.”

“I said many things under duress.”