Page 79 of Deep Cover

He’d lived without her, but just knowing she was out there somewhere, living a life he didn’t get to be part of, had been enough to keep going for six years. Losing her entirely wasn’t an outcome he could have borne.

And he knew it with a force that scared him.

“What if Doyle makes me go?” Her voice was muffled against his shoulder.

“You can hide in my bed.” He said it lightly, a joke wrapped around a seed of dead seriousness.

A small, surprised laugh burst against his chest.

“Reid.”

“I’m serious.” He pulled back enough to look at her and cradled her face with so much tenderness that he had to swallow thickly again. “I’m not letting you leave, Ryss. I just got you back. And I can’t lose you twice in one lifetime.”

Her eyes were bright, swimming with tears, and she didn’t look away. “I don’t know how this works. I don’t know what a life looks like. Do I stay in the FBI? Split my time between here and DC?”

He traced his thumb along her cheekbone. “We’ll figure it all out when it’s time. Right now, your only job is to heal.” He leaned in and kissed her lips in a soft sweep. “I don’t care about the logistics—only that you’re with me. Forever.”

Silent tears tracked down her cheeks, and he wiped one away with his thumb.

“I love you.” He said it plain, no more circling, no more swallowing it back for fear of what it cost either of them to hear. “I’ve loved you every single day since the moment I met you. Even the ones where I convinced myself I’d made peace with losing you. I never made peace with it. I just learned to survive without saying it out loud.” His voice grew hoarse. “I’m done surviving without you. I love you, Caryssa Lane, and I’m not letting you walk out of my life again.”

She issued a broken sound, half sob, half laugh, and gripped the front of his shirt, refusing to let him slip away either. “I love you too. God, Reid. I never stopped. I built an entire life around not loving anyone else because some part of me always knew it was still you. It was always going to be you.”

He cupped her face tenderly and kissed her, careful with her fragile body while pouring years apart into the press of his lips. She kissed him back, slipping her hand upward from where it was balled in his shirt to cup his jaw.

His heart soared. This was it. Their forever was within his grasp, and he was going to hold on tight with both hands and never let go.

When they finally broke apart, he rested his forehead against hers. “Stay.” The single word vibrated with the bare truth of what came next between them.

“Yes.” Her voice wavered, but her gaze was steady on his. “Yes. I’m staying.”

* * * * *

Caryssa had survived a bullet and a burning building. Watching grown men argue over curtain rod placement made her stitches hurt from laughing too hard.

She gathered with a few of Sierra team in the corridor where they’d congregated to marvel at the new addition to the base—a large painting of a landscape with curtain panels hanging around it. The image of a mountain was blanketed in wildflowers, the snowcap long since melted in a view Caryssa imagined the world outside these walls resembled in summer.

It was her first day back after three days in the hospital. She kept forgetting that her arm was strapped into a sling, and attempted to gesture to the new art installment on the wall.

A grunt sounded from the opposite end of the tunnel, and they all turned to see Rorke hauling the latest shipment inside. Fresh snow coated his shoulders and the brim of the ball cap he wore, in direct opposition to the painting that mimicked a summer’s day.

Cannon took a step forward, raising an arm to point at the enormous box. “What the hell is that?”

Rorke shrugged. “Dunno, but it’s heavy.”

“Jolie? Stina? What have you done now?”

The ladies pushed to the head of the group to stare at the package. “We didn’t order anything that big.” Jolie turned to Stina. “Did we?”

“Definitely not.”

Cannon strode to the box, knife already whipped out of his pocket to slice the tape. Before he even opened it, he glanced at the label. “Who,” he rumbled slowly, staring down at the box, “ordered a fucking treadmill?”

The room went quiet. Rome grinned outright. Rorke suddenly found a fascinating spot to study on the ceiling, his lips curving upward.

Reid stepped forward and cleared his throat. “I did.”

Cannon’s head whipped up. “You?”