Page 106 of No Good Fight

She reaches past me for the shampoo bottle, ignoring my anxiety and turning this into a completely normal moment instead of my carefully hidden panic attack.

“I’m showering,” she says.

“I can see that.”

“Then stop using my name like you’re warning me to stop.”

I stare at the water sliding over the bruises on her upper arm. “I can’t look at those marks and not want to kill him.”

Her hand stills on the cap. Alex sets the shampoo on the ledge and turns toward me fully, rain and hallway fear and police questions gone now, leaving only her and the damage someone else put on her skin. The damage that I couldn’t stop.

“I know what you want to do,” she says.

“No, you don’t.”

“I know enough, Ryder. I see you. All of you.”

I look away first because the truth in my face feels too ugly for her to stand this close to. “You shouldn’t be in here with me when I’m like this.”

Her fingers touch my wrist. Not pulling at me or trying to be calming. Just there, warm beneath the heat in the water. “I’m not here with you because you’re calm all the time.”

The words move through me slowly, creeping through my body like a creeping vine, cracking through the walls I’ve tried to build.

She steps closer, taking my hand from the tile and setting it against her waist. I keep it loose. She presses her own hand over mine until my fingers curve around her. Her body is warm and slick under my palm, alive, here, choosing to be within reach of everything I keep trying to make acceptable before I offer it to her.

“I’m not choosing the part of you that looks safe in public,” she says, voice quieter now. “I know you’re angry. I know you’re scared. I know there’s a part of you that wants to tear the world apart until it’s safe for me again.”

My throat tightens. “Alex.”

“I’m still here. For the rage. The obsession. The guilt. I’m here for all of you.”

That almost takes my knees out.

She rises on her toes and kisses me, soft at first, then harder when I don’t move fast enough to claim her. I let her have my mouth. I let her push into me, crave the way her hands slide over my chest and shoulders, and am ready to worship her for the way the tension in every part of me eases at her touch. When she presses against me, my hands go to her hips before I can talk myself out of touching her.

She makes a small sound that reaches straight into my soul and claims me.

I break away and hold her still. “This can’t be because of what happened. I never want you to use me for an escape.”

Her eyes flash, and there she is. My Alex. My Allycat. Furious even with bruises on her arms and fear still fresh under her skin.

“It’s not.”

“You were attacked today.”

“And I’m aware of that.” She reaches for my hand and drags it from her hip to the center of her chest, holding it there so I can feel the hard, steady beat beneath my palm. “I’m also alive. I’m here. I want you. Those things are allowed to exist at the same time.”

The water runs between us. My thumb moves once because I can’t stop it, brushing the curve of her breast before I lock down again.

She notices. She always notices.

“Don’t make me beg you to believe me,” she says.

That breaks through the last of the resistance.

I kiss her hard enough that she rocks back against the shower wall, but my hand gets there first, bracing behind her head so she doesn’t hit the tile. Her fingers dig into my shoulders. Mine spread over her waist, her back, the curve of her hip, learning every inch like touching her is the only proof my body will accept that she wasn’t taken from me.

She’s here.