I wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. Not now, not here.
I leaned into him, just enough to feel his heat.
For a second, we just stood there, breathing in time.
He stared at me, trying to calibrate the truth of it. Then, all at once, he grabbed me by the back of the neck and pulled me in, mouth to mine, teeth clashing, the taste of metal and smoke and regret.
We collided, both of us starving for the violence of it. My hands tangled in his shirt, fingers searching for leverage. He spun me against the bench, knocking over a tray of parts that skittered to the floor. I didn’t care. The world had already gone to hell; this was just another descent.
He hoisted me onto the bench, wrenching my legs apart, kissing me with a hunger that bordered on desperation. His breath was ragged, each exhale a confession. My own hands found the hem of his shirt, pulling it up to expose the lattice of bruises, the old burn scars, the place where his body refused to quit.
He groaned, low and wounded, as I dug my nails into his back. He bit my lower lip hard enough to draw blood, and the taste of it set something loose in both of us.
“You’re crazy,” he whispered.
“So are you,” I gasped, breathless.
He peeled off my shirt, buttons snapping loose. The cold of the air hit my skin, and then his hands were everywhere—rough, relentless, finding every old scar, every fresh hurt, as if he needed proof that I was still whole.
He kissed my throat, my jaw, the hollow at the base of my neck, then worked lower, tongue and teeth tracing the line of my clavicle. I clung to him, refusing to let go even as the pain from his grip radiated down my arms.
He reached between my legs and tore at the waistband of my pants, the fabric yielding with a pop. I yanked at his belt, got it half undone before he slammed me back against the wall, mouth crushing mine, both of us sucking the air from each other’s lungs.
He entered me in a single motion, no warning, no apology. The shock of it made me gasp, nails raking his back, legs locking around his waist. He fucked me like a man digging his way out of a coffin, all force and no finesse. I met him thrust for thrust, every inch of my body burning with the need to erase the last hour, the last day, the last decade.
We didn’t speak. There were no words left.
The climax hit like a seizure, muscles locking, eyes rolling back. I buried my face in his shoulder, biting down to keep from screaming.
When it was over, he just held me there, both of us sweating, shivering, neither willing to be the first to let go.
We stayed like that for a long time, the world outside reduced to the click of the cooling engine, the drip of oil on the concrete, and the steady, stubborn rhythm of two hearts refusing to stop.
Eventually, he pulled away, hands gentle now, smoothing the hair back from my face.
He kissed me, softer this time.
We were both still broken, but for the first time, it felt like something we could live with.
***
We ended up on his couch, the only piece of furniture in the room that didn’t look like it had survived a war. The springs dug into my hips, and the blanket was an afterthought—thrift store fleece, so thin the edges curled like old leaves. We were still mostly naked, our bodies cooling down in the draft fromthe busted window above the headboard, the TV casting blue shadows over everything.
I lay with my head on his chest, ear tuned to the low subsonic of his heart. He held the remote in one hand, cycling through the channels with a patience he’d never shown for anything else in his life. The news was on, as always—muted, but not enough to keep us from reading the crawl.
The newscaster wore a helmet of blonde hair and an expression somewhere between sympathy and rabid delight. The screen behind her split into thirds: my face, the podium, a looping B-roll of the ranger station crime scene. My glasses made me look older. The text at the bottom read: “LOS ALAMOS SCIENTIST BREAKS SILENCE. MC CONNECTIONS UNCLEAR.”
Nitro’s arm tightened around me. I could feel the old rage in him, the way it always hovered just below the skin, ready to ignite at the slightest friction.
“They never fucking quit,” he muttered.
I shrugged, the motion barely lifting his arm. “They have a job. So do we.”
He grunted, flipping the channel. More coverage, more angles. This one had found an old graduation photo—me with longer hair, a forced smile, and a dress I barely remembered owning. The anchor called me “controversial” three times in one minute.
I almost laughed. “I always wanted to be famous.”
He kissed the top of my head, but the gesture was automatic, like he was setting a waypoint he could return to if he got lost.
