"If you're about to tell me all the reasons this shouldn't happen, save your breath. I already know them. You're my protection detail. I'm a target. The Committee wants to capture me. Getting involved creates complications that could get us both killed. Did I miss anything?"
"No."
"Then stop thinking tactically for once." My hands find his shoulders, feel the tension coiled there. "I'm tired of being cautious. Tired of treating everything like it's an operation that needs planning. Tired of containment even when it's built with good intentions."
Dylan pulls back just enough to meet my eyes. "I don't want to hurt you."
"Then don't." The answer is simple. Honest. "Just be here. Right now. No protection protocols. No tactical assessments. Just us."
The silence stretches. His hand is still in my hair. Mine still on his shoulders. The training room lights buzz overhead.
Then he kisses me again.
His room is closer than mine. Spartanly furnished—bed, dresser, small desk with a laptop. Nothing personal except a single photograph on the nightstand of a dark-haired woman and a young girl with his eyes smiling at the camera. Dylan closes the door behind us.
The lamp casts soft light across his face when he turns to face me. Uncertainty flickers there—an expression I haven't seen from him before. Like for once, he doesn't know the correct tactical response.
"We can stop," he says.
"Do you want to?"
"No."
"Then don't."
I close the distance between us. Kiss him again. Feel his hands move to my waist, pulling me closer. The kiss turns hungry, desperate. Weeks of tension burning through whatever hesitation remains.
His shirt comes off first. Reveals scars I'd only glimpsed before—a patchwork of old wounds across his chest and abdomen. Knife cuts. Bullet grazes. Burns that healed badly. A map of violence written on skin.
My fingers trace one of the longer scars, a jagged line running from his collarbone to his ribs.
"Interrogation gone wrong," Dylan says quietly. "Subject had a concealed blade. Nearly bled out before medical arrived."
"How many of these are from interrogations?"
"Most of them." His hand covers mine, stilling my exploration. "The Committee didn't prioritize operator safety. Just results."
I kiss the scar. Then another. Each one a mark of the life he lived before Echo Ridge. Before redemption became his operational focus instead of intelligence extraction.
"Reagan—"
"Stop thinking." My hands move to his face, pulling him down to meet my eyes. "Stop analyzing. Stop treating this like an operation. Just be here."
He kisses me again. Slower this time. Deliberately. His hands moving to the hem of my shirt with clear intent. Asking permission without words.
I nod.
The shirt joins his on the floor. Then more clothing, piece by piece, until skin meets skin and the distance we've maintained shatters completely.
Dylan's hands are gentle despite their capability for violence. Reverent despite everything they've done. He touches me like I'm precious, like I'm worth protecting not through constraints but through tenderness.
We move to the bed. The mattress gives under our combined weight. His body covers mine, mindful of his weight, aware of every point of contact.
He pulls back slightly. "I don't have—I wasn't expecting?—"
"I have an IUD," I say. "And I'm clean. Last tested three months ago."
"Six months for me." His thumb traces my collarbone. "Clean."
