"RJ—"
"I'm not taking your bed, Dalla. That's not happening."
"Fine." The word comes out sharp. "Then we share."
His whole body goes rigid. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me. My bed is big enough for two. We're adults. We can handle sleeping next to each other without—" I wave my hand vaguely. "Whatever you're worried about happening."
"That's not a good idea."
"Why not?"
"Because—" He stops. Swallows. His hands curl into fists at his sides. "Because I don't trust myself around you."
My breath catches and my pulse spikes.
"What does that mean?" I ask, even though I know. Even though I can see it written all over his face—the want, the need, the desperate restraint.
"It means exactly what it sounds like." His voice has gone rough. Strained. "It means I've spent three nights lying awake thinking about you in the next room. Thinking about the sounds you make when you sleep. Thinking about what would happen if I stopped being professional and started being honest."
"And what would happen?"
He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Nothing good. Nothing you want."
"You don't know what I want."
"I know I'm not it." He turns away, reaching for the shirt draped over the end of his bed. "I'm not a good man, Dalla.I've told you that. I've killed people. I've done things that would make you?—"
"I don't care."
He freezes, shirt in hand.
"I don't care what you've done," I continue, and I'm moving before I realize it—closing the distance between us, refusing to let him retreat. "I don't care how many men you've killed or what you think that makes you. I grew up in this life. I know what monsters look like. And you?—"
I grab his arm, forcing him to face me.
"You're not a monster, RJ. You're a man. A man who took bullets in the back protecting people. A man who threw himself on top of me when bullets started flying. A man who's been sleeping on a torture device for three nights because he's too proud to admit he's in pain."
He's staring at me. Those gray eyes burning with something I can't name.
"That's not monstrous," I whisper. "That's human. And I'm so fucking tired of you pretending otherwise."
The silence stretches.
Tension coils in the air between us, thick and electric.
I'm suddenly aware of how close we're standing—close enough to feel the heat radiating off his bare skin.
Close enough to see the individual flecks of silver in his gray eyes.
Close enough that one small step would put me in his arms.
I take that step.
"Dalla." His voice is wrecked. A warning and a prayer wrapped in two syllables.
"Tell me to stop," I say. "Tell me you don't want this, and I'll walk away. I'll go back to my room and we'll pretend this conversation never happened."
