I kiss him.
Not soft. Not careful. We're past soft. We're past careful. We've been past it since he crashed through my door and took two bullets and tore a man apart with his bare hands to keep me safe.
Six months of nightmares and healing. Learning the shape of him in the dark. The sound of him breathing beside me. The way his hand finds mine even in sleep.
His hands fist in the shirt and he hauls me closer. The chair creaks. I don't care if it breaks. I'll buy him a new one. I'll buy him ten.
His mouth opens under mine and his tusks scrape my lip.
I pull back just enough to breathe. His eyes haven't left mine, his chest heaving, his hands gripping my hips hard enough to bruise.
"I'm going to need you to take me to bed now."
His grin spreads slow. Wicked.
"Yes ma'am."
"Wait—" I laugh against his mouth. "Aren't we meeting Helen and Maya at Greene's for dinner?"
"Still are." He stands in one motion—taking me with him, his hands under my thighs, my legs wrapped around his waist. A grunt escapes him. The ribs still talk to him when he lifts. "Got one more job to finish first."
The laptop glows in the empty kitchen behind us. The cursor blinks after the words I typed this morning:
THE END.
But that's just the book.
That's just the story of how we started—the running, the hiding, the cottage, the falling. The breaking and the healing. The moment I pulled the trigger and set us both free.
That story is finished.
This one—mornings and dishes and fights about nothing and the nightmares coming less often and his shirt on my body and his hands tracing my scars—
This one is just beginning.
He carries me down the hall. Kicks open the bedroom door. Lays me down on the bed we share, and then he's over me—three hundred pounds of orc blocking out the light, his hands braced on either side of my head.
He doesn't move, just looks at me.
"What?" I ask.
"Nothing." His voice is rough. "Just looking."
"At what?"
"You. Here. In our bed." His thumb traces my jaw. "Still can't believe you stayed."
"Diesel."
"I know." He drops his forehead to mine. "I know you stayed. I know you're not leaving. I just—" He exhales. "Sometimes I need to look."
I pull him down to me—all of him. His weight settles over me.
"Stop thinking," I tell him.
"Can't."
"Try."
