The word lands like a weight in my ribs. Principal. Package. Objective.
My body refuses the demotion.
It remembers his weight pinning me to brick, the hard cage of muscle that turned the blast into pressure and heat instead of shrapnel and death. Remembers the way he absorbed every hit meant for me—shoulders taking it, back taking it—breath harsh against my ear while mine stuttered and caught.
The car hums now, low and even, but I’m still wrapped in the echo of him: smoke on my skin, salt on my lips, the imprint of his hands where he checked for blood and found only shaking.
I tell myself it was professional. A tactic. Physics and training.
But my pulse argues. It surges every time his forearm flexes on the wheel. My palms itch to press where his chest crushed the panic flat, to borrow that steadiness and pin it inside me.
This is insane. He’s doing a job.
And then the comparison I don’t want hits—Nathan. Nathan, who never stepped in, never took a hit for me, never noticed my breathing go thin at the edges. Nathan, who measured everything—time, effort, affection—and always came up criticizing my existence.
Jackson doesn’t measure. He moves. He covers. He takes the impact and doesn’t flinch.
My body remembers that difference and it wants—God, it wants—the way his protection felt. The way safety felt when it wore his shape. I try to name it: adrenaline, shock, anything clinical enough to survive.
But when his gaze flicks to me in the cracked windshield’s reflection—one quick, cutting glance that checks I’m still here—something inside me gives, quiet and terrifying.
A line blurs.
And what’s left between us isn’t just aftermath. It’s hunger wearing a reason.
Stop. You’re doing it again. Analyzing, dissecting. Nathan was right, you can’t just experience things, you have to?—
But I can’t stop. Because the memory of Jackson’s body covering mine is the first time I’ve felt truly safe in years. And that safety came with heat, with want, with my body responding to his protection in ways that have nothing to do with professionalism.
“Still shaking,” Jackson observes, glancing at me again. “Shock?”
I nod, because what else can I do? Tell him that his body covering mine rewired something fundamental in my brain? That I’m shaking because I want him to do it again, minus the explosion? That every protective touch made me want to crawl inside his skin?
He’d think you’re insane—or worse, a liability.
“This is a safe house.” Jackson parks in the underground garage, still checking for surveillance. He exits and walks around to open my door. “Can you walk?”
I nod, though my legs feel like liquid. I climb out of the vehicle, take one step, and my knees buckle.
He catches me, one arm sliding around my waist, taking my weight without effort. “Those ribs—I have field medical training. Will you let me look?”
Another nod.
“You need to find your voice,” he says, half-carrying me to an elevator. “I can’t protect you if you can’t communicate. Understand?”
I understand. But understanding and doing are different things. Nathan’s voice still echoes:“Your constant need to verbalize everything is exhausting.”
The words are there, crowding my throat. But they won’t come.
Jackson’s arm tightens slightly as the elevator rises, taking more of my weight. His competence is overwhelming—the kind of man who kills three people and doesn’t break a sweat.
The kind who might keep me alive.
“We’re going to figure out who wants you dead,” he says as the doors open. “But first, you need to tell me everything. Can you do that?”
I want to. Need to.
All I can do is nod and hope it’s enough.
