Time loosened around them. The moonlight traced across the floor as they explored each other with hands and mouths, whispering words. When she moved above him, the sight of her in the silver light made his breath catch.
“Still with me?” she asked, reading something in his expression.
“Completely,” he said, and meant it. His hands found her hips, the right one steady, the left lighter but still present, still participating. “God, Sadie, you’re…”
Words failed him as she moved, as they found rhythms that had nothing to do with his limitations and everything to do with connection. When she shattered above him, her face transformed by pleasure, Corbyn felt the last of his walls crumble.
His own release followed, overwhelming after years of isolation. She held him through it, whispering his name like a prayer, and he might have wept if he’d had any breath left.
After, they lay tangled together, both breathing hard. His ribs ached, and his left hand had gone partially numb, but the discomfort felt distant, unimportant compared to the woman in his arms.
“Are you okay?” Sadie asked, tracing careful fingers over his chest. “Was it… did I…”
“It was perfect,” he interrupted, catching her hand. “I’ll have a few aches tomorrow, maybe, but it was worth every single one.”
She smiled, settling against his side with a contented sigh that made his chest tight.
“For someone worried about what he could do…” she murmured, her fingertips tracing the edge of a scar on his shoulder, her touch featherlight yet grounding.
He pressed a kiss to her hair, breathing in the faint scent of her shampoo—citrus and something uniquely Sadie. The simple intimacy of it struck him more profoundly than the passion they’d just shared.
The telltale thump of Riley settling against the door interrupted their silence.
“He’s judging us,” Corbyn chuckled softly.
Sadie traced a line across the smooth skin of his forearm. Her laugh tickled his neck, sending a shiver through his body.
“Let him,” she laughed, and he could feel her grin against his chest.
Corbyn held her tighter, pulling her close. All his careful analysis, all his planning, meant nothing against this simple, quiet certainty: here, now, they were real, regardless of what the coming weeks might bring. The future could wait.
April 16, 2025
-Sadie-
The last sentence stared at them from the tablet’s screen on the desk. The study glowed with the late afternoon light filtering through the tall windows as they stared at the culmination of their months of work.
Sadie leaned forward, studying the words. She felt like she was saying goodbye to an old friend, a wistfulness settling in her chest. After countless hours spent within these four walls, the arguments, the breakthroughs, and the slow, careful building of trust, Detective Inspector Shaw’s story was complete.
“That’s it, then,” Corbyn said quietly, his voice carrying a strange mix of satisfaction and melancholy that made Sadie’s chest tighten. His hand still hovered over the screen with the stylus, clearly equally as affected by the end of this chapter of their lives. Both had been avoiding the topic of what came next, but there would be no hiding from it now.
She watched his profile in the amber light. The sharp line of his jaw, the way his dark hair fell across his forehead, the slight furrow between his brows that appeared whenever he was feeling something deeply. She’d memorized these details overthe months they had been together, but somehow they still had the power to make her breath hitch.
“Wait,” Sadie said, an idea forming in her mind as she tapped her red pen against her lips. She saw his eyes instantly land on her mouth, and watched as they darkened. “This transition could be smoother. The emotional beat needs more weight.”
She shifted her chair closer to his, the wheels catching slightly on the worn Persian rug, using the capped end to point to a particular spot on the screen. She was close enough that their shoulders brushed, sending a familiar tingling sensation through her body. “What if Shaw’s final thought connects back to the opening chapter? Full circle?”
Corbyn considered this, his head tilting in that way that meant he was truly listening and not just waiting to argue. She had learned to tell the difference, unlike their early days. He picked up the stylus, and Sadie smiled at how natural the action had become. It was no longer the foreign object he’d glared at with suspicion, but a tool he’d mastered, just as he’d learned so many new things these past months.
“Like this?” he asked, writing the revision directly on the tablet screen with fluid strokes. His handwriting had evolved, too. It was less cramped, as if the stress and tension of trying to find the perfect prose had somehow eased during their partnership.
“Perfect, but…” Sadie found herself leaning across him to point at the tablet, drawn by an invisible force she’d stopped fighting. Her body angled over his arm, which brushed against her side, sending a shiver down her spine. She could feel the warmth radiating from him, the solid presence that had become her anchor. “Actually, can you move that part down one line? It’ll give the revelation more breathing room.”
She stood, her arm coming to rest on his shoulder as she ran her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. The arm of the chair pressed against her hip, and she was acutely aware ofevery point of contact between them. When she leaned forward again to suggest another small change, Corbyn’s right arm came around her waist, and she felt her breath catch.
“Come here,” he murmured, his voice dropping to that low register that never failed to make her knees weak. Before she could protest—not that she wanted to—he’d pulled her into his lap. She found herself facing the desk, her back against the solid wall of his chest. When her hand came to rest on his wrist, she could feel his pulse, quick and strong, betraying the calm facade he presented to the world. His breath stirred the hair at her temple, and she had to close her eyes for a moment, the combination of the rightness of the moment and the uncertainty about the future threatening to overwhelm her.
“This is hardly professional,” she said, though her protest was thoroughly undermined by the way she immediately melted into him, letting the side of her head rest against his cheek.
