There it is. The small thing. The crack. She didn’t mean to ask me that. That slipped. That was for herself, not me. I lean in, drop my voice. “What do I seewhen?”
“In your nightmares,” she mutters, like she regrets saying it already.
The air shifts between us, thickening with every word. I could lie. I probably should. That would be smarter. Easier, less complicated. Instead, for reasons I will later interrogate with something sharp and unkind, I give her the truth. “Blood,” I say.
She bites her bottom lip, then winces when she remembers the split. I try to ignore it, failmiserably. “Men I couldn’t pull out fast enough,” I continue, voice low. “Ships that should have made it to port, bodies that didn’t. Owen’s file. Yours.”
Her breath stutters. “Mine?”
“Video,” I murmur. “You on that warehouse feed. Knees on concrete. Hands on a corpse. Looking at that camera like you were daring whoever was on the other end to come get you.”
Color floods her face in a fast, hot rush. Shame and rage and humiliation all tangled up. “You—you watch those?”
“Yes,” I say. “Many times.”
“Why?” Her voice is thin now. Brittle. “So you can jerk off to it, what, watching me next to a dead man—”
“No,” I cut in, controlled. Calm but enough sting that she listens. “So I could see if you were a liar.”
She stops, holding her breath. Body taut. Waiting. “And?” she whispers, voice barely there.
“And you weren’t,” I say.
Her hands flex where she’s folding her arms across her body. Her eyes go bright for a second, and she looks away, jawclenched like she’s swallowing something that hurts on the way down.
There it is. Not victory. Or even satisfaction. It’s relief. Sharp, startled, desperate relief.
She didn’t know she needed me to say that out loud until I did.
My disobedience is still human. Whether she likes to admit it or not.
I step in the last inch. Her back hits the window frame. Not hard. Just enough that she feels the limit behind her.
I reach up. Slow and easy, giving her time to stop me if she doesn’t want this.
Her breath turns shallow again, but she doesn’t move. She’s staring at me like something she can’t categorize yet. Like she knows she should be afraid and can’t quite get her body to remember how to do it.
I take a strand of her hair — copper-red, tangled, soft — and brush it back from her face.
My knuckles graze her cheekbone. She trembles. It’s small, but it’s there. A tiny shiver, starting at her jaw and running down her throat. Her pulse jumps under skin. Her lips part. “Don’t,” she whispers.
“Don’t what?” I say quietly.
“Don’t be…gentle.” Her voice breaks on that word like it betrays her.
Something low in me tightens, slow and precise. Gentle.
She said it like it’s a threat.
I let the strand of hair fall behind her ear and keep my hand there, cupping the side of her face without pressure. My thumb rests just under her cheekbone. Her skin is warm. Soft. Desperately human. Her eyes flick up to mine, searching.
“What did he tell you?” I ask softly. “Before he died.”
Her breath hitches like I shoved a knife between her ribs.
Fuck.
I feel her body go rigid. Her jaw locks. Tears — fast, immediate — glass over her eyes like I flipped a switch. They don’t fall. She doesn’t let them.
