A slow smile curved my mouth, heat unfurling through me. “You were gone for less than a day.”
“I know.” He kissed me softly, his lips lingering. His fingers threaded through my hair, pulling it away from my face with an erotic bite. “Life’s smoother when you’re in it.”
“Smoother?” I whispered, my heart doing an odd little stutter.
“Yeah. The rough edges calm down.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant, but the words made something warm deep in my chest. That faint Irish lilt in his voice softened the edges of everything. I bit back a grin, not wanting to ruin the moment by giggling like a teenager.
“Did you check out the warehouse that exploded?” I asked, trying to focus.
“We did,” he murmured, his nose brushing mine. His hand slid lower, tracing down my side. The touch sent a spark straight through me, quick and bright.
“You’re back faster than I expected,” I said, breath catching.
“There wasn’t much to do.”
I frowned. Even when his words were soft, there was a tension beneath them, a coiled thread that hadn’t been there before. “What’s going on?”
He met my gaze for a long moment. “I leave Monday.”
My heart tightened. “Undercover?”
“Yeah.”
I looked up at him, memorizing the lines of his face, the faint shadow of stubble, the way his eyes softened when he looked at me. The air in the room felt still, the only sound our breathing.
“Where to?” I asked finally.
He hesitated. “You know I can’t say.”
“Yeah,” I murmured. My throat felt dry. “I know.”
He leaned down again, brushing a kiss across my lips, and for a moment, all the questions, all the worry, all the chaos of the last few days disappeared. There was only the warmth of his skin, the solid weight of him, and the silent promise that he’d come back.
Whenever Aiden went undercover, he didn’t play the cop. He played the criminal. A guy with the gun, the temper, and the kind of past that didn’t get forgiven. And every time he went deep, he walked a line so thin it made my stomach hurt just thinking about it.
“How long will you be gone?” I asked, keeping my voice steady.
“There’s no way to know,” he said quietly. “It’ll take a while to infiltrate.”
He didn’t say the rest. He didn’t need to. Deep cover meant no calls, no texts, no messages slipped through back channels. It meant radio silence, like he’d fallen off the edge of the world.
I reached up and threaded my fingers through his thick, dark hair, holding on to something real while I still could. “I’ll miss you.”
“Ditto.” His eyes darkened to a shade that lived somewhere between blue and midnight. The color didn’t have a name. “Anna?—”
“No,” I said softly, shaking my head before he could finish the thought I saw flicker behind his eyes.
He didn’t answer, but I knew what was there. Every once in a while, when life piled up and his job demanded too much, he thought about ending it. About walking away from us. About taking the easy way out.
But it was too late for that. For both of us.
“I was just—” he murmured.
“Absolutely not,” I said firmly. “You don’t get to check out when things get hard.”
His jaw tightened, but he nodded once.
