Not his cheek. Not his jaw. His mouth.
Softly. Barely there at first. A brush of my lips against his, tentative and terrified and electric, the contact so light it could have been accidental, could have been the random drift of a sleeping woman's face against the nearest surface. But it wasn't accidental. It was the most deliberate thing I'd ever done, and the moment my lips touched his, something detonated in my chest, everything collapsing inward toward a single point of contact that rewired my entire nervous system in the space of a heartbeat. I did it to find the strength I needed to heal.
And Xavier kissed me back.
Not consciously. I knew that even as it was happening. Knew it in the way his mouth responded before his brain did, the way his hand came up and cupped the back of my head with that instinctive, sleep-heavy tenderness, the way his lips moved against mine with a softness that was nothing like discipline and everything like hunger held on the thinnest possible leash. He made a sound, from somewhere deep in his chest, a sound I'd never heard him make, half groan and half something that sounded like my name spoken in a language older than words. His fingers threaded into my hair, and he pulled me closer, and for three seconds—three incandescent, world-ending seconds—Xavier Moreno kissed me like a man who'd been drowning and had just broken the surface.
His mouth was warm. His stubble scraped against my chin. His hand cradled my skull with a gentleness that made my eyes burn, and the kiss deepened without either of us deciding to deepen it. I was falling, I was falling into him the way I'd beenfalling for weeks, except now there was nothing between us, no forehead redirect, no be good, no carefully maintained distance, just his mouth and mine and the truth of what we were to each other laid bare in the dim light of a bedroom that smelled like cedar and chamomile and us.
Then his eyes opened.
I felt the exact moment full, sharp-edged awareness slammed into him like a bucket of ice water. His body went rigid beneath me. Every muscle locked simultaneously, the way they did when he was jolted from sleep by one of my nightmares, except this time the threat assessment wasn't external. It was me. It was my mouth on his. It was his hand in my hair and the sound he'd made and the three seconds of unguarded want that he could never, ever take back.
He jerked away.
Not gently. Not with the smooth, choreographed redirect of before. This was a physical recoil, his head pulling back against the pillow, his hand releasing my hair like it had burned him, his whole body shifting sideways and off the bed in a single fluid motion that was pure muscle memory. The tactical extraction of a man removing himself from a situation that had breached every perimeter he'd set.
He stood beside the bed. His chest was heaving. His hand came up and pressed against his mouth, and his eyes were wild in a way I'd never seen them. Not angry. Horrified. The horror of a man who'd just done the thing he'd sworn he wouldn't do, who'd crossed the line he'd drawn in the sand to protect me and found himself on the wrong side of it with my taste still on his lips.
"Molly." My name came out wrecked. Scraped raw. Not the steady, modulated voice he used for everything, not the Daddy register, not the briefing voice, not the calm-in-crisis voice. This was underneath all of those. This was the voice of the manbeneath the soldier, beneath the Daddy, and it was shaking. "I—that was—I shouldn't have—"
"You were asleep," I said. My own voice was remarkably steady, which surprised me, because everything inside me was falling apart. "You didn't do anything wrong."
"I kissed you." He said it like a confession. Like an indictment. His hand was still pressed against his mouth, and above it his eyes were dark and anguished and so full of self-recrimination that I wanted to scream at him and sayyou kissed me back because you love me and I kissed you first because I love you and neither of those things is a crime.
But I didn't. Because I understood now. Every argument I could make would be filtered through the lens he'd described in the dark:gratitude, survival, trauma bonding dressed up as desire.I could tell him I loved him until my voice gave out and he would hear it as a symptom, not a declaration.
The only language he'd trust was action.
Chapter Twelve
Xavier
I waved off my last interviewee. I liked Kathy. Smart, sharp, and eager. I was lucky she’d just moved near Tampa after a divorce, because she’d been an assistant manager of a huge nightclub in Miami. Evening hours suited her perfectly, and coupled with the cheaper living costs here and being close to her elderly parents, it worked out well for both of us.
At least something was working.
It had been nearly another four weeks since the kiss. A week of awkward silences where I was convinced she was going to leave, but then I’d started going back to work a few hours at a time.The girls had come around more, and she’d met Abby and Lottie, and the five of them together terrified all of us. She saw the same therapist, Anna, that the other girls had used, and that seemed to be going well.
I was glad she’d been in touch with her college and agreed to take the rest of the year off. I wasn’t happy she was going back to work at Maria’s tomorrow. But it was her life. At least she was still here. I’d heard Katya tell her the apartment wasn’t a problem because apparently the landlord owed Boris a favor, and he’d decided to remodel that floor, including hers. But that meant I was on borrowed time because I was convinced as soon as it was ready, she’d be gone.
She was doing exactly what I’d wanted for her—getting her life back—except I knew that this life wouldn’t have me in it. Because she was shedding our life. She’d stopped calling me Daddy. She still colored with the others but hadn’t shown any interest in any of the things Abby liked. The clothes she wore screamed adult. Her hair was in a simple braid, but she didn't use any of the colored ribbons Abby had brought her. I had a list of things I was desperate to buy for her including a blue teddy I was certain she'd adore, but I daren't get any of it.
I was convinced my worse fear was happening before my eyes. That she’d confused protection and gratitude with love and reacted accordingly. She wasn’t just letting me go, she was finding out she didn’t want to be a Little either.
The house was too quiet when I walked through the kitchen door.
Not the comfortable quiet of Molly napping under the weighted blanket while Doc read in the study. Not the productive quiet of her coloring at the coffee table while I worked on reports at the counter. This was a different quiet—an absence quiet. The kind of silence that had shape and weight andpressed against the walls like something had been subtracted from the air itself.
"Molly?"
No answer. The kitchen was empty. Her chamomile mug wasn't out. The coffee maker was cold. The small signs of habitation that I'd learned to read like terrain markers—her slippers by the couch, the coloring book left open on the coffee table, the throw blanket she dragged everywhere like a security object—were missing. Not missing. Put away. Tidied. The living room looked like a photograph of itself, staged and lifeless, every cushion in place, every surface cleared.
My heart rate spiked so fast the edges of my vision darkened.
"Molly."
Louder now. I was moving through the house with a speed that was pure operational instinct, clearing rooms the way I'd cleared buildings in Fallujah—systematic, efficient, terrified. Living room: empty. Study: empty. The guest bathroom: door open, lights off, nobody. The direct-line phone was still in the kitchen where I'd left it this morning, and the sight of it sitting there—unused, abandoned—sent a bolt of ice through my chest so violent I had to brace myself against the doorframe.
