I hold her.
My arms around her back, my chin on top of her head, her body pressed against mine.
She's shaking.
Small tremors running through her—the same ones I saw in the break room at the hospital, the ones she only lets out when she thinks no one is watching.
I'm watching, and I'm not going anywhere.
"I've got you," I say. It comes out low and rough and I mean it with every cell in my body. "I've got you, Leah."
She tilts her head up.
Her eyes are wet but she's not crying—holding it right there at the edge, the way she always does, the way I always do.
Her face is inches from mine. Her hands are still gripping my shirt.
"Coin."
"Yeah."
"Stop thinking about my brother."
And then she kisses me.
Her mouth finds mine and everything I've been holding back.
Every locked box, every pushed-down feeling, every night I lay in the dark wanting something I told myself I couldn't have.
All of it breaks loose at once.
The kiss is soft for about two seconds, then it isn't.
I've been alone for ten years.
Ten years of no one's mouth on mine, no one's body against mine, no hands in my hair or breath on my skin or heartbeat against my chest.
A decade of burying every want, every need, every human part of me that wasn't "Dad" or "brother" or "Secretary"—and this woman just unlocked all of it with one kiss, and I amdrowning.
My hand goes to the back of her neck.
Not rough—deliberate. The way I do everything.
I angle her head and deepen the kiss and she opens for me like she's been waiting for this, and the sound she makes—a small, broken exhale against my mouth—rewires something in my brain.
She tastes like coffee and something sweet and the faintest trace of whiskey, and I want to memorize every molecule of it.
I walk her backward. Not fast, not aggressive—guided.
My hands on her hips, her back finding the hallway wall, my body pressing against hers.
She's soft where I'm hard—curves fitting against angles, her hips under my hands full and warm and God, this woman.
This woman and her body and the way she arches into me like she's been starving for this too.
"Tell me to stop," I say against her mouth. Because I need to hear it—need to know she wants this, need to know I'm nottaking something she isn't ready to give. "Tell me to stop and I will."
She grabs the collar of my shirt and pulls me closer. "Don't you dare stop."
