She rises carefully from the tub. Water runs across the marble as I wrap the towel around her. Before she can protest, I slide one arm beneath her knees and the other around her back. Her arms automatically wrap around my neck.
“You’re taking this protector thing very seriously tonight,” she murmurs.
“I always do.”
I carry her down the hallway toward the bedroom. The lights remain dim inside the room. When I lower her onto the mattress, she studies my face again.
“You’re still not relaxed,” she notes.
“No.”
Her fingers brush lightly across my cheek. “You can stop guarding me now.”
I don’t answer right away. My hand rests against her back as I slide in beside her and pull the blanket over both of us.
Rowan moves closer, fitting naturally against my chest, her head tucked beneath my chin. The warmth of her body seeps through the thin fabric of the shirt I’m still wearing, and for the first time since the warehouse, I breathe a sigh of relief.
Within minutes, her breathing slows. The tension leaves her body in small stages, her shoulders relaxing, her grip on the blanket easing as sleep finally claims her.
She falls asleep quickly. I remain awake longer.
For several minutes, I lie there, listening to the soft sound of her breathing and the quiet hum of the apartment around us. My eyes move across the dim room, checking the door, the hallway beyond it, and the faint strip of light beneath the frame. Everything is still.
Carefully, I slide out from beneath the blanket. Rowan stirs as the mattress dips, her brow furrowing before easing again. Ipause, watching her until her breathing evens out once more. Then I move quietly toward the bathroom.
The shower runs hot, steam filling the small space as I wash away the last traces of the night—warehouse dust, dried blood, the lingering smell of gun powder that clung to everything inside that building.
When I return to the bedroom a few minutes later, Rowan hasn’t moved. She lies curled on her side beneath the blanket, one hand resting loosely against the pillow where I had been.
I slide back into bed beside her. Almost immediately, she moves closer, still half asleep, her body finding mine without waking. Her head rests against my shoulder, her arm draping lightly across my chest.
This time, when I close my eyes, I let them stay that way.
Morning reaches the apartment slowly. The first light comes in thin lines through the edges of the curtains, the pale winter sun stretching across the floor and up the side of the bed. The air inside the room is warm, holding the faint scent of soap and clean cotton from the shower I took during the night. Outside, somewhere far below the windows, a distant car passes, the sound dull and softened by height and glass.
I wake before Rowan. I stay still, letting the quiet envelop me while my mind catches up with where I am. Then I turn my head.
Rowan is asleep beside me. Her hair has spread across the pillow, the dark brown strands shimmering in the early light.One hand rests loosely against my chest beneath the blanket, her fingers curled slightly.
Her breathing is slow and even. It takes a moment before the tension that lived inside me yesterday loosens enough again to allow a full breath.
She’s here. Alive. Safe.
The words still feel temporary.
My eyes move over her carefully, taking in the details. The faint bruise along her shoulder where the enforcer grabbed her. The scrape beneath her eye where the concrete caught her. The small marks along her wrists. My hand lifts before I think about it. My thumb brushes gently along the line of the scrape on her cheekbone.
Rowan stirs. Her brow knits together, and her head moves against the pillow. Her eyes remain closed, her lashes resting against her skin. Then she blinks awake.
Her eyes glide across the ceiling first, disoriented in the slow way people wake when their bodies are still recovering from the previous day. Then her eyes find mine. Recognition comes immediately. Her shoulders relax against the mattress, and she exhales softly.
“Good,” she murmurs, her voice still thick with sleep. “You’re still here.”
My hand pauses against her cheek.
“Where else would I be?”
Rowan studies me for a moment. Her eyes move slowly over my face like she’s confirming the same thing I did a few seconds ago.
