The door slams shut.
Silence falls heavy between Delilah and me.
And I realize, with a bitter clarity, that the mission isn’t the only thing falling apart.
The silence stretches, thick and volatile, snapping under the weight of everything we haven’t said and everything we absolutely shouldn’t. The office still smells like coffee and ozone and Larkin’s citrus hand cream. The monitors behind the desk blink quietly, casting low blue light over Delilah’s face. She sits up slowly, eyes sharp now, too sharp for someone who was curled in on herself minutes ago. That alone should tell me she’s not fine, that she’s running on adrenaline and stubborn willpower and the kind of survival instinct that doesn’t shut off just because the danger has moved elsewhere. But all I can see is the way she looks at me—defiant, wounded, daring me to try and cage her again.
“You don’t get to kick everyone else out and then stare at me like that,” she says, voice rough from sleep and something deeper. “Say whatever it is you’re thinking.”
I laugh once, short and humorless. “You don’t want that.”
“Try me.”
That does it. Something snaps clean through whatever restraint I had left.
“You assaulted another soldier,” I bite out. “You’re not cleared, you’re not stable, and you damn sure aren’t stepping anywherenear another op. At this rate, you’ll be lucky if I don’t stick you on medic duty and keep you there until further notice.”
Her feet hit the floor. She’s in front of me in a heartbeat, chin lifted, eyes blazing. Too pale. Too thin. Too alive for the way my chest clenches when she gets this close.
“I am a soldier,” she fires back. “You don’t get to bench me like I’m some liability just because you’re scared.”
I step into her space without thinking. “This isn’t about fear.”
“Then what is it?” She snaps. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks a lot like you deciding when I’m allowed to matter.”
The words hit low. Personal. Accurate in a way I don’t want to unpack. They go straight past rank and reason and lodge somewhere soft I thought I’d already cut out of myself.
“You want to be treated like a soldier?” I ask quietly, dangerously. “Fine. You want that from me?”
Her breath stutters, but she doesn’t back down. “Yes.”
My hand comes up before my brain can stop it, fingers curling into the collar of her shirt, not yanking her closer but making damn sure she understands the line she’s toeing. The fabric bunches beneath my fist. Her pulse jumps hard in her throat. Mine answers like it’s been waiting for an excuse.
“Then I can write you up,” I say, voice low and brutal. “I can strip you of field clearance. I can have you reassigned, isolated, monitored every hour on the hour. I can make damn sure you never see another live op again until I’m satisfied you won’t break under pressure.”
Her eyes darken, something raw flashing across her face. Fury first. Hurt right behind it. “You’d do that?”
“I could,” I correct. “And you know it.”
Her hand connects with my cheek before I even register the movement.
The sound cracks through the room, sharp and final.
For half a second, everything freezes. The sting blooms hot across my face. Her chest is rising too fast. My hand is still in her shirt. Her palm is still half lifted between us like neither of us can believe she did it.
And then—fuck.
I don’t think. I don’t plan. I don’t weigh consequences or morality or the thousand reasons this is wrong. I don’t give myself time to remember where she’s been, what was taken from her, what any touch might mean now. I just move on instinct and anger and relief and something uglier, needier, that’s been starved too long to be trusted.
I grab her face and kiss her.
It’s instinctive and reckless and born of too much restraint finally giving way. Heat and anger and relief and terror collide in one breathless second, and the world narrows to the taste of her and the way she stiffens before melting into it just enough to ruin me. Her lips are soft and startled and then suddenly answering, and that tiny answer hits me like a detonation. My grip shifts, thumb against her jaw, the other hand braced hard at her waist without meaning to. She tastes like rain and sleep and everything I’ve been trying not to want.
And then I’m stumbling back like I’ve been burned.
“What the hell did I just do,” I breathe, hands already dropping, space opening between us like a wound.
Shock slams into me hard and fast. Guilt follows right on its heels. Not the abstract kind. The immediate, gutting kind. The kind that makes every nerve in my body feel wrong.
