The prosthetic caught wrong — not dramatically enough to send me down, but enough to throw my center off. A sharp, humiliating jolt of imbalance shot up my spine. I swore and reached instinctively for something solid.
That something turned out to be her.
She moved fast, arms coming around me without hesitation, one hand at my waist, the other braced between my shoulder blades. I felt her absorb my weight in a way that was practiced and terrifying. For a split second, we were both holding still, bodies pressed together, my forehead nearly touching hers.
We froze there.
Her breath was warm against my jaw. I could feel the steady strength in her legs, the way she had planted herself without thinking. The walker stood abandoned at my side, useless and faintly mocking.
“I’ve got you,” she whispered.
The words did something to me. Not relief — something deeper. Something like surrender trying to claw its way out. “I didn’t fall,” I said, because of course I did.
She huffed a breath that was almost a laugh. “No, no. You just dramatically reconsidered gravity.”
I should have pulled away. I knew that. My brain screamed it. Instead, I let my weight stay where it was, just for a second longer than necessary. My hand slid to her upper arm, fingers curling reflexively, grounding myself in the fact of her.
Her eyes flicked to the movement. Something passed between us — recognition, heat, restraint snapping taut again. “You can lean, you know,” she said, softer now. “That’s allowed.”
The permission wrecked me. But I leaned. Just enough to feel her adjust, just enough to feel her body respond instinctively to mine. My heart was pounding too fast for the effort I’d made. My throat burned.
We stood like that, pressed together in the middle of the living room, the aftermath of PT scattered around us like evidence. This wasn’t sex. This wasn’t even romance in the traditional sense. It was calibration. Two bodies renegotiating physics.
“Okay,” she murmured after a moment. “Now we sit. Before you get any ideas.”
I smiled despite myself, the expression pulling at something tender and dangerous in my chest. “You always ruin my fun.”
“You always define fun incorrectly.” She guided me back to the couch, hands firm, confident, maddeningly gentle. I sat, breathing hard, prosthetic clunking as I settled. She didn’t move away right away. Instead, she stayed close, knees brushing mine, one hand still resting at my side as if she wasn’t entirely convinced I wouldn’t tip over again.
I covered her hand with mine. It was an unconscious thing. A reflex. The moment registered after it happened, heat flaring where our skin met. She looked down at our hands, then back up at me, expression unreadable.
“Thank you,” I said quietly.
“For what?”
“For not catching me like I was broken.”
Her mouth softened. “You’re not broken,” she said. “You’re just… recalibrating.”
That word again. It fit too well.
I squeezed her hand once before letting go; the loss of contact was sharper than I expected. She leaned her shoulder lightly against mine, just enough to count as contact, just enough to feel intentional.
We sat there like that for a while — breathing, resting, letting theadrenaline drain out of my system. Outside, the city kept moving. Inside, everything felt suspended.
This — this was new intimacy. Not heat, not urgency. Trust built out of near-falls and steady hands. And God help me, I wanted it more than I’d ever wanted anything.
Chapter 44
Desmond
There was a light, bright and unyielding. It pressed through my eyelids like it had weight, as if it could pin me in place if I didn’t look at it. I tried to turn my head away, but there was no escape — only more light, more heat, more pressure behind my eyes.
But this time it was different.
My arm screamed, skin singed as the hairs on my arm burned away. Skin tightening. Hairs curling. The sharp, sickening smell of something burning that I couldn’t quite place until it was already gone.
My throat locked. There was a sound — metal folding in on itself, something tearing, something wrong in a way my brain couldn’t process fast enough.
