“Security review,” he murmurs. “That glitch with your shop’s server, I’m still tracing it.”
My brows pinch. “You really think someone’s hacking a bookstore?”
His arm slides around me, pulling me closer. “I think people target what matters,” he says simply. “You matter.”
The way he says it sinks into all the tender places inside me and settles there.
Outside, I hear the sounds of the inner city bustling around. Inside, all I hear is his heartbeat under my ear and the quiet hum of the air conditioning.
I shift, feeling that new fullness again, the faint echo of tingling where his hands and mouth were last night. Pride unfurls at the notion that my body is doing something remarkable. We’re doing this together.
“This is phase two, right?” I mumble. I am eagerly anticipating the first drops of colostrum and all the associated benefits.
He huffs a soft laugh. “Phase two,” he repeats. “You make it sound like espionage.”
“You’re the one who called it a protocol.”
He reaches over and turns off the lamp. Sunlight spills through the windows, sketching his profile in pale gold and shadow. In that soft light, he looks like both the storm and the shelter.
“Let’s take a walk,” he says, brushing a kiss over my forehead. “Tomorrow, we can refine our schedule to increase the chances of your lactation.”
“You and your schedules,” I murmur.
“Everything worth protecting has one,” he answers.
Wrapped in his warmth, with my body quietly buzzing and my future slowly reshaping itself, I let my eyes close for a moment to bask in this feeling of emotional security.
For the first time in a long time, the future doesn’t feel like something I’m bracing against.
It feels like something we’re building together.
Erik
When her breathing evens out, I wait a full minute just to be sure. She was exhausted after our walk, so I tucked her into my bed so she could take a nap.
Claire has sprawled half across my lap, one hand resting unconsciously over her chest, fingers curled protectively, as if her body already knows what it’s learning to carry. Not pregnancy… not yet.
I ease away carefully and tuck the blanket around her. She sighs, but doesn’t wake.
At my desk, I flip open my laptop. The security dashboard for her bookstore blooms across the screen, with rows of camera icons and scrolling timestamps.
Camera 1: Online.
Camera 2: Online.
Camera 3 Alley: Offline → reconnecting…
Then: a three-second delay.
“Damn it,” I breathe.
Three seconds doesn’t sound like much. But it’s long enough for someone to step into frame and step back out without leaving a trace on the live review.
Someone is testing the perimeter, and to me, that means someone is testing her.
I screenshot the anomaly and reroute the feed through our private server array. Then I send a brief message to Bjorn.
Node 3 is lagging by three seconds. The probe appears to be of the Veritek type. Check for SableCorp signatures
