Page 43 of Make Them Pay

“I’ve wanted this,” he says, voice rough and wrecked. Not past tense. Present. Ongoing. “I’ve wanted this since before I had any right to want it.”

“I know.”

“You don’t. You don’t know the half of it.”

I take his face in both hands and force him to look at me from three inches away. His eyes are dark and wide and completely unguarded. Every wall is down, and what’s behind them is exactly what I thought I’d find if I ever got close enough to look: a man who’s been standing at the edge of this for years, terrified by how far there was to fall and how fast the ground came up.

“Then tell me,” I say. “After. Tell me the half I don’t know.”

He kisses me again. Slower this time. The urgency has spent itself and what’s left is something quieter but no less intense. The kiss of a man who's finally letting himself feel things he'd buried for a long time.

When it ends we stand against the wall in the dim storage unit with our clothes disordered and our breathing uneven and the air between us changed in a way that can never be unchanged. I can feel his heartbeat through his chest, still fast, still running at the elevated frequency that I’m starting to think of as our shared signal.

He steps back carefully. Adjusts his clothes. Runs a hand through his hair. The gesture is so human, so ordinary in its self-consciousness, that it makes my chest do something warm and unexpected.

“Five hours,” he says.

“Five hours,” I confirm.

He holds my gaze.

The room hasn't changed. The concrete walls. The metal shelves. The locked door. The fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Everything is exactly where it was.

But something between us has shifted.

There's no pretending it didn't.

We're not who we were when we walked into this room.

And we both know there's no going back.

18

Render

Something feels different about the light in this room.

The fluorescent tubes are the same ones that have been here since I stocked the unit six months ago. The concrete is the same gray. The metal walls still have that slight sheen from the temperature difference. Nothing physical has changed.

But the way the light hits Enley Cameron is different now, and I know that’s got nothing to do with the bulbs and everything to do with me.

She’s at the table with the laptop open, running the last checks on the evidence system. Focused. Efficient. Channeling everything into the work so she doesn’t have to sit with what just happened against the wall. I’m doing the same thing with the communication gear. Checking the channel again. Making sure the signal is solid. Making sure all nine of us will stay connected once things start.

Her hair is still a little messed up from my hands. I have to admit it makes her look seductive. Hotter. Sexy as fuck. The hoodie is back on, pulled up against the cold, and it has new creases that map exactly where the wall and my body pressed against her.

My body hardens at the thought of her. The way she felt. I push the feeling down and try my hardest to focus back on the work. No pun intended.

I’m testing the gear properly, but a solid chunk of my brain keeps replaying the sound she made when my hand found the bare skin of her waist. The way her knees gave out. The fact that my hands actually shook for the first time since I was thirteen and first understood what it meant to hold something that could change everything permanently.

See… I can’t fucking focus.

I’ve spent eight days being the version of myself that the mission needed. The operator. The failsafe. The one who moves through dark rooms and solves problems with code and bullets and carefully managed distance. That version didn’t have room for what I felt when Enley pulled me those last twelve inches and the gap between us hit zero for the second time. The first time was a collapse. The second was a choice.

A choice is different. You can explain away a collapse. You can call it fatigue or pressure or years of wanting finally breaking through. You can’t explain away a choice. A choice means the person you were before isn’t the same person after. I chose to cross the room. I chose to put my hand on her neck. I chose to stay when staying meant something I can’t take back and don’t want to.

The loop runs again. The sound she made. The way she said “tell me the half I don’t know.” The heat of her skin under my fingers.

I force myself back to the gear. The signal is strong. The channel is clean. All nine of us will be connected from the second the breach starts until it’s over. Enley’s voice will be in my ear the whole time, running the tech side from two hundred yards away. I’ll be able to hear her but not see her and not reach her, and those two hundred yards are going to feel longer than any distance I’ve ever managed.