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“I used to practice closing arguments in the shower,” I say. “Full delivery, gestures and everything. My roommate at Columbia could hear me through the wall for two years and assumed I was in a permanent domestic dispute.”

“Were you good?” he asks.

“I was excellent,” I say. “Undefeated against the showerhead.”

His smile comes slower this time, not surprised out of him but chosen. It changes his face in a way I haven’t seen before, takes years off it. I feel it in the backs of my knees first and then lower, a clench between my thighs. I look at the water and breathe through it like someone with self-control.

He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers are warm, and my whole body goes still. His hand stays at my jaw, thumb resting there, and I don’t move.

I don’t know what to do with this. I’ve spent weeks learning his hands, the wall, the kitchen, the meetings where his fingers go places that make my brain disconnect from my mouth, and I’ve built a crude working understanding of all of that. This is different. His thumb at my jaw and nothing pushing it anywhere is territory I haven’t crossed before.

His thumb moves along my jaw. My breath comes out uneven. He’s watching my face, and I’m close enough to feel his exhale against my cheek.

“Volkov,” I breathe.

“Da.”

“If you’re going to do something,” I say, “do it.”

He kisses me. Slow, his hand warm at my jaw, no fury underneath it pushing it anywhere. Just his mouth, the boat rocking, the cold air, and my hands finding the front of his coat. I don’t know what my hands think they’re doing. They spread against his chest and feel the warmth through the fabric. I lean forward a fraction, and he makes a low sound against my mouth that runs down my sternum and keeps going, heat pooling between my thighs in a slow heavy pull.

He pulls back. His forehead drops to mine and stays there. His thumb is still at my jaw, and I close my eyes for three seconds, allowing myself to have this moment here in the middle of the river where the rest of the worries can’t reach me.

Then I open them, and everything comes crashing in. I sit back, and he lifts his head. We’re still who we are. Nothing has changed.

He pulls the anchor, and I move to the console. He lets me drive us in, standing behind me again. When I bring it in too fast, he puts his hand over mine on the throttle and eases it back, his chest against my shoulder.

“Easy,” he breathes, and I obey.

We tie up at the dock, and he steps off first, extending a hand back for me to take it. This time, he doesn’t let go even when I’m steady. He holds it for two seconds longer than necessary and then releases it. We walk back up the dock to where Marka is waiting with the car already running.

23

Volkov

“I had fun,” she says.

She’s sitting on the edge of the bed with her coat already off and her hands in her lap.

“Me too,” I say.

She turns her head and looks at me. I’m at the wardrobe with no shirt and no good reason to have my hand on the drawer. She watches me for a second, then goes to the bathroom. Water runs. I stand there with my hand on the drawer and think about the sound she made on the boat, that laugh, nothing like I heard before.

I had my phone out on the drive home and the text already written before I caught myself. Twelve years of the same reflex, Lavro’s number already half-pulled up. He was always the first person I reached out to. The screen stayed dark, and I put the phone back in my pocket.

She comes out in her nightgown and gets into bed without looking at me. I pull my pants off and get in on my side.

Her hand is on the mattress between us, fingers loose. I don’t move mine toward it on purpose. It ends up close anyway, my knuckles against hers, and she doesn’t pull away.

I turn toward her. She’s already turned toward me.

The dark takes the edges off everything. She’s right there, close enough that I can feel the warmth off her skin. I know exactly how she breathes when she’s asleep, how she smells after a shower, and how her shoulder fits against my chest when she turns toward me at three in the morning. None of that prepared me for her eyes on mine in the dark and open with no guard up.

I kiss her.

Her palm comes flat against my chest and stays there. She exhales against my lips. I pull her in by the waist and feel the warmth of her all the way through.

I take my time with her mouth. Her jaw, the soft place below her ear that gets her fingers curling into my chest every time, the corner of her lips where she’s always trying not to smile. I get my mouth on her throat. She tips her head back, and her hands go into my hair. She’s not pushing me anywhere, just holding on, like she’s not in a hurry to be done with this. I come back to her mouth and kiss her again. She kisses me back, and her whole body leans into it.