Page 73 of Dozer

This isn't survival. This is choice.

"Dozer," she says, quiet, my name in her mouth carrying something different than it has before. Not teasing. Not testing. Just true.

"Yeah."

"I'm done waiting for the right moment."

I don't move.

"I don't think there is one," she continues. "I think there's just this one, right now, and I'd rather take it than keep pretending I don't want to."

I close the last of the distance between us before she finishes the thought. My hand comes up to cup the back of her neck, and I kiss her.

I've wanted to do this since a rest-stop parking lot and a poisoned sample vial. She kisses me back like she's been waiting exactly as long as I have. One hand fists in my shirt. The other slides into my hair, and the first thing I think is that I should have done this sooner. The second thing is that I don't think sooner would have been right. This is.

It's not rushed. It's just us. Grief and trust and every quiet moment of noticing each other collapse into one long, unhurried kiss that tastes like relief. Finally.

Her fingers tighten against my shirt, and I pull her closer, careful despite everything in me telling me not to be. I've spent most of my adult life treating wanting something as a liability. Right now, with her mouth against mine and her hand in my hair, wanting her feels less like weakness and more like the first honest thing I've done in years.

When we finally break apart, she rests her forehead against mine, breathing unsteady. A small, stunned laugh escapes her.

"Well," she says. "That took long enough."

"I don't rush things that matter."

"You said that already."

"Still true."

She smiles, real and unguarded, and I feel something settle into place in my chest that I haven't let settle in longer than I want to admit. Not just want, though there's plenty of that. Something steadier underneath it. The specific, rare feeling of having found someone worth building a different kind of life around, if we live long enough to get the chance.

Her thumb brushes once over my collar. "We should probably talk about what happens next."

I pull her back against me, and she comes willingly, her arms sliding around my neck, her body fitting against mine with a familiarity neither of us has earned yet but both of us somehow recognize.

"Later." I say, my mouth against her temple, "I'd rather just have this."

She pulls back just far enough to look at me, and whatever she finds in my face makes something shift in hers, the last of the teasing giving way to something more deliberate. She takes me by the hand and leads me to the bedroom. Pushing me into the room, she laughs.

"Then stop talking," she says, "and show me."

I don't need telling twice.

I kiss her again, slower this time, no rush behind it, because rushing would mean treating this like something we're trying to survive instead of something we finally get to choose. Her hands find the hem of my shirt, fingers cool against skin still warm from adrenaline, and I let her pull it over my head because I've spent this entire week putting myself between her and every kind of danger, and this is the first time undressing has felt like the opposite of vulnerable.

She goes still when she sees the bandage at my side. I can almost hear her thoughts, wondering if I’m okay to do this.

"It's fine," I tell her.

"I'll be the judge of that."

"Kenzi."

"I know." Her mouth curves, something rueful and fond at once. "Kiss me again."

I do.

Her shirt comes off next, my hands slower than I mean them to be, because I've spent days cataloguing the shape of her without letting myself think too much about it. Now I get to linger. I take my time doing it, watching her face while I do, and the way her breath catches under my attention is its own kind of confession.