Page 74 of Dozer

"You're staring," she says, echoing words she's thrown at me a dozen times this week, except now there's no laptop between us, no mission, nothing to hide the fact that I'm doing exactly that.

"I'm observing."

"That's a very professional word for what you're doing."

"It's not professional at all. This isn’t professional, and if it feels professional, I’m doing something very wrong."

That gets a laugh out of her, breathless and real, and I catch the sound with my mouth before it finishes leaving her, walking her backward until her legs hit the edge of the bed. She sits, pulling me down with her, and then it’s just her hands mapping the same territory mine are mapping, both of us learning each other by touch.

"Dozer."

"Yeah."

"I need you to know I don't do this—" she gestures vaguely between us, breath uneven "—casually. Whatever this is. I need it to mean what I think it means."

I stop. Look at her. Make sure she sees exactly how much I mean it before I say it.

"It means everything I've got left to give somebody. Which isn't much. But it's yours."

Her eyes go bright, and instead of answering with words she pulls me down onto the bed, and the last of the careful distance between us disappears completely.

I take my time with her, learning the landscape of her body like a map I’ve been trying to read all week. The scent of her skin, clean sweat and the faint, sharp sweetness of the safe house’s shampoo, fills the space between us. My mouth finds the hollow of her throat, then the ridge of her collarbone, tasting salt and heat. Her breath hitches when I trace the curve of her breast with my thumb, and I linger there, committing the sound to memory.

Her hands move restlessly, first gripping the sheets until her knuckles pale, then tangling in my hair with a gentle urgency, finally splaying wide across my back as if trying to pull me closer than skin allows. Each shift tells me more than words ever could. She’s into this as much as I am. Does she know she’s about to become mine and nothing will ever change that?

"Please," she whispers, voice frayed at the edges, all her usual cleverness stripped away.

"Please what?"

"You know."

"Say it."

“Please f-f-fuck me,” she stammers. “Now!” She cries out with frustration after saying the words.

It’s a raw, honest sound that goes straight through me. I give her what she asks for, my eyes never leaving her face. I memorize the flutter of her lashes, the part of her lips, the faint line that appears between her brows just before she closes her eyes and the pure, feral sound that comes out of her when I pump my hips and enter her. I’ve watched every expression she wears over the last week; this one, her undone and trusting, is the one I’ll keep the closest.

I pull out of her briefly and her legs come up around my waist, her hands framing my face like she needs me looking at her, and I still for one second just to feel all of this. Her heartbeat is thrumming under my palm. It’s not lost on me how a mission that started with a dead body somehow ended here, with her.

"Dozer."

"I'm here."

"I know." Her hand slides into my hair.

"You’re mine now, Kenzi. I’m not going anywhere."

I move, and she meets me, and for a long time there's nothing between us but heat and breath and the low, broken sound of my name in her mouth every time I give her a reason to say it. I reach below her and grasp her hips, holding her still as I drive deep into her tight wetness. She gasps, and the sound goes straight through me. Her nails dig into my shoulders, and I feel the exact moment her body stops trying to be careful about this. Her hips lift into mine, chasing the next thrust, and I hold her right where I want her and give her the pace she's been begging for.

"God — Dozer⁠—"

I know how she likes it. I learned it three minutes ago and I intend to never forget it. Deep and slow, all the way to the end of her, and then that half-second pause before I do it again, because it's the pause that is undoing her. Her mouth falls open and her fingers scrabble at my back, finding the tape at my side and flinching away from it even now, even lost, even with her thighs shaking around my waist.

"Don't," I tell her, low. "Don't be careful with me."

"You're bleeding⁠—"

"I'm not." I catch her wrist, bring her hand up between us, press her palm flat over my heart so she can feel what she's doing to it. "Feel that? That's not blood loss."