Page 78 of Dozer

"Any time you need to."

She thinks about that. "Thank you, luckily I don’t cry very often."

"It's honest, I’ll never fault you for crying."

Her hand comes up into my hair and stays there. "Are you going to be weird about this in the morning?"

I lift my head to look at her. She's got a blotch of red high on one cheek and her hair's a disaster and she's watching me with her chin set like she's already braced for it, and I understand suddenly that she has been waiting the entire time for me to become the kind of man who does this and then goes cold, that walks away.

"No," I say.

"Because you're allowed to need a minute, or whatever, I know you're not exactly⁠—"

I wrap my arm back around her because letting go isn't something I'm interested in tonight, tomorrow, or possibly ever again. After tonight she is mine.

"I told you earlier that I don't rush things that matter. You matter, Kenzi. I’m not going anywhere. You’re mine and we will figure out how to do this moving forward. We don’t have to figure it out tonight, but we will figure it out.”

“That’s the most words you’ve ever said to me,” she says and laughs, low and sleepy, pressing a kiss to my chest right over the steady beat of my heart, and I lie there in the dark holding the one thing in this entire operation I never planned on finding and have absolutely no intention of losing.

CHAPTER 25

Kenzi

Morning comes softer than I expect, given everything, and I wake up tangled against Dozer's side in a way that feels less like the accident of a single small bed and more like something we both chose without discussing it, which seems to be becoming a pattern between us.

My body still remembers last night in ways my brain is only now starting to catch up on. There’s an ache in muscles I don't usually think about, the faint soreness that has nothing to do with any of the things this week has otherwise demanded of me.

I remember the weight of him settling over me like it was the only thing keeping either of us tethered to the room. I remember exactly how quiet he went right before he wasn't quiet at all, the low, wrecked sound of my name the only thing either of us said. I remember his hands going slow with me in a way that undid me more thoroughly than anything dangerous this week has managed. I remember how he flicked my clit as if he was an expert on my body and brought me to orgasm twice.

I decide, lying here with his arm heavy across my waist, that I am never getting tired of how he makes love.

His arm is around my waist, and his hand is resting against my stomach like it belongs there. I lie still for a minute mostly because moving means admitting the night is over, and I don't particularly want it to end yet. I don’t want to figure out what today means and how much has changed between us. I hope for everything and nothing at the same time.

His breathing is slow and even beside me, the hard lines of his face softened by sleep in a way I haven't seen before, and there's something almost unfair about discovering that the man who looks like he was personally designed to intimidate hostile witnesses also sleeps with one hand curled loosely against the woman beside him.

I carefully slide out from under him. His fingers catch mine before I get more than a few inches away. His eyes don't open.

"Going somewhere?"

"Kitchen."

"Why?"

"Coffee."

His eyes crack open just enough to find mine. "Important mission."

"Extremely."

His thumb brushes once across the back of my hand before he lets go. "Five minutes."

"That's not how coffee works."

"Five minutes."

"You're very demanding for a man who isn't even fully awake."

"Still dangerous."