Page 110 of Code Name: Scorpio

“You practiced this,” she said.

“About a hundred times.”

“Here?”

“In my truck. In the gym. In the bathroom mirror. Once in Ian’s office when he stepped out.”

That pulled a genuine laugh out of her, the exact unfiltered sound he had memorized months ago when he’d stood outside her lab listening to her threaten a computer with biblical hellfire.

She slid out of her chair, rounding the edge of the table toward him. He reached up, catching her by the waist to pull her right down into his lap before she could take another step. She wrapped her arms around his neck, the metal of the ring cool against his skin, and rested her forehead against his.

“I love you, you know,” he whispered. They’d both said it before today, but he couldn’t not say it now. “You saved me.”

“I love you too. We saved each other. I want your voice in my head every day for the rest of my life.”

“You got it. Plus my voice across the table from you for every meal, in comms for every mission, and as we’re shuffling together in our walkers at the old folks’ home.”

She laughed. “And in my ear every night in our bed?”

He kissed her, slowly, thoroughly, until they were both breathless.

When he finally pulled back, she looked down at the ring, then back up at him. “This was definitely an excellent sequence. Clean all the way through.”

“Shame, because I never plan to use it again. It only needed to work one time.”

She pressed her lips against his. “It did.”

•••