Page 78 of His Wall

She made the wrong decision.

"You're not unwinding anything." Her voice flattened. "I do not feel anything for you. I was doing my job. Everything between us was proximity and cover maintenance. That's it."

I stepped closer.

She did not step back.

"Say that again."

"I was doing my — "

I kissed her.

Not gentle. Not asking. My right hand came up to the back of her neck and I pulled her in and my mouth was hard against hers before she had finished the word.

Her hands came up to my chest to push me away.

Her fingers curled into my shirt instead.

She held me there for one second. I felt her fight it. I felt her choose it.

She kissed me back.

Hard. Her hands pulled at the collar of my white shirt. Her teeth caught my lower lip. My hands slid into her hair and the messy nape that had been driving me to a small slow violence for the last four hours was finally between my fingers.

I lifted her onto the kitchen counter.

Her legs wrapped around me. Her thighs at my hips. The sweater was bunched at her waist where my hands had pushed it up. Her gray eyes were dark and her lips were swollen and her breathing was ragged and her hands were at the open collar of my shirt pulling me in.

I pulled back just enough to look at her.

"That felt like the job to you?"

She grabbed my face and pulled me back in.

My hands went under her sweater. Her fingers went to the next button on my shirt. We did not make it to the bedroom. We made it to the hallway. Then the wall. Then the floor. Somewhere between the kitchen counter and the carpet she stopped being an agent and I stopped being angry and we were two people who had finally seen each other and could not get close enough.

The afternoon light was coming through the curtain she had pulled closed for security.

She was on her side on the bed with her head on my chest and her dark hair across my collarbone. My arm was around her back. The sheet was at her waist. I was tracing slow circles on her shoulder with my thumb.

I didn't know she was awake until she pressed closer against me and put her hand flat on my stomach.

"Where do we go from here?"

She was quiet for a moment.

"I keep you safe. I report everything. The shooting. Conrad's operation. What you found about the judge and the dismissed cases. The Bureau takes over."

"No."

She lifted her head.

The gray eyes came up to mine.

"This is my mess. My architecture. My systems. The back doors Conrad used — I built them. The judge's payments ran through the infrastructure I designed. I am not sitting in a safehouse while the Bureau cleans up a disaster I made possible."

I sat up. The sheet fell to my waist. She sat up beside me, tucked the sheet under her arms, and looked at me with the small line between her brows she got when she was reorganizing the morning's calendar.