Page 45 of Rebel
“Don’t make promises,” I say to the ceiling.
“I won’t.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I can’t.”
“Don’t die.”
He exhales into my hair. “I’ll try not to.” I don’t sayme too,but it’s there, folded into the sheets.
We talk about first bikes. His was a thrashed KLR rebuilt with stubbornness and scrounged parts. Mine was a salvage job, Iris swore would kill me. About music, he likes old punk that sounds like a room on fire. I like anything with a bassline fat enough to drive. We talk about the one thing neither of us outran. How grief isn’t a cliff, it’s a tide. You learn to breathe under it, or you drown.
Carter falls asleep for an hour, head heavy on my shoulder. I watch the crack in the ceiling run from one corner to the other and think,if this is a mistake, it’s the kind that makes a life, not ruins one.
When the phone finally buzzes, dawn is braided into the blinds.
DIVINE: Stand by twenty-four hrs. Compiling a map the Vults won’t see coming.
FRENCH: I left cinnamon rolls on the counter. and by left, I mean I ate two and saved you one. be grateful, sinner.
I smile into the pillow and fall asleep like a woman who’s finally allowed herself to stop fighting for five minutes.
When I blink awake, Carter is nestled between my legs, the steady weight of him warm and familiar. His stubble ghosts along my inner thigh, and the small stop-gap world we made the night before presses in close, themattress, the dim light, the safehouse’s ordinary breathing.
He lifts his head, a grin carving the sleep from his face. “Good morning, Wildcat.”
I stretch, the ache in my ribs loosened by the way he fits against me. “Morning.”
Carter makes a little, reckless sound and kisses his way up my skin like he’s reading me aloud. Slow where the scars live, quick where I tend to flinch. When his mouth finds mine, it’s not polite. It’s fierce, urgent, like every restraint I’ve practiced for years is finally being thrown away. The kiss hardens then softens, the kind that both punishes and pardons.
“I’ve been waiting all morning to do that,” he breathes against my cheek.
I let a smile curve out of me. “Then why’d you stop?”
He answers by cupping the back of my head, voice so low I feel it more than hear it. “I wanted to make sure you’d remember it.”
We move together slowly because we can, because we learned the night before that time is a luxury the world rarely gives us twice. Clothes peel away like armor, then like apologies. Hands learn the geography of old hurts and new wants with the same tenderness. Fingers trace the edges of scars and map them into forgiveness. We laugh between breaths, small, incredulous sounds, the kind you make when survival tilts into grace.
When Carter enters me, it’s like it’s the first time again. My walls stretch around his shaft, squeezinghim tight. He pulls his hips back and drives forward. A moan escapes my throat, and Carter is there to breathe it in.
“That’s right, Wildcat. Give it all to me.”
He pistons his hips back and forth, harder and faster, until my world starts spinning and my orgasm takes over. I cry out in a moment of ecstasy, and Carter joins, shouting my name as he comes.
We lay together, a mess of sweaty limbs and harsh breathing. I wouldn’t trade this peace for anything right now. As the sound outside the window grows louder, the spell breaks. We stay close anyway, like two people holding something fragile and dangerous at once.
For two days, we shower in staccato bursts, sleep in broken stretches, make love for hours, and argue twice about passwords. Carter insists his entropy is fine, and I insistpassword123is a crime.
The safehouse begins to feel domestic in a crooked, dangerous way. French checks in twice a day. Once to make sure we’re not dead, and once to gossip about the ladies and theMan Candyhanging around the clubhouse.
Divine keeps sending encrypted updates through my cell until my phone buzzes like a nervous animal. Every ping from her tablet feels like a fuse tightening.
“Morning, sugar. Or is it afternoon?” French purrs through the line.
“Barely,” I say, stirring instant coffee with a pen. “Carter stole the last real spoon.”
She laughs, the sound bright over the static. “So tell me… what’s our favorite ex-Marine doing while you pretend not to stare at him?”
