Page 104 of Twisted Steel

Not healed or forgiven or even clean but together.And for now, that’s more mercy than a man like me ever thought he’d get.

****

County takes her fromme for forty-seven minutes.

Raven sits two chairs down in the waiting room, letting a nurse clean and bandage her arm while she pretends not to wince.Savage stands near the doors, arms crossed, watching both of us like he is one bad update away from tearing the building open with his hands.

Saint brings coffee no one drinks, and Fury gives us an update on Tyler.He’s alive, critical, but alive, and Harper did that.She kept him breathing even after the crash, even through the fear, even after deciding she needed to leave me.

That’s who she is.

The door opens, and I stand as a nurse steps out.“Harper Quinn?”

Raven’s voice follows me as I move.“Try not to loom until after discharge.”

Harper is sitting on the edge of a hospital bed in a small treatment room, lip stitched, cheek bruised, wrists wrapped.Her eyes find mine immediately, and the knot in my chest loosens just enough to hurt.

“You look terrible,” she says.

“So do you.”

“Wow!How romantic of you.”She tries to hide a smile as she gives me hell.

“I’m honest.”

I step closer, stopping before I touch her, and her face softens.“You can come here,” she says.

When I stand between her knees, she tips her head back to look at me.There’s no fear in her eyes now.Just exhaustion, and surprisingly, heat.

“I’m not leaving tonight,” she says.My heart stops.“But I’m also not making forever promises while concussed, stitched, and wearing hospital socks.”

“That sounds fair.”

“But I meant what I said.”

My hand lifts to her jaw, stopping short, and she leans into it before I touch her.“I don’t walk out clean without you.”

My thumb brushes carefully beneath the bruise on her cheek.“You should rest.”

“You should stop telling me what I should do.”

“Probably.But if you took better care of yourself...”

She grips the front of my shirt, pulling me closer and cutting off my words.“I’m serious,” she says.“You promised.”

Heat coils low in my gut.“Harper.”

“Not tonight.I know.I’m bruised, not brainless.”

“Thank God.”

“But later, when there isn’t blood on the floor or a psychopath within stabbing distance, you are going to remind me that my body still belongs to me.”Her eyes darken.“And that I can choose pleasure after terror.”

My hand tightens lightly at her waist.“I can do that.”

“I know.”Her mouth softens.“That’s why I’m asking you.”

I lower my head and kiss her carefully, so carefully.The kiss is slower this time.Less desperate than the slaughterhouse but more dangerous because it feels like a promise neither of us has language for yet.