Page 60 of Slashed Bonds

But they work the way a rebuilt engine works.

Most days. Under most loads. With a surgeon’s voice in the back of my head saying we can’t guarantee no spasms like a warranty disclaimer.

A dog at full speed is outside the warranty.

And there’s nothing quite like sitting on your ass in broken plastic, in front of three men who’ve spent the last ten minutes deciding whether you’re dangerous, while your own body confirms that you’re something else entirely.

Fragile. Say the word. I’ll say it for you.

The men look down at me.

Pitifully. All three of them. I could kill them for it.

Then Nikolai curses, bends, and scoops me up.

Off the floor, out from under the dog, one arm behind my back and one under my knees, and I’m against his chest protector with my boots dangling.

“You’re too fucking frail to be getting knocked down by your own pup.”

“Knox loves me,” I inform him.

“Knox is a menace.”

“Like you.” I tip my head back to look at him. “But to a lesser degree of madness.”

“I don’t love shit,” he counters, bold as brass, with my blood on his lip and his blood on my chin.

“You and I both know that’s not what you say when I’m riding that pierced cock…”

“FUCK!”

The tall one. He’s on his feet, and he drives his fist into what’s left of the trophy case, and more plastic comes down.

The captain is looking between the three of us. His expression is either the calm of a man who finds this funny, or the calm of a man who has passed through despair and come out the other side into something like acceptance.

Can’t tell. Don’t care. Either works.

“So…”

I draw the word out, long, and look up at Nikolai.

“Is that your man?”

He blinks.

And I watch his cheeks go red.

Ohhh.

It starts at the freckles and spreads outward, and I’ve never seen this man blush, I’ve never seen this man’s face, and the combination is enough to make my smirk go diabolical.

It also lands somewhere I wasn’t expecting.

Because this is a man with a life. A whole one.

A team, a captain, a tall furious somebody in a blindfold who gets jealous, a house somewhere with his name on the mail. Two and a half years I’ve had him in one room with a mask on, and I built the rest of him out of nothing, and it turns out the rest of him was here the whole time, being lived, by people who got to see his face.

I’m not jealous. Jealousy requires believing you were owed something.