Page 51 of Dozer

He looks at my wrist. I look at it too. My fingers are, in fact, trembling slightly.

"Okay," I concede. "Maybe a little."

"You're allowed."

"That sounds suspiciously like something you told me in a parking lot."

"I repeat myself when it matters."

I smile despite myself. His thumb moves once against the inside of my wrist. The gesture is so small I could pretend it didn't happen. I don't. Neither does he.

"You're still bleeding," I say, because apparently my brain has decided medical observations are the appropriate response to whatever is happening here.

"Not much."

"That's not the point."

"What is the point then?"

I open my mouth. Nothing comes out, which is becoming a problem. I always have something to say. What is wrong with me around this man? How has he disarmed my defenses in this way? Talking is absolutely a defensive trait of mine, offensive too, when necessary. I can explain malware architecture to a hostile congressional committee. I can fill a four-hour drive with enough useless information to make a grown man contemplate jumping from a moving vehicle. I can talk my way through fear, grief, awkwardness, silence, and approximately every uncomfortable emotion known to science. But right now, with his fingers around my wrist and his eyes on mine, I've got absolutely nothing.

So, I say the only honest thing I can find. "I don't know."

Something shifts in his expression. Not much, because with Dozer, nothing ever shifts much, but I see it. His grip loosens, though he doesn't let go completely.

"Kenzi." My name comes out low, rougher than I've heard him say it before, and I look up from our hands into eyes that aren't doing their usual careful rationing of expression. Not right now. Not with both of us worn thin enough that the walls have slipped without either of us deciding to let them. I see actual emotion in his eyes. I can’t tell if it’s pure lust, exasperation or what… but there’s something… there. Something deep and telling, although I’m not sure I’m ready for whatever it is I see.

"Yeah?"

He doesn't answer with words. His free hand comes up, slow and deliberate, and brushes a piece of hair back from my face. The touch is so gentle it almost hurts. These are the same hands that put a man through a motel door. The same hands that pulled me behind a rail car while bullets tore through steel. The same hands that have spent days positioning themselves between me and every threat we've encountered. And now one of them is touching my cheek like I'm something worth being careful with, like I’m a fragile piece of porcelain that could break if handled too roughly. The contrast isn’t lost on me.

I lean into it before I can stop myself. His eyes darken. That's all the warning I get.

He leans in. I do too. The distance between us goes from careful to nearly nothing, close enough that I can feel his breath, close enough that the question between us doesn't need to be spoken. I've thought about kissing him, more than once. I've thought about it in cars and motel rooms and parking lots and once, embarrassingly, while he was cleaning a weapon, because apparently my brain enjoys making terrible decisions at inconvenient times. But thinking about it and being here are two entirely different things. And I want him to kiss me, I want it more than I currently want oxygen in my lungs. Yes, there is something decidedly wrong with me.

His thumb brushes once along my cheek. My hand comes up and catches lightly against his wrist. His gaze drops to my mouth. We are maybe a heartbeat away. I close my eyes. I want to feel this moment and remember it.

A car door slams outside.

We both go still. The moment shatters so completely it's almost funny. Almost. His hand drops from my face to the weapon on the nightstand in the same motion. Mine reaches instinctively for the case at the foot of the bed. My brain has gone from wanting to be kissed to alert, focused and ready to move. My heart, however, apparently hasn't received the memo.

"Stay back," he says, already at the window, weapon low but ready, watching through a gap in the curtain.

I stay back. Mostly because he's right. Partly because my knees aren't entirely convinced, they remember their job and will support my weight if I try to do anything else.

"Anything?" I ask.

"Hold."

I watch him from across the room, every line of him suddenly sharpened into something lethal again. It's strange how quickly he changes. Stranger still how safe I feel watching him do it.

"Just another guest," he says after a long moment, lowering the weapon. "Two doors down. Looks like a couple fighting between themselves. Man left pissed off. Not us."

I exhale. The tension doesn't fully leave the room. Neither does the almost. I can still feel the ghost of his fingers against my cheek, the warmth of his thumb along my skin, the particular quality of a kiss that didn't happen but somehow feels like it did. I wish it did. Will there be another moment like that? God, I hope so. For one that isn’t interrupted next time. There is a sexual tension between us that I really want to explore… maybe this isn’t the time or the place for it, but hopefully… when the mission is over, we can make time. I am scared Dozer will turn into a what if or what could have been.

My phone buzzes before either of us says anything. Dozer's phone, actually, and I see Hunter's contact number flashes across the screen he'd set on the nightstand. He looks from the phone to me. Something crosses his face I can't fully name. I’m not sure if it’s regret or frustration. Or possibly the same thing I'm feeling, which is the very specific irritation of being interrupted at what had been shaping up to be a pretty excellent decision.

"I have to take this," he says.