Page 123 of Untamed Sinner

I stand. Every part of me hurts.

Hendricks immediately reaches for me, then stops himself before he touches me.

Smiling, I take his hand. “Let’s go home.”

89

HENDRICKS

There's a protocol after a commission.

There has always been a protocol.

Secure the vehicle. Check the perimeter. Enter through the east door, disarm the system in under eight seconds, re-engage it behind me. Weapons to the safe—rifles first, then sidearms, then the blade at my ankle. Go-bag emptied and restocked. Any evidence of the operation sanitized, cataloged, or destroyed.

Then tend your body.

Adrenaline doesn't dissipate on its own. It has to be managed. A shower helps. Sleep, eventually. And for the better part of a decade, the final step in the sequence was sex—fast, impersonal, reliable. A transaction. I was honest about what it was and so were the women I chose. It worked.

I'm standing in my own kitchen at 0200, systematically dismantling my go-bag and thinking about how little I miss that version of my life.

The difference is upstairs.

I can hear the shower running. I imagine she has the candle lit and she’s using my body wash. Her panties are likely on the floor with the rest of her clothes—though not for long—and she’s probably debriefing her purple poof.

It’s time to make her version of coming down from a mission part of mine.

I head upstairs.

The bathroom door is wide open, and the whole room smells faintly like vanilla. I set my sidearm on the nightstand, strip down to nothing, and grab a condom.

When I enter the bathroom, steam rolls out to meet me. Through the glass, I can see her silhouette—head tipped back, water running over her shoulders. She doesn't startle, which tells me she heard me in the bedroom.

"You coming in or do you need an invitation?" she asks.

Setting the condom on the counter, I step inside and shut the door behind me.

Turning, her eyes track over me quickly, the way they always do—cataloging, assessing—pausing at my erect cock before settling on my face.

It’s her face that needs the attention. The bruise under her eye has deepened. The split lip has clotted. There's a shadow along her left side that makes something in my chest go very still.

I step under the water with her. It's hot—nearly scalding—and I let it hit the back of my neck for a moment, let the last hour start to release.

"You're doing that thing," she says.

I lift my head and gather her in my arms. "What thing?"

"The thing where you're very quiet and very controlled and you look like you're one wrong word away from putting your fist through a wall."

I look at her. Water runs down her collarbone, tracing the line of her shoulder. I reach out and push her wet hair back from her face gently, careful of the bruise. "I heard him hit you.”

She doesn't flinch. Her eyes hold mine, and something in them shifts—not breaking, just opening. "I needed him to stay in the room, and I needed to buy time. I could have ended it sooner."

"I know."

She lifts her chin. "It was the right call."

I nod. "I know that too."