Page 108 of Dose

“Tell me,” I say.

“I want you inside me.”

The words leave no room for misinterpretation.

I guide her down over me.

Her breath breaks. Mine follows.

It is clumsy because we are both still wet and because laughter keeps interrupting the rhythm. Her knee slides. My hand catches her hip. She makes a comment about vessel geometry that dissolves into a moan when I drive up into her.

“Still think the proportions don’t matter?” I ask.

“I think you should stop talking.”

I tighten my grip. “Make me.”

She kisses me hard enough to bruise and rides me harder, taking exactly what she asked for. Pleasure draws her expression tight. I know the moment she loses control because her fingers close around my throat—not enough to restrict air, only enough to hold—and her whole body contracts around me.

“Theon.”

“Come for me.”

She does, shaking above me, and I follow with my mouth against the pulse in her wrist.

Afterward, she lies across my chest with one leg tangled through mine.

The quiet returns slowly.

“How long?” she asks.

“Twenty-two hours.”

“He’s probably fine.”

The lie deserves no reinforcement. “His trackers are active. He made the morning passive check. He has not crossed an abort condition.”

“Those are facts about the operation.”

“They’re the only facts we have.”

Her fingers trace the scar at my shoulder without pressing it.

“What if Marchant built the contact channel for this version of him?” she asks. “What if seventeen years of calculating made him easier to trap?”

“Then Dominic’s team extracts him.”

“If they recognize it in time.”

I close my arms around her.

“I don’t have anything more reassuring that is also true.”

“I know.”

By evening, the common level smells of lemon, garlic and whatever Raphael has been roasting for the past three hours.

Ezra’s chair is empty.