Page 67 of Deep Cover

She let her head rest on his chest, listening to the slow, steady rhythm of his heartbeat starting to slow, and for a long moment neither of them said anything at all. It didn’t feel like silence, though. It felt full.

His fingers kept moving, unhurried, tracing the curve of her waist, up over her ribs, back down again, as though he was memorizing her by touch the same way he’d once told her he used to memorize every freckle on her body.

Maybe that was exactly what he was doing. Maybe he needed this as badly as she did—proof, solid and warm under his hands—that this wasn’t a dream world and he’d wake with an empty bed and a deep ache in his chest.

“You still do that,” she murmured, tracing a lazy finger across his muscled pec.

“Do what?”

“Touch me like you’re checking if I’m real.”

His hand stilled for a brief second before resuming its slow path. “Old habit.”

She felt the truth of his love in the careful, deliberate way he held her, as if letting go even for a moment might undo the things neither of them could afford to lose again.

She pressed a kiss to his chest, right over his heart, and felt it stutter under her lips.

“Ryss,” he said, low, almost a warning.

“I know.” She did know. She knew exactly what neither of them was saying, knew the color of the words painted between them.

I love you.

Stay.

Don’t leave.

And she knew, too, why neither of them would let those words out tonight. Saying them meant making them real. Making them real meant facing the fact that reality had an expiration date stamped on it when the warehouse was found.

So she just curled closer, let her palm rest on his chest and matched her breathing to his until the two rhythms synced.

He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head, lingering there as he tightened his hold on her.

“Stay with me a while,” he said quietly against her hair.

Not stay forever. Not the impossible thing.

Just stay for this hour. Maybe all night, in this small stolen pocket of time.

“I’m not going anywhere.” For now, it had to be enough.

Outside this room, a case waited. A warehouse location, a deadline, a name still unidentified on a whiteboard covered in her own handwriting.

The clock was ticking down fast toward an ending neither of them had found the courage to accept yet.

In here, for now, there was just his heartbeat under her ear, his hand tracing slow shapes against her skin.

And the fragile peace of pretending the future couldn’t reach them until morning.

SIXTEEN

Rivers wanted to freeze this exact minute and live in it forever.

Caryssa lay tucked against his side, her hair spilling across his chest and one hand splayed on his abs, anchoring them both to this moment.

He traced patterns against her shoulder. “Do you spend much time in Philly? With your family?”

He felt her muscles tighten inch by inch. “No.” She kept her gaze fixed on his chest as she spoke. “I feel terrible that I don’t. Especially now, knowing what you gave up to keep the city safe.” Her voice broke with pain. “It just holds too many memories.”