28. Brutus
brUTUS
The DOJ drove us back out to Anna's place in a convoy of black SUVs as the sun was coming up, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink that had no business looking that pretty after the night we'd all had.
Anna was asleep against my shoulder before we hit the highway.
I kept my arm around her and let her stay there. She'd earned it. Every single one of them had.
Ranger sat across from me with Marla tucked under his arm, his chin resting on top of her head, his eyes closed.
Smoke was curled across both their feet, dead to the world.
Doc was in the vehicle behind us with Lizzy.
Ghost and Jasmine had their own ride. The crew was quiet in a way that felt different from the usual quiet.
Not tense, not waiting for something to go wrong.
Just tired. The good kind of tired, the kind that comes after something is finally, completely over.
I pressed my mouth to the top of Anna's head and looked out the window at the trees blurring past.
Thirty-two men.
All seven installations.
Done.
The state of Anna's house hit me harder in daylight than it had in the dark.
The windows were out. Two of the doors had deep gouges where the knobs had been forced into the plaster. Glass crunched under our boots from the entryway all the way down the hallway, and somewhere in the back of the house a curtain was blowing through a busted frame.
Anna stood in the middle of her living room and didn't say a word. Just turned in a slow circle, taking stock of it. Her jaw was set and her arms were crossed over her chest and she had the look she got when she was deciding whether to be angry or practical.
I stepped up behind her. "I meant what I said."
"I know you did."
"Ranger's already texted a guy about the windows."
She turned and looked up at me. Her eyes were still red around the edges, her hair a disaster, her robe wrinkled beyond saving. She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life.
"You better not half-ass it," she said.
"When have I ever half-assed anything?"
She opened her mouth. I raised an eyebrow.
She closed it again. "Fine."
Cap showed up with Ghost and Ranger twenty minutes later with boards and a nail gun to cover the open windows until the glass could be replaced.
Doc swept the floors. Jasmine and Amanda stripped the beds and started a load of laundry with the efficiency of two women who had decided that helping was better than standing around feeling helpless.
Marla made coffee in a kitchen that was somehow completely untouched by the raid and distributed it like she was running a field hospital.
Anna stood in the middle of all of it and watched her people show up for her, and I watched her watch them, and after a while I saw the set of her shoulders finally come down from around her ears.
"Go shower," I said quietly when I came up beside her. "I've got this."
She looked up at me. "You sure?"
"Go."
She went.
By the time she came back out, hair damp and wearing actual clothes for the first time in what felt like days, most of the windows were boarded and the floors were clean and the house smelled like coffee instead of smoke and broken things.
One by one the crew filtered out, the way they always did.
No ceremony, just a hand on my shoulder from Cap, a nod from Ghost, Ranger stopping to squeeze Anna's arm and tell her his guy would be out Tuesday for the glass, Smoke moving with him like a shadow.
Jasmine hugged her hard enough that Anna actually laughed, a short, startled sound, like she'd forgotten she was allowed to.
And then it was just us.
The house went quiet around us in a way I hadn't felt in weeks.
Anna stood at the kitchen counter with her coffee mug cupped in both hands, staring out at the boarded window above the sink. She'd been quiet since she came out of the shower. Not the brittle quiet she got when something was wrong. The settled kind.
I moved up behind her and slid my arms around her waist from behind, resting my chin on top of her head.
She leaned back into me immediately. Both of us just breathing for a minute, letting the quiet exist.
"It's really over," she said.
"It's really over."
She turned in my arms, tipping her head back to look at me. There were still traces of exhaustion around her eyes, but underneath it something else had surfaced. Something warm and unhurried that made my chest ache.
"I'm still a little mad at you," she said.
"I know."
"About the house."
"I know."
"And the arrest."
"Anna-mine." I tucked a piece of damp hair behind her ear. "I know."
Her eyes searched mine for a moment. Then she reached up and fisted the front of my shirt in both hands and pulled me down to her.
The kiss started slow. Soft in a way we hadn't had room to be in a long time, her mouth moving against mine without any urgency behind it, just warm and certain and hers.
I cupped the back of her head and kissed her back the same way, one hand sliding down to the small of her back, pulling her closer until there was no space left between us.
She made a small sound against my mouth and tightened her grip on my shirt.
"Bedroom," she murmured.
"Your feet," I said against her lips.
"Are fine," she said. "Lizzy cleared me. Stop stalling."
She wrapped her legs around my waist with a sound that was almost a laugh and let me carry her down the hallway.
I laid her back onto the bed and took my time with it.
She watched me from under heavy lids as I reached for the hem of her shirt, her fingers loosening their grip on my shoulders to let me pull it over her head.
The early morning light coming through the one window that still had glass turned everything soft and golden, and I sat back just enough to look at her.
"You're staring," she said.
"I'm aware."
She reached up and tugged at my shirt. "Then stop staring and do something about it."
I pulled my shirt off and dropped it somewhere and came back down to her, my mouth finding her jaw, her throat, the soft skin below her ear that I already knew made her breath catch.
She arched into me and dug her fingers into my back and I worked my way down her neck and across her collarbone until she was squirming beneath me.
"Bee," she said, breathless.
"I've got you."
I unclasped her bra and tossed it aside and took a moment I hadn't earned in weeks just to look at her.
All of her. The morning light was generous and I wasn't in a hurry.
I palmed the weight of her in both hands and felt her breath hitch before I dipped my head and took my time with my mouth, her fingers coming up to thread through my hair and hold on.
"Bee." My name came out rough and wanting. "Please."
"Not yet."
She made a sound that was equal parts frustrated and desperate and I smiled against her skin before I moved lower, my mouth tracing down her sternum, across her ribs, her stomach.
She made a sharp sound when I hooked my fingers into the waistband of her sweats and pulled them down her legs, taking everything with them.
I pressed a kiss to the inside of her knee.
"You're doing this on purpose," she said.
"Doing what?"
"Going slow."
I pressed another kiss to the inside of her thigh. "Yes."
She made a noise that was half frustration and half something else entirely and I smiled against her skin before I gave her what she was asking for.
She came apart fast. Weeks of fear and adrenaline and holding herself together finally having somewhere to go, her fingers twisting in my hair and her thighs shaking and my name coming out of her in a way I planned on spending the rest of my life earning.
I worked her through every second of it, her hips rolling against me, her whole body finally letting go of everything it had been carrying.
I worked my way back up her body while she was still catching her breath.
"Hi," she managed.
"Hi."
She reached for my belt. "Off."
I got rid of the rest of my clothes and settled between her thighs and she pulled me down to her mouth again, slower this time, her hands moving up my back like she was mapping me.
I felt her wrap around me as I notched myself at her entrance and paused there, just long enough to feel her shift beneath me with impatience.
"Hey," she said softly when I pulled back to look at her.
"Hey."
Her eyes were dark and warm and completely certain. "I love you."
Something in my chest expanded in a way I still hadn't gotten used to and didn't think I ever would.
"I love you, Anna-mine," I said. "More than I know how to say."
She smiled. "Then show me."
I sank into her slowly, giving her every inch one at a time, watching her face the whole way down. Her lips parted. Her head tipped back. Her nails found my shoulders and dug in as her walls closed around me, and I held still for a moment at the base of it just so we could both breathe.
"Okay," she whispered.
"Yeah," I said.
I started slow, deep rolls of my hips that kept us close and kept her feeling everything.
She wrapped her legs around me and pulled me harder against her and I obliged, finding the angle that made her gasp and staying there, building it steady.
There was none of the urgency from before, none of the stolen moments where we were always listening for someone at the door.
It was just the two of us and the morning light and all the time in the world.
"Don't stop," she breathed against my jaw. "Don't you dare stop."
I had no intention of stopping.
Her nails raked down my back as I picked up the pace, our bodies moving together with the kind of ease that only came from knowing each other well, knowing exactly what the other needed. I pressed my face into her neck and felt her pulse hammering against my lips.
"Bee." Her voice was wrecked. "I'm going to—"
"I know," I said. "Give it to me."
She came the second time with her face buried in my neck and her nails in my back and my name on her lips, and I followed her over a minute later with my forehead pressed against hers, both of us breathing hard in the quiet.
I rolled to my back and pulled her with me and she settled against my side with her head on my chest the way she always did, her fingers curling into my shirt.
Neither of us said anything for a long time.
"The windows are going to look better than before," I said eventually. "Ranger's guy does custom work."
She laughed, soft and real. "You're thinking about windows right now."
"I'm thinking about a lot of things."
She tipped her head up to look at me. "Like what?"
I looked down at her. Damp hair, sleepy eyes, the ghost of a smile still on her mouth.
"Like the fact that I'm not going anywhere," I said. "If that's all right with you."
She studied me for a moment with those sharp eyes that never missed anything. Then she settled her cheek back against my chest and pulled my arm tighter around her.
"Ask me again in ten years," she said. "I'll let you know."
I’d wait twenty. I pressed my mouth to the top of her head. "Fair enough."
Outside, the sun finished rising over Redd Valley, and for the first time in a long time, it felt like a morning worth waking up to.