Epilogue
One Month Later, Italy
Raine
The toothpaste is wrong.
Not bad. Just…not right. Too minty. Or maybe not minty enough? Something in the texture doesn’t match what my brain expects, and my mouth keeps trying to reject it like a foreign object.
I stand at the sink longer than necessary, staring at the tube like it personally betrayed me.
Out the window, the city is all angles and stone and a language I still have to translate before it fully registers. We’re safe here. But being in a new country means nothing is familiar enough to fade into the background.
Different detergent. Different shampoo. Different tea. The sheets feel almost right, but they’re either not soft enough or too soft, and I can’t tell which one. My skin keeps clocking the difference even when my mind tells me it’s nothing to worry about.
I can live with almost right, though. Because the one part of this that is right is Asher.
Everything else just takes a little work.
Asher comes back from the market while I’m still cataloging what I can tolerate today. If I feel steady enough to explore the city, or if staying inside is safer. Windows open or closed. Whether the church bells two streets over feel like texture or noise.
The door clicks softly behind him. He sets the bags down, and even though we’ve only been here a week, moves easily through the space like he’s already learned its edges. My nervous system is still catching up to the idea that new doesn’t mean dangerous. I’ll get there. Eventually.
“I may have overcorrected,” he says, his cheeks bright red as he starts unloading the bag onto the counter.
Toothpaste. Toothpaste. And more toothpaste.
Six tubes. Different brands. Different labels. One that looks aggressively clinical. One that smells faintly herbal even through the packaging.
I stare at them. Then at him.
He shrugs, an unapologetic smile curving his lips. “You made a face yesterday. I thought we’d experiment.”
Somehow, six tubes of toothpaste is enough to make this feel like home. Because Asher is still Asher, despite what GSD put him through. And that settles me most of all.
“I don’t know how to process this.” Touching each box, I absorb the texture, the contours, the names my mouth doesn’t quite want to form the shape of yet. “You. Anticipating what I need and…adjusting.”
He leans in, claims my lips in a way that tells me tonight isn’t going to end with us falling asleep on the couch, and I wind my arms around his waist.
“You’re not hard to adjust for, Raine. Anyone who told you otherwise should reexamine their life choices.” After a beat, he grins. “Or not. Because I plan on spending the rest of my days with you, and I’d hate to have to kill someone so soon after signing a lease. That seems…rude.”
I laugh, rest my cheek against his chest, and try not to think about how close I came to losing him.
We try two brands that night. One is immediately wrong. The other is…workable.
I line the rest up in the cabinet for another day. Options matter.
Later, we get in bed, backs against the headboard, books in hand, with the city still humming outside the window.
“So,” he says. “We’re here. With furniture. We can start arguing about paint colors any time.”
I glance around the room. The walls are a pale, sun-bleached cream that looked intentional in the online listing, but in person, reads as temporary. “We already have paint colors. Well…one paint color.”
“We have landlord-approved neutrality,” he says. “That’s not the same thing.”
“It’s efficient?” I won’t win this argument. I know it. But trying with him is…fun.
“It’s boring, and we did not survive everything they threw at us to spend the rest of our lives in a dentist’s waiting room.”
“That’s unfair to dentists.”
He tilts his head, one brow arching slightly. “Is it?”
I ignore him and pivot to a new tactic. “Paint requires ladders. Ladders lead to falling.”
“Only if you misuse them,” he counters. “And you told me you’ve jumped out of more than one perfectly good plane in your life. A ladder isn’t going to take you down. Or me, for that matter.”
I ignore him, and he studies me for a long moment, his expression shifting to quiet amusement as he realizes I’m completely serious and the conversation has wandered somewhere he didn’t anticipate.
“New proposal,” he says. “We focus on coffee mugs.”
I choke on my sip of water. “Coffee mugs?”
“Yes. When we were building our future from that thoroughly boring couch in Bellevue, you promised me ridiculous coffee mugs.”
“I did not promise ridiculous coffee mugs. I said coffee mugs.”
He folds his hands behind his head, deeply satisfied with himself. “Well, I saw a store on the way back from the market that appears to specialize in ceramics shaped like animals.”
I stare at him, shake my head, and pick up my book.
“This is the life you chose,” he teases.
“I chose you. Not a coffee mug shaped like a hippopotamus.” I peer at him over the cover of the book, knowing I’ll lose this particular argument too. I find I don’t care. He went through hell for me and came out the other side. If he wants a hippo mug, he can have one.
“And I come with strong opinions about mugs.” He shrugs. “Particularly that sloth-shaped coffee mugs are superior to all others.”
“You know… Most people ease their way into domestic arguments.” I set my book back down, climb on top of him, and press my lips to his.
The kiss leaves him breathless, but he smiles up at me, one hand on my breast, the other snaking between my thighs. “We are not most people.”
He isn’t wrong.
Shifting my weight to reach the hem of his shirt, he lifts his arms to help without a word.
I trace the lines of him—shoulders, chest, the landscape of muscles I know so well.
He lost too much weight recovering from everything GSD put him through, and he’s only now starting to work out again.
It’s slow progress, but it’s progress, and we’re both still here. That matters.
I skim my fingers close to the scar at his side. It’s still tender. I know by how his breath changes if he leans against the counter wrong or reaches for something on a high shelf in the kitchen. So I trace around it, not over it.
My eyes start to burn. I could have lost him. My hand flattens over the scar before I can stop it, and I swallow a sob.
Asher slides his fingers into my hair. “I’m here, Raine. We’re both still here.”
I lean down and kiss him. Slower this time. My tongue tangles with his, and a rush of heat floods my core. I want this. Want him.
My lips blaze a trail along his jaw, down his neck, to his chest. I know the taste of him now. Every part of him.
Asher slides his hands up my bare thighs, hooks his fingers around the waistband of my underwear, and tugs gently. “These are going to be in the way before too long,” he says with a wicked smile.
“They already are.” I rise to my knees, pull off my sleep shirt, and wriggle out of the simple cotton panties. The position lets him shed his briefs, and the salty tang of his arousal fills the small bedroom—our bedroom—before I fit my naked body to his.
“I think…” My next words aren’t easy, but I need them, desperately. “I want to try something.”
Asher stills. “Anything.”
My breath catches once, and my heart pounds against my ribs. “You…on top.”
“Raine—”
“I’m not scared.” I kiss him again, wrapping my hand around his shaft. Asher shudders in my grip, and a groan rumbles in his chest as I release him, then bring my fingers to my lips, tasting him. “You’ll know if it’s too much. You always know.”
He tucks a lock of hair behind my ear, his gaze searching mine. Whatever he finds there must convince him, because he nods. “If you need to stop—”
“I’ll tell you. I promise.”
One of the nights we were both battered by too many bad memories to sleep, we talked about those two little words. We agreed Doc, Natasha, and Inara were right. They mean something—everything.
I roll onto my back, urging him to follow by cupping his neck. Asher reaches for a condom, rolls it over his length, and positions himself over me.
I’m not scared. I keep my gaze on his deep blue eyes as he slides deep in a single thrust. Bracing one hand on the headboard and the other by my ear, he manages to avoid pinning me down with anything but his hips. I stroke my fingers up his arms, relishing the feel of his skin.
“Still okay?” he asks.
I wrap my legs around him, my heels digging into his ass. “Yes. Because it’s you, Asher. And I choose you. Every single day, I choose you.”
My world narrows to the feel of him. The way he scores his teeth over the tight buds of my nipples. His warm, steady breath. The rasp of his stubble against my cheek when he kisses my neck.
The pressure builds deep in my core. A tight, insistent need. For all of him.
After another thrust, he dips his head to claim my mouth in a searing kiss, and shifts his weight enough to reach between us and find my clit.
The touch drives me closer and closer to the edge, and when I fall, he tumbles with me.
Later, we lie tangled together, my leg thrown over his, his arm around my back, fingers absently tracing patterns he’s learned won’t make me flinch.
My body doesn’t argue with me as much when I’m with him.
And when the nightmares come—for either of us—we find solace and understanding in one another.
Tomorrow, maybe I’ll venture out to that ceramic shop and see if they really do have a mug in the shape of a sloth.
I’m almost asleep when both our phones buzz at the same time.
I lift my head just enough to check the screen.
The message is short. And infuriatingly vague.
Two assets with your combined profiles don’t go idle by accident.
If you’re as bored as I think you are, be at the following coordinates at 22:00.
—Ryker McCabe
I glance up at Asher.
He’s already looking at me, eyebrow raised. “Well, that’s not ominous at all.”
I smile, then settle back against his chest. “Could be convenient. Which somehow feels better and worse at the same time.”
His arm tightens around me.
“Whatever it is,” he says, “we hear it together.”
I nod, phone still glowing in the dark. Together sounds perfect.
Thank you for reading Operation: Defiance. This is the first book in a new series, Hidden Agenda: Zulu Team. If you’ve read any of my Away From Keyboard series, you probably recognize the name.
Yes. You will occasionally get glimpses of the Hidden Agenda team throughout this new series.
I promise.