CHAPTER 16 #2
Bless him, Nathan made the calls—funeral home, church, her grandmother’s friends. Quinn sat at the kitchen table, utterly useless, and watched him work with a kind of numb detachment, like she was watching it happen to someone else.
If only…
Dax sat beside her, his hand resting on her lower back, a constant warm presence. Every so often his thumb would move in small circles, a reminder that he was there.
The funeral director arrived—a soft-spoken woman in her fifties who handled everything with quiet efficiency. Arrangements were made. Decisions that felt impossible were somehow decided.
Her grandmother would be buried beside Quinn’s father. Of course she would. She’d been waiting to join him for ten years.
By the time the funeral home took her grandmother’s body away, it was after midnight. Nathan offered to stay, but Quinn sent him home. He looked exhausted, his eyes red-rimmed.
“You need rest too,” she told him. “I’ll be okay.”
“You shouldn’t be alone.” Nathan glanced at Dax, a question in his eyes.
“She won’t be,” Dax said quietly.
Nathan studied him for a long moment, then nodded. “Call if you need anything. Anything at all.”
After he left, the house felt too quiet. Too empty. Quinn walked through the rooms like a ghost herself, touching things that had been her grandmother’s—a shawl draped over a chair, reading glasses on the side table, a half-finished crossword puzzle.
All these small pieces of a life. And now that life was over. What would she do with it all? Throw it away? It seemed so…grim. So final. So wrong.
“You should try to sleep,” Dax said from the doorway. He’d been following her through the house, staying close but giving her space.
“I can’t.” Quinn turned to face him. “Every time I close my eyes, I see her. See her dying. See her going still.”
“I know.” He crossed to her, his movements slow and careful, like she was a wild thing that might bolt. “But you need rest. You’ve been going non-stop for days.”
“I don’t want to rest. I don’t want to sleep. I don’t want to—” Her voice cracked and she shook her head. “I don’t want to be alone in the dark with my thoughts.”
Dax reached for her, and Quinn went into his arms willingly. They’d been here before—her breaking, him holding her together. It was becoming a pattern.
“You’re not alone,” he murmured into her hair. “I’m right here.”
Quinn pulled back to look at him. In the dim light from the hallway, his face was all sharp angles and shadows. But his eyes were soft when they met hers.
“Stay with me,” she whispered. “Tonight. I need—I can’t be alone.”
“Okay.” No hesitation. No questions. Just immediate acceptance.
She led him to her old bedroom—the room that had been hers since childhood, with its faded floral wallpaper and the window seat where she used to curl up and read.
They stood there for a moment, uncertain. This felt different from all the other times he’d held her. More deliberate. More weighted with possibility.
“I should—” Dax gestured vaguely toward the door. “I can sleep on the couch. Or the chair. I don’t have to—”
“Stay.” Quinn caught his wrist, staring up into his eyes, pleading with him. “Please. I need you close.”
Something shifted in his expression—a knowing heat mixing with the worry and grief. “Quinn, you’re grieving. You’re not thinking clearly. I don’t want to take advantage—”
“You’re not.” She stepped closer, her hand sliding from his wrist up his forearm. Even through his shirt, she could feel the heat of him, the solid muscle. “I know exactly what I’m asking.”
“Do you?” His voice had gone rough. “Because once we cross this line, there’s no going back.”
“I don’t want to go back.” Quinn reached up and touched his face, her fingers tracing the scar along his jaw. “I want to move forward. With you. I want to feel something other than grief. Want to feel alive. Want to feel—”
She didn’t get to finish. Dax’s mouth crashed down on hers, swallowing the rest of her words.
The kiss was nothing like their first one—that had been tentative, testing. This was desperate and demanding, filled with all the fear and need and want they’d both been holding back.
Quinn’s fingers dug into his shoulders as she kissed him back with everything she had. She needed this. Needed him. Needed to feel something other than the gaping hole in her chest where her grandmother used to be.
Dax’s hands slid into her hair, tilting her head back so he could deepen the kiss. Quinn made a sound low in her throat and pressed closer, wanting more, needing more.
When they finally broke apart, both breathing hard, Dax rested his forehead against hers.
“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice ragged. “Because if we do this, I need you to be sure. I need to know you won’t wake up tomorrow and regret it.”
Quinn looked into his dark eyes and saw her own need reflected back. But she also saw fear. Saw him barely holding himself in check, trying to do the right thing even when every line of his body screamed that he wanted this as much as she did.
“I’m sure,” she whispered. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
That was all the permission he needed.
Dax kissed her again, slower this time but no less intense. His hands slid down her sides, learning the shape of her, and Quinn shivered at the touch. She tugged at his shirt, wanting it gone, wanting to feel his skin against hers.
He pulled back just long enough to strip it off, and Quinn’s breath caught at the sight of him. She’d known he was muscular, had felt it when he’d held her. But seeing him was different.
His chest was broad and defined, dusted with dark hair. Scars marked his skin—testament to the war he’d survived, the battles he’d fought. Quinn reached out and traced one, a puckered line across his ribs.
“From the IED that killed Charlie,” Dax said quietly, watching her face. “Shrapnel.”
Quinn leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the scar. Dax’s breath hitched.
“You’re beautiful,” she whispered against his skin.
“Quinn—”
She looked up at him, and whatever he saw in her face made him pull her close again. This time when they kissed, it was softer. Slower. Less frantic need and more genuine connection.
They undressed each other carefully, reverently. Every piece of clothing that fell away revealed more scars—his from war, hers from life. But neither of them looked away.
When they were finally skin to skin, Dax lifted her and carried her to the bed. He laid her down gently, like she was something precious, and followed her down.
“I love you,” he said, looking into her eyes. “I need you to know that. This isn’t just—it’s not just physical for me.”
“I know.” Quinn cupped his face. And in that moment, she admitted to herself what she’d already known was true from the moment he confessed it the first time.
Most shocking of all, she wasn’t afraid like she thought she’d be.
Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and she touched her thumb to his lips and whispered, “I love you too.”
And then there were no more words. Just touch and sensation and the feeling of being connected to another human being. Of not being alone in the dark.
Of feeling alive when death had taken so much.
They moved together in a slow rhythm, taking their time, soaking in the connection, the warmth and feel of each other, until nothing else existed outside of that room—not a killer on the hunt, not the grief of loss, and certainly not the pain of history that had brought them to this moment.
For just a short time, they existed outside of it all, lost in the feeling of so much more—together.
Afterward, they lay tangled together, Quinn’s head on Dax’s chest, his arms wrapped around her, her leg slung over his. His heartbeat was steady beneath her ear, and his fingers traced lazy patterns on her bare shoulder.
“Thank you,” Quinn whispered into the darkness.
“For what?”
“For being here. For staying. For—” She couldn’t finish, couldn’t find words for what this meant to her.
“Always,” Dax said simply, and kissed the top of her head. His arms tightened around her. “I’m always going to be here, Quinn. No matter what comes next.”
She believed him.
And for the first time since her grandmother died, Quinn felt like she could breathe. Like maybe, just maybe, she was going to be okay.
They had each other. They had the evidence. They had a case to build.
And tomorrow, they would start fighting again.
But tonight—tonight they could just be. Two broken people holding each other in the dark, finding comfort and connection in the aftermath of loss.
Finding life in the shadow of death.
Finding love in the midst of grief.
Quinn closed her eyes and let herself drift, safe in Dax’s arms.
Tomorrow would come soon enough.
For now, this was enough.