Chapter 7 #2
"Everything about this situation is a bad idea." I'm still pressed to the wall, his body warm and solid. "At least this one feels good."
"Reagan—"
"If you're about to tell me all the reasons this shouldn't happen, save your breath. I already know them. You're my protection detail. I'm a target. The Committee wants to capture me. Getting involved creates complications that could get us both killed. Did I miss anything?"
"No."
"Then stop thinking tactically for once." My hands find his shoulders, feel the tension coiled there. "I'm tired of being cautious. Tired of treating everything like it's an operation that needs planning. Tired of containment even when it's built with good intentions."
Dylan pulls back just enough to meet my eyes. "I don't want to hurt you."
"Then don't." The answer is simple. Honest. "Just be here. Right now. No protection protocols. No tactical assessments. Just us."
The silence stretches. His hand is still in my hair. Mine still on his shoulders. The training room lights buzz overhead.
Then he kisses me again.
His room is closer than mine. Spartanly furnished—bed, dresser, small desk with a laptop. Nothing personal except a single photograph on the nightstand of a dark-haired woman and a young girl with his eyes smiling at the camera. Dylan closes the door behind us.
The lamp casts soft light across his face when he turns to face me. Uncertainty flickers there—an expression I haven't seen from him before. Like for once, he doesn't know the correct tactical response.
"We can stop," he says.
"Do you want to?"
"No."
"Then don't."
I close the distance between us. Kiss him again. Feel his hands move to my waist, pulling me closer. The kiss turns hungry, desperate. Weeks of tension burning through whatever hesitation remains.
His shirt comes off first. Reveals scars I'd only glimpsed before—a patchwork of old wounds across his chest and abdomen. Knife cuts. Bullet grazes. Burns that healed badly. A map of violence written on skin.
My fingers trace one of the longer scars, a jagged line running from his collarbone to his ribs.
"Interrogation gone wrong," Dylan says quietly. "Subject had a concealed blade. Nearly bled out before medical arrived."
"How many of these are from interrogations?"
"Most of them." His hand covers mine, stilling my exploration. "The Committee didn't prioritize operator safety. Just results."
I kiss the scar. Then another. Each one a mark of the life he lived before Echo Ridge. Before redemption became his operational focus instead of intelligence extraction.
"Reagan—"
"Stop thinking." My hands move to his face, pulling him down to meet my eyes. "Stop analyzing. Stop treating this like an operation. Just be here."
He kisses me again. Slower this time. Deliberately. His hands moving to the hem of my shirt with clear intent. Asking permission without words.
I nod.
The shirt joins his on the floor. Then more clothing, piece by piece, until skin meets skin and the distance we've maintained shatters completely.
Dylan's hands are gentle despite their capability for violence. Reverent despite everything they've done. He touches me like I'm precious, like I'm worth protecting not through constraints but through tenderness.
We move to the bed. The mattress gives under our combined weight. His body covers mine, mindful of his weight, aware of every point of contact.
He pulls back slightly. "I don't have—I wasn't expecting—"
"I have an IUD," I say. "And I'm clean. Last tested three months ago."
"Six months for me." His thumb traces my collarbone. "Clean."
The practical conversation should feel awkward. Instead it just feels like more trust. More honesty. More of what's been building between us.
"Tell me what you want," he says, his voice low near my ear.
The directness in his tone—clinical almost, like he's gathering intelligence—should irritate me. Instead it makes everything sharper. "You," I manage. "All of you. No holding back."
"You won't break," Dylan agrees. "But I might."
The vulnerability in those words catches me off guard. Reminds me that for all his tactical planning and measured control, he's as uncertain about this as I am. As desperate for connection. As tired of containment.
I pull him down to me. "Then break with me."
His mouth finds mine again, slower now. More deliberate. Then he's kissing down my throat, teeth grazing the sensitive spot where my pulse jumps under his lips. I arch into him, fingers tangling in his hair as his mouth continues lower.
He takes his time. Learns me with the same focused intensity he brings to everything. His hands slide up my ribs, thumbs brushing the undersides of my breasts. When his mouth follows, I make a sound I've never heard myself make before—desperate and needy and completely beyond my control.
"Dylan—"
"Tell me," he says against my skin. His breath is warm, teasing. "Tell me what you need."
"You. Inside me. Now."
He kisses back up my body slowly, deliberately ignoring my demand. Takes his time kissing me until I'm writhing beneath him, until my hands are gripping his shoulders hard enough to leave marks.
When he finally settles between my thighs, the weight of him pressing me into the mattress feels like relief and torture at once. He braces himself on one forearm, uses his other hand to guide himself. The first slow press makes my breath catch.
"Look at me," he says.
I open my eyes. Find his already fixed on my face, watching every flicker of sensation cross my features. He pushes deeper—slow, controlled, giving me time to adjust. The stretch is perfect. The fullness overwhelming.
"Okay?" His voice is strained, like holding back costs him everything.
"Yes. God, yes."
He begins to move. Long, measured strokes that make me clench around him. His hand slides under my hip, angles me so each thrust hits deeper. Pleasure sparks up my spine with every movement.
I wrap my legs around him, heels digging into his lower back to pull him closer, deeper. He groans—a rough, primal sound that makes heat pool low in my belly. His control is fraying. I can feel it in the way his breathing turns ragged, in the tension coiled through his shoulders.
"Harder," I tell him.
He complies. The pace increases, measured control giving way to raw need. The sound of skin on skin fills the room. His hand moves from my hip to grip the headboard, using the leverage to drive deeper. Each thrust pushes the air from my lungs.
My nails rake down his back. He hisses but doesn't slow. If anything, the edge of pain seems to push him further. The bed frame protests with our movements, rhythmic creaking that should embarrass me but doesn't.
The tension builds, coiling tighter with every stroke. I'm close—so close I can barely think past the need for release. But Dylan's reading my body like a manual, keeping me right on the edge without letting me tip over.
"Please," I gasp.
His hand releases the headboard, slides between our bodies. Finds the bundle of nerves that makes my whole body lock up. Two circles of his thumb and I'm gone—falling into pleasure so intense my vision goes white. I cry out his name, body clenching around him in waves.
Dylan's control shatters. His rhythm falters, becomes erratic. Then he's driving into me hard and deep, chasing his own release. When it hits, he groans into my neck, his whole body shuddering as he empties himself inside me.
Afterward, his arm stays wrapped around my waist. My head rests on his chest, one leg thrown over his hip. The sheets stick to our damp skin. His heartbeat gradually slows under my ear, evening out from the frantic rhythm it held moments ago.
The lamp still glows on the nightstand. Illuminating the photograph I glimpsed earlier—the woman with dark hair and the young girl smiling at the camera.
"Your family," I say quietly.
Dylan's chest rises with a deep breath. "Lisa and Maya. Thirteen years ago."
The grief in his voice is still evident of the pain of their deaths.
His hand moves through my hair absently.
"I spent years building containment rooms for people.
Interrogation spaces where I controlled everything.
Light, temperature, hope. Told myself it was necessary.
That breaking people to get intelligence saved lives.
" His fingers still in my hair. "Then the Committee killed my family.
Killed everyone I'd protected by keeping them contained.
And I realized the rooms I built didn't save anyone.
They just made me feel like I had control when everything was already falling apart. "
"Is that what you think you're doing with me? Building another room?"
"I'm trying not to." Dylan's voice roughens. "But my instinct is to protect through control. To eliminate variables. To make people depend on me so I can keep them safe. It's the only way I know how to care about someone without losing them."
I lift my head to meet his eyes. "I'm not asking you to stop protecting me. I'm asking you to trust that I can make my own choices about what risks to take. That I can be your partner instead of your responsibility."
"Partners still die."
"Everyone dies eventually. The question is whether we spend the time we have living or hiding."
Dylan studies my face in the lamplight. Looking for understanding. Maybe finding it.
"I can't promise I won't try to control things," he says finally. "It's too ingrained. Too much part of how I operate."
"Then I'll keep calling you on it. Keep pushing back. Keep reminding you that containment doesn't work even when it's built with good intentions."
"That sounds exhausting."
"Probably." I kiss his shoulder. "But you're worth the effort."
His arm tightens around my waist. Pulling me closer to his side. "Get some sleep. Tomorrow we figure out how to build Delaney's case without getting more people killed."
"Tomorrow," I agree.
But sleep still won't come. Instead, I lie in Dylan's arms thinking about the photograph on the nightstand. About Lisa and Maya who died in a Committee bombing thirteen years ago. About Charlie and Ellen and the barista who have been added to the casualty list.
About whether anything we do will be enough to stop Webb before the body count becomes unbearable.
Dylan's breathing evens out. Sleep claiming him with the ease of someone trained to rest whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Eyes closed. Willing myself to find rest. Instead, I count the people who trusted me and died for it.
Back at Echo Base, Tommy's still scrubbing databases. Sarah's still coordinating warnings through back channels. Kane's still implementing security protocols from his position here at the safe house.
And in a few days, the Committee will crack my encryption. Will get every name. Every source. Every person who helped me investigate Protocol Seven.
The blackout protocols keep me safe. Keep me alive. Keep me from getting killed the way Dylan's family got killed.
But tomorrow, I'm finding a way to open them.
Because dozens of people are at risk right now. And living under restrictions won't save them.
Neither will sleeping with the man who built them.
But maybe understanding each other—really understanding what drives us, what terrifies us, what we're willing to sacrifice—gives us a chance to find a solution that doesn't require choosing between my freedom and everyone's safety.
Dylan's hand tightens in my hair. Even in sleep, he's holding on.
The warmth of his body beside me feels like borrowed time.
Like a respite I'll have to give back too soon.
Outside the safe house, the Committee is working through my source list. Eliminating witnesses.
Following every trail I left behind. And no amount of blackout protocols or midnight training sessions will stop them from finding what they're looking for—me, and everyone connected to me.
Tomorrow brings answers or it brings more casualties.
Tonight, I have this moment. This man. This fleeting sense of safety.
It will have to be enough.