5. Shannon
Shannon
Aiden’s excited chatter floating down the hallway wakes me. His voice pitched high with delight.
“Savior here! You stay! Make breakfast!”
Reyes’s deeper voice rumbles in response, trying to quiet him. “Easy, buddy. Mama’s still sleeping. We gotta be quiet, remember?”
“But you here,” Aiden’s whisper-shout is as subtle as a foghorn. “You stay all night.”
A warm, stupid flip happens in my chest at the pure joy in my son’s voice. When’s the last time he sounded that happy? That secure? The answer lodges in my throat—probably not since before Mason.
I should get up. Should join them and help with whatever breakfast situation they’re trying to manage. But I stay in bed instead, pressing my palms against my closed eyes, trying to process everything that happened last night.
My body is still alight with the memory of Reyes’s hands, his mouth, the way he looked at me like I was something precious instead of something broken.
I brush my fingers over my breasts and can still feel the heat of his attention there, the reverent way he touched me like he was memorizing every inch.
Heat pools low in my belly at the memory, and I bite my lip to keep from making a sound.
The way he made me come apart with just his fingers and his mouth—I’ve never felt anything like that.
Never knew my body could respond like that.
He gave me the kind of orgasms girls read and brag about. Other girls.
And then he stopped.
Somebody’s got to be the adult in the room.
The words still sting, even though I understand what he meant. Even though he apologized and explained himself afterward. But lying here in the gray morning light, I can’t shake the feeling that he sees me as something fragile. Something that needs protecting, even from him.
I’m not a child. I’m a grown woman who knows exactly what she wants, and I want Reyes.
All of him. The gentle way he reads bedtime stories to Aiden and the dangerous way he handles threats to our safety.
The careful distance he tries to maintain and the raw hunger in his eyes when he thinks I’m not looking.
Maybe he’s right about needing time. Maybe we both need to figure out what this is before we cross a line we can’t uncross.
The smell of coffee drifts down the hallway, followed by the sizzle of something hitting a hot pan. My stomach growls, reminding me I barely ate dinner last night. Too wound up, too aware of Reyes’s every movement as we shared the small space.
“Pancakes.” Aiden’s screech carries clearly now, along with the sound of a chair scraping against the kitchen floor. “Like restaurant.”
“Not quite like a restaurant, buddy, but we’ll make ‘em work.”
The domestic sound of it—Reyes cooking breakfast for my son while I lie in bed like some princess—gets me moving. I’m not a woman who hides from awkward morning-afters, and I sure as hell am not starting now.
I pull on yesterday’s jeans and grab a clean sweater from my duffel bag, finger-combing my braids into some semblance of order.
In the tiny bathroom, I splash cold water on my face and try to compose myself.
Whatever happened between us last night doesn’t have to define this morning.
If Reyes wants to pretend we didn’t nearly combust on the kitchen counter, I can play along. For now.
When I walk into the kitchen, Aiden is perched on a chair pushed up to the counter, supervising Reyes’s pancake-flipping with the seriousness of a quality control inspector.
“Mama.” He stands in his seat, pointing at the griddle. “Savior makes Mickey Mouse.”
Sure enough, a slightly lopsided Mickey Mouse shape is sizzling in the pan, complete with round ears that are more oval than circular. Reyes glances up at me, something careful in his expression as he gauges my mood.
“Morning,” he says, his voice neutral. Professional, almost.
“Morning.” I keep my tone equally light, accepting the coffee he slides across the counter toward me. “Mickey Mouse pancakes? That’s advanced-level dad skills.”
Something flickers across his face at the word ‘dad,’ gone so fast I might have imagined it. “YouTube tutorial while the coffee was brewing. The kid deserves cartoon pancakes.”
The simple statement hits me harder than it should. The kid deserves cartoon pancakes. Like it’s obvious. Like Aiden’s happiness is worth the extra effort it takes to shape batter into mouse ears at seven in the morning.
“Flip it!” Aiden commands, and Reyes obliges with a theatrical flourish that makes my son giggle.
I lean against the counter, sipping coffee and watching the man who's become central to our world in the span of a week. Reyes is wearing yesterday’s jeans and a black t-shirt that molds to his shoulders in a way that makes my mouth go dry.
His hair is mussed from sleep, and the stubble darkening his jaw is a texture I want to feel under my fingertips.
When he reaches for the maple syrup, I see how the shirt pulls across his back, and remembering his muscles under my hands last night makes my pulse quicken.
“Mama, you hungry?” Aiden asks, pulling me out of thoughts that have no business in a kitchen with a three-year-old present.
“Starving,” I say, with pure truth.
Reyes’s eyes meet mine, heat flaring there despite his carefully controlled expression. So maybe we’re not pretending nothing happened. Maybe we’re just… postponing the conversation.
“One Mickey Mouse special, coming up.” He slides the pancake onto a plate and hands it to Aiden, then starts pouring batter for the next one. “Regular shape okay for you, or did you want Mickey too?”
“Regular’s fine.” I move to get plates from the cabinet, and my sweater rides up slightly. Reyes’s gaze tracks the movement, his attention snapping back to the griddle like it was never elsewhere.
“Savior, live here now?” Aiden asks around a mouthful of pancake.
The question hangs in the air, loaded with hope. I look at Reyes, but he’s focused intently on not burning breakfast.
“Savior’s just staying for a little while,” I say carefully. “To keep us safe.”
“Like a angel?”
Reyes snorts. “More like a security guard, buddy.”
“What’s security guard?”
“Someone who makes sure bad guys can’t get in.”
Aiden considers this seriously. “Mason bad guy?”
The name drops into our comfortable morning like a stone. Reyes’s shoulders tense, his grip tightening on the spatula.
“Yeah, baby. Mason’s a bad guy.”
“But Savior, keep him away?”
I meet Reyes’s eyes across the kitchen, and the promise I see there makes my throat tight. “Yeah. Savior keeps him away.”
“Good.” Aiden takes another bite of pancake, apparently satisfied. “Savior nice. Not scary like Mason.”
“Mason was scary?” Reyes’s voice stays level, but a sharp edge runs underneath.
Aiden nods solemnly. “Made Mama cry. Made my arm hurt. But you don’t make Mama cry.”
“No,” Reyes says quietly. “I don’t want to make Mama cry.”
He slides my pancake onto a plate, his fingers brushing mine as I take it. The touch is brief, probably accidental, but it sends electricity up my arm anyway.
“These are really good,” I say after my first bite. “Thank you.”
“Just pancakes.”
“Not just pancakes.” I gesture around the kitchen—at Aiden happily eating, at the coffee, at the way he’s seamlessly inserted himself into our morning. “This. All of this.”
Reyes goes very still. “Shannon—”
“I know.” I keep my voice light, aware of little ears listening. “We don’t have to talk about it now. But… thank you. For everything.”
He nods, and some of the tension leaves his shoulders. “You’re welcome.”
We finish breakfast in a comfortable silence, Aiden providing running commentary on the merits of Mickey Mouse pancakes. When he’s done, he slides off his chair and announces he’s going to go color in his new book.
“Color in the book, not on the table,” I call after him.
“Okay, Mama.”
Which leaves Reyes and me alone in the kitchen with dirty dishes and the weight of everything unsaid between us.
“So,” I say, starting to clear the dishes. “What’s the plan for today?”
“I need to check in with Tank. Figure out next steps.” He takes the plates from my hands, fingers lingering against mine. “Shannon, about last night—”
“What about it?”
“I don’t want you to think I didn’t want—” He stops, running a hand through his hair. “Hell. I don’t know what I want you to think.”
I step closer, close enough to see the gold flecks in his hazel eyes. “I think you stopped because you thought it was the right thing to do. I think you’re trying to protect me from making a decision I might regret.”
“Yeah.”
“And I think,” I continue, reaching up to touch his jaw, feeling the rasp of stubble under my palm, “that you don’t give me enough credit for knowing my own mind.”
He turns his face into my touch, eyes closing briefly. “Your mind isn’t what I’m worried about.”
“What are you worried about?”
“Your heart.” He opens his eyes, the vulnerability there stealing my breath.
“I don’t want you to give it to me because you’re grateful, or scared, or because I’m the first person in a long time who’s been decent to you.
And then when this is over, when you’re safe, you’ll realize you didn’t really want me at all. ”
The honesty, the fear he’s trying so hard to hide, breaks something open in my chest. This dangerous man, who faces down threats without blinking, is terrified I might not really want him.
“Reyes,” I say softly. “Look at me.”
He does. I let him see everything I’m feeling—the want, yes, but also the deeper emotion that’s been growing since he found us in that freight yard.
“It’s too late,” I whisper. “You already have it.”
Before he can respond, before I lose my nerve, I pull him down and kiss him. Soft this time, gentle, trying to pour all the words I can’t say with Aiden in the next room into the brush of my lips against his.
When we break apart, his forehead rests against mine. We’re both breathing hard.
“This is complicated,” he says.
“I know.”