Chapter 14
Maggie
The pizza arrived twenty minutes after we did, which gave me just enough time to change out of the green dress that might never recover from the night's activities and into yoga pants and an oversized t-shirt that had seen better decades.
Comfort clothes. Home clothes. The kind of thing you wore when you'd just spent your fancy dinner date crawling under boats to rescue a six-year-old.
When I came back downstairs, Bram was standing in my living room, tie loosened, jacket draped over a chair, with a framed photo in his hand. It was the one of me and my dad, both of us in uniform.
"That was about a year before I quit."
He turned, taking in my transformation from date-ready to disaster-casual. His expression softened. "You look comfortable."
"I look like I've given up."
"You look like you," he corrected. "I prefer it."
My heart did that thing again. The complicated, dangerous thing.
The doorbell rang. Pizza.
I grabbed my wallet, but Bram was already at the door, paying the delivery driver and taking the box with a nod of thanks.
We settled on the couch, the same couch where I'd watched The Thing with him, where this whole impossible thing had started to feel possible.
I opened the pizza box. Steam rose, carrying the smell of cheese and garlic and oregano. My stomach reminded me I'd only had half a piece of compressed melon before the evening derailed.
"Heaven," I muttered, grabbing a slice.
Bram took one too, eating with careful precision. His tail settled along the couch cushion, relaxed.
"Do you ever regret it?" he asked. "Leaving the force?"
"Sometimes. Tonight, when I was organizing the search, when everything clicked into place like muscle memory, that felt good. Felt right. But it's not enough to make me go back."
"Why not?"
"Because being good at something isn't the same as it being good for you.
" I leaned against the window frame. "I was drowning, Bram.
Every shift, every call, every domestic violence case and car accident and overdose, it was pulling me under.
I couldn't save everyone. Couldn't fix everything. And it was killing me to keep trying."
"So you make soap instead."
"So I make soap instead," I agreed. "It's simple. Predictable. I control the ingredients, the process, the outcome. No surprises. No tragedies. Just... creation."
We ate in comfortable silence for a while. Outside, I could hear distant fireworks, someone celebrating Halloween early, probably. The sound made me think of Lily, safe at home now with her family. Safe because Bram had tracked her through a crowded festival and found her hiding in the dark.
"You were amazing tonight," I said finally.
He paused mid-bite. "I just followed her scent."
"You did more than that. You stayed calm. You talked to Ethan like he mattered. You let Sarah hug you even though you looked terrified."
"I was terrified," he admitted. "I've never been hugged by that many people at once."
"Welcome to gratitude. It's very physical."
He smiled, small but real. "I noticed."
I pulled my knees up, balancing my pizza plate on them. "Can I ask you something?"
"Always."
"When Ethan asked for help, did you hesitate?"
He set his pizza down, considering. "No. A child was missing. There was no question."
"But you could've said no. Let the deputies handle it. Stayed out of it."
"I could have," he agreed. "But then I wouldn't be able to live with myself." He looked at me. "Is that what you're asking? Whether I helped because I wanted to or because I felt obligated?"
"I guess I'm asking why you helped."
He was quiet for a moment, tail making a slow curl.
"When I first came through, after the Convergence, I was lost. Literally and figuratively.
I didn't know where I was, didn't understand your world, couldn't read your language or your customs. Everything was strange and frightening, and I had no idea how to survive. "
I waited, giving him space to continue.
"A woman found me," he said. "Human. She worked at an integration center, helping creatures like me figure out how to exist in this world.
She didn't have to help. I wasn't her problem.
But she did anyway. Got me registered, found me temporary housing, taught me enough English to get by.
She's the reason I'm here. The reason I work at the SuperMart. "
"What was her name?"
"Patricia Mohan. She died six months after I met her. Heart attack. Sudden." His voice went rough. "I never got to thank her properly. Never got to show her that her help mattered, that I'd survived, that I'd found something like a life."
My throat tightened.
"So when Ethan asked for help," Bram continued, "when his mother looked at me like I was her last hope, there was no question. Because someone helped me when they didn't have to. And that's the only thing that matters. Helping. When you can. However you can."
I set my pizza plate aside, no longer hungry. "You're a good man, Bram."
He looked uncomfortable with the compliment. "I'm just—"
"You're a good man," I repeated firmly. "Accept the compliment."
I took his plate out of his hand and climbed onto his lap, straddling him.
His mouth quirked. "Yes, ma'am."
Looking at Bram, tall and slim, it was easy to forget how big he was. My knees on either side of his thighs reminded my muscles. I looped my arms around his neck and kissed him.
His hands came to my hips, cool, sure, possessive. He pulled me closer in one smooth motion, letting me feel the shape of him beneath me. Hard. Ready. Mine.
I kissed him first, slow, coaxing, and he let me have the lead for a moment. Let me taste him. Let me press him back into the cushions. But it didn’t last.
He caught my mouth in a deeper kiss, one that made my whole body arch toward him. His hand splayed across my lower back, holding me there, holding me still, while his tongue swept across mine.
“Fuck,” he breathed against my mouth. “You’re going to ruin me.”
“You said that last time,” I whispered. “I think you liked it.”
“I did.” His grip on my hips tightened, rocking me into him, slow and deliberate. “I still do.”
I moaned, clutching his shoulders. He was so strong, so controlled, but I could feel it in him now, the restraint slipping. The tension coiled under his skin, just waiting for permission.
“You can touch me,” I said, gasping as he ground against me again. “Don’t hold back.”
That was all it took.
He surged forward, kissing me like he meant to devour me. His hands slipped under my shirt, dragging it up my sides in one slow pass, fingertips cool against my heated skin. I lifted my arms and let him pull it over my head, then tossed it aside.
Bram’s eyes dropped to my chest, and he exhaled hard, like he hadn’t seen me bare before. Like he still couldn’t believe it was real.
“Beautiful,” he said, voice gone hoarse.
He leaned in and kissed the hollow of my throat, then lower, tongue flicking warm against my skin as he traced a path along the swell of my breast. I leaned back to look, and his pupils dilated.
“I’ve dreamed about this,” he murmured. “You. Like this. In my lap, warm and soft and looking at me like you want me.”
“I do want you,” I said, pulling his shirt up and over his head. “Now shut up and kiss me again.”
He did, with heat and hunger and purpose.
I rolled my hips again and was rewarded with a growl low in his throat, his hands tightening just enough to make me gasp. He kissed down the curve of my neck, his tongue teasing the shell of my ear before he whispered, “You’re not wearing anything under these yoga pants, are you?”
“Nope.”
A beat.
“Gods help me,” he muttered, and slipped his hand into the back of my pants, over the swell of my ass and between my thighs. He pushed me forward against his body as he slipped a long, cool finger inside me.
I gasped and ground my clit against the hard ridge of him as he thrust one and then two fingers inside me.
I was going to come for him already. His warm breath was on my neck, the scrape of his sharp teeth. The relentless rhythm of his fingers inside me, the friction of his hard length rubbing against my clit was all too much.
I buried my fingers in his hair and screamed his name, announcing my orgasm to my sweet old neighbor Mrs. Kline and her poodles.