Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 70801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 354(@200wpm)___ 283(@250wpm)___ 236(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 354(@200wpm)___ 283(@250wpm)___ 236(@300wpm)
I hesitate for one heartbeat, and then I scoot closer, inch by inch, like I’m crossing a line I’ve been staring at for too long.
Ozzy exhales, a deep sound that turns into a low groan when my hip presses against his. It’s not a groan of annoyance. It’s… something else. Something that makes heat pool in my stomach. My breath catches.
Ozzy’s arm slides around me carefully, pulling me into his chest. His hand settles on my back, firm and steady, and his other hand cups my shoulder like he’s anchoring me.
I melt.
Not the fragile, crumbling kind of melt. Not weak. It’s relief, pure and bone-deep, the way a body that’s been braced for impact finally gets the all-clear.
Every tight muscle in my shoulders unclenches at once. My spine softens against the mattress like it’s remembering how to curve instead of lock. The air I’ve been holding hostage in my lungs rushes out in a long, shaky exhale that I don’t even try to hide. My fingers loosen their death grip on the edge of the blanket as my toes uncurl. Heat blooms low in my belly. It’s not panic anymore, but something warmer, heavier, something that spreads like sunlight hitting skin after too long in the cold.
His chest rises and falls against my cheek. His heartbeat is steady. His skin is warm.
I feel safe. I close my eyes, letting myself sink into it. But safety is dangerous too, because it makes me want more. My brain whispers the truth I don’t want to admit: I want him.
The laugh. The sarcasm. The way he watches me like I’m worth guarding. And that want hurts, because it feels impossible. Because I know how this ends.
I’ll be “safe.” The team will move on. Ozzy will go back to his missions and his people and his life. And I’ll go back to… whatever life I can scrape together. My mom. Carl. My apartment. My job. My nothing.
I don’t deserve him. I don’t even know how to keep someone like him.
My throat tightens.
Ozzy’s hand strokes once, slow, down my back. “Breathe,” he murmurs.
I inhale shakily, then exhale. My body eases. Slightly.
Ozzy presses his lips lightly to my hair, so gentle it almost breaks me. “Better?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Better.”
His arm tightens a fraction. And the heat thickens. Because now I can feel everything. The hard plane of his stomach. The solid line of his thigh against mine. The way his breath catches when I scoot closer like I’m trying to crawl inside him.
Ozzy groans again, low, like he’s fighting something.
I lift my head slightly, peeking up at him in the dim light. His eyes are half-lidded, jaw tight.
“What?” I whisper.
Ozzy swallows. “Nothing.” His voice is shaky, and I want to call him a liar.
I want to make him tell me what he’s thinking at this very moment, but instead I sit here. I take in the feel of him. The feel of this. We lie like that in the quiet, wrapped together like it’s normal, like the world isn’t full of white vans and shadows.
Then my brain—my anxious, restless brain—goes searching for something else to hold onto.
A distraction.
A tether.
“So,” I whisper.
Ozzy hums, eyes still closed. “So.”
I swallow. “What’s your favorite thing to do?”
Ozzy’s eyes open slightly. “What?”
I shift, my cheek still against his chest. “We always talk about me. About what I want. What I’ve never done. What scares me. What I need.” My voice softens. “What about you?”
Ozzy goes still. For a second, I worry I pushed too far. Then he exhales slowly, like no one’s asked him that in a long time. “My favorite thing?” he repeats, voice quiet.
“Yeah,” I say. “What do you like? When you’re not… saving people. When you’re not doing missions. When you’re just… Ozzy.”
His fingers flex against my back. He looks toward the ceiling, thinking. Then, almost reluctantly, he says, “Throwing knives.”
I blink. “What?”
Ozzy’s mouth twitches. “I bet you didn’t expect that answer.”
I lift my head, eyes wide. “You throw knives?”
He nods once. “Yeah.”
“Like—like in the movies?” I whisper, half excited, half horrified.
Ozzy’s eyes glint in the dim. “Like in real life.”
I stare at him, then grin despite myself. “That’s… actually kind of hot.”
Ozzy’s gaze snaps to mine. Heat flashes. His voice drops. “Careful.”
My breath catches. “Why?”
“Because if you keep saying things like that,” he murmurs, “I’m going to start forgetting why I’m supposed to be good.”
My stomach flips hard. I swallow, pulse racing. “Are you… supposed to be good?”
Ozzy’s jaw tightens, but his arm around me stays firm. “With you? Yeah.”
My voice comes out smaller than I mean. “Why?”
His eyes hold mine. Then he says, so quietly it’s almost a confession, “Because you deserve gentle.”
My chest tightens painfully. I look away fast, blinking hard. Then I force myself back to the knives because if I sit in that sentence too long, I might actually cry.