Harper woke sprawled half across Brock, cheek pressed to the hard plane of his chest, his arm heavy over her shoulders like he'd locked her there. Her knee hooked high over his thigh, sheet twisted around her calf, heat trapped where their skin had fused in the night's sweat. She shifted and her body betrayed her—hips stiff, thighs aching, that deep, sore burn low inside her, tender and undeniable, the echo of him still written into her muscles. The breath caught in her chest, pressed against his ribs, and the slow throb there seemed to answer the rise and fall beneath her cheek.
Her mouth tasted off, sweet gone stale, copper edging her tongue; head needled where a seam of light cut under the blind. Eyes scraped raw, temples pounding with whiskey. She swallowed hard, throat dry, skin still carrying him—sweat gone tacky, cologne faded to musk, every breath steeped in the scent of what they'd done here, what she'd let happen.
The scrape of her heel against his shin, the catch of her breath—those stirred him before thought did. His chest rose fuller beneath her cheek, a sigh pushing out as his hand found her waist and held there, firm and steadying. He turned his head enough to brush his mouth toward her crown, breath warm against her hair. "Hey," he murmured, voice worn and low, eyes blinking open slow and blurred, like she'd dragged him up out of sleep by lying over him.
"Hey," she answered, hoarse, and nuzzled closer. Her lips found the warm skin just under his collarbone, a soft press more instinct than thought. For a moment the urge rose to climb closer, to take more of him, to let the night pick up where it had left off. The want flared quick and hot—then her skull throbbed in protest, a hard pulse behind her eyes, and she let herself settle instead, cheek resting where she'd kissed. The steady lift under her ear deepened with his breath, and she felt him answer in the slow curl of his hand at her waist.
His free hand slid into her hair, fingers slow, combing at the roots before sinking deeper, gentle against the tangles. Once, fingers in her hair had meant she was about to be hauled somewhere she didn't choose, pain coming on the end of it. Now the same touch sank in without threat, his hand doing nothing but cradle and soothe. "Talk to me," he said quietly. "How're you feeling?"
She let her body answer first—leaning into the drag of his hand, no flinch, only that tight hold of breath that eased on the exhale, the kind that said ache, but don't stop. Her thighs hummed with it, low and insistent, and still she settled closer. "Sore," she said finally, voice steady, the word tasting half like confession. A moment, then softer, truth layered under it. "Good sore."
She shifted and the sheet dragged across her hip, cotton clinging before it slipped free. A low groan slipped out—pressure hammering behind her eyes more than the ache below, though her body still hummed sore. Her gaze lifted to his. He read the wince and the way she lay against him for what they were—whiskey, and the deep pull of what they'd done. His thumb pressed once at her waist in a brief, grounding touch, then eased back again. He turned his head and brushed a slow kiss against her temple, mouth warm at her skin for a breath before he settled back. Nothing named, but the weight of it moved between them, the unspoken knowledge of what she'd given him last night.
The look between them pulled the night back in one clean thread: his palm braced above her ribs, holding himself off her even when his body wanted to bear down. His mouth at her temple, murmured breath against skin, his pace set by hers. He felt her shifts before she spoke them—every small flinch, every easing—answered by him slowing, angling, waiting.
Heat kept pushing higher, and every time he pulled it back, leash tight in his lungs. Each motion started in him and answered in her, until she found the rhythm herself—hips lifting, breath breaking into his. He kept his face close, finding her eyes, grounding her even as it turned rougher, dirtier, until tenderness and hunger were tangled so close they felt like the same thing.
"Head hurting?" he asked, voice low against her hair.
She let a breath go, eyelids heavy. "Yeah. Feels like drums in there."
The hand at her hip slid down, cupping and drawing her closer, while his other hand traced slow circles through her hair. "Then today's light," he murmured. "No runs, no range. Just you here."
Her answer came with a shift of her own—knee tightening over his thigh, palm spreading against his chest to feel the slow lift beneath. "Good," she whispered, almost a sigh. "Don't want to move anyway."
Something under her cheek eased; his mouth brushed her hair once, a steadying pass, and the room slid back to the vent's low hum and the clock's quiet glow. He shifted beneath her, thigh firm under her hooked knee, chest lifting slow against her.
Her hand drifted lower, fingertips skimming the ridges of his stomach, tracing muscle and scar as if learning him by touch. The change in his breathing under her palm drew a quiet hum out of her, low into his skin, unthinking.
The hand cupping her from behind stayed there, gentled—thumb stroking along the curve of her hip, easing her closer against him while the other kept combing slow through her hair. His breath caught once, but he steadied it, choosing the slow savor over any rush, holding her with patience and weight.
"You rest," he murmured, fingers lazy in her hair. "If your head turns on you, you tell me."
Her thumb traced the inside of his wrist, slow. "I will," she said, the words soft against his chest. "You can throw coffee and aspirin at me later." A faint huff of breath that almost was a laugh. "Right now I just want to stay here."
He answered with a low hum, his hand easing through her hair in long, steady passes. The pounding in her head dulled a notch; the ache low in her hips settled into something she could keep. The room swayed gentle around them, and he was the weight that kept it held.
Her face tucked under his jaw, his hand resting warm at her neck, they let the morning wait. He dropped a kiss into her hair without thinking, lips barely brushing the strands, and his fingers fanned there like he meant to keep her pinned to his chest. His breathing stretched long and even; hers found it and matched. The city's wash behind the glass folded into one harmless hum.
She shifted once, drawing the sheet higher so it caught in the dip of her waist, leaving her back bare to his palm. He smoothed his hand down her spine in one slow pass, thumb tracing the curve where spine met hip, then stilled like he'd promised.
The mattress held their heat. Coffee could wait. Sleep came back the way fog crosses water—low, patient, sure—closing the distance between waking and not.
Coffee arrived anyway.
They didn't stir at the latch or the soft sound of boots down the hall; hangover sleep held them under. Nolan came with three coffees steady on a tray, tapped once with his free hand, and shouldered the door open in the same motion. "Caffeine deliv—"
The words cut through first. Brock's chest filled hard under Harper's cheek as his eyes snapped open; in the next instant he was surging upright. Harper twisted with him, startled, the sheet already only at her hip—one motion baring her chest before Brock yanked the fabric high across her. Copper hair spilled with the scramble, hot against his skin as she ducked in against him, hiding her face against his shoulder while one hand clutched the sheet tight at her collarbone.
"—ery." Nolan froze in the doorway, tray squeaking in his grip, gaze ricocheting to the crown molding after that blink-long flash of bare skin and the Viper ink coiled up her side.
He kept his eyes obediently high and stepped in on muscle memory, tray balanced as he set it on the dresser, steam curling up from the lids. "Brought three because we all feel like roadkill," he said, voice pitched low, brow creased. "Also on the mistaken belief Voss slept in the other room. Turns out my intel's outdated." He gave a helpless lift of his chin toward the ceiling—acknowledgment without ever looking down.
"Appreciated," Brock said, one arm keeping the sheet where it needed to be. "Why are you really here?"
"Vex pulled a job for tomorrow. Noon brief today. Details are thin—just that it's clean hands, quiet, daylight, and no muscle-jam at the point of entry." Nolan let his gaze dip once, quick, only far enough to confirm the sheet still covered what it needed to. Then his eyes cut back to Brock, over the spill of copper hair across his chest, and held. In the quiet, the look between them carried what neither said out loud—Nolan's blunt, wordless question and Brock's equally plain yes.
He didn't break the look as he reached back to the dresser and nudged one cup closer to Brock. The other he left within easy reach, steam curling off the lid. "Black for you," he said. Then, with the faintest nod toward Harper without daring his eyes down, "Sugar for her."
"We'll be there," Brock said, like he wasn't bare under the sheet with Harper tucked against his side. "If anything comes in early, just text me."
"You got it." Nolan lifted a contrite finger toward the ceiling. "I'll work on the whole 'knock and wait' concept. Next time, I'm assuming you're not alone."
He shot Brock a quick, crooked look—wry, cautious, message received—then palmed his own cup and backed for the hall. The door sighed mostly shut behind him, leaving a cooler seam through the frame and the curl of coffee steam to mark the intrusion.
Harper made a strangled noise, dragged the sheet over her head like fabric could erase a man's memory, and tried to burrow into Brock's chest. Heat surged up her face so fast it felt like it left fingerprints; she fisted the cotton at her collar like she could make it armor. "Kill me," came muffled into his skin, raw and desperate. "Or move. I'm tunneling to the center of the earth."
Brock's laugh was low and unhelpfully pleased against her hair, a quiet rumble she felt more than heard. "He locked on the wall like it had answers," he said, thumb finding the edge of the sheet she'd barricaded with and easing it back an inch so she could breathe. "Pretty sure he can sketch the ductwork from memory."
"After he saw my entire soul," she muttered into his chest, refusing to emerge. The sheet he'd tugged back was immediately dragged higher again, bunched tight at her temple like fabric could wall her in. "He saw me naked from the waist up. That's it. I'm gone. I live here now—in the mattress."
"He saw more than he bargained for," Brock said, the smile in his voice unhelpfully clear as he smoothed her hair flat. "Blink, that's all. Long enough to haunt him, short enough he'll pretend it never happened. And he did leave coffee—pretty generous hush money, if you ask me."
She risked one eye out from under the cotton. "It's evidence."
"It's coffee," he said, amused. He shifted just enough to free an arm, keeping the sheet snug across her with the other, and stretched back to snag the sugared lid off the dresser. "Here." He brought it in close, nudging it against her fingers until her hand slipped out from under the sheet to take it. He steadied it under her palm so she didn't have to grip. "All he clocked is that you're hungover. Don't turn it into something else."
She stared at the lid a second, thumb worrying the rim. "He knows," she muttered, the words slipping out before she could swallow them. "That I'm in your bed. That you're…" Her throat tightened on the last part, the thought crowding out even the headache. "Doesn't that screw with you? With how this looks?"
Brock's chest rose under her cheek, steady. "Not with him," he said.
She groaned again, all mortification, and let her forehead tap against his chest. "I hate him."
"You don't," Brock chuckled. "You just hate that he saw."
"Same thing," she muttered, shifting—and winced when the motion tugged at her thigh, bandage dragging over the graze. He felt it in the way her muscles jumped; a second later he adjusted, easing his leg and her weight until the pull eased off and the sting dropped back to a low ember.
"Better?" he asked, already knowing.
"Better." A pause. "Still dead."
He huffed a quiet laugh into her hair. "You're talking. That's at least halfway to alive."
She grumbled something into his skin and finally let herself sit up a little, still keeping the sheet clutched high. The movement cost her; her head throbbed once in protest, but the room stayed put. She brought the cup to her mouth and took a cautious sip. Sweet and strong hit her tongue, heat sliding down into the hollow of her chest.
"Okay," she admitted, eyes closing for a second. "That helps."
Brock reached past her for his own, thumb hooked in the lid as he lifted it. The first mouthful pulled a small wince out of him, then a slow exhale. "Nolan got the ratio right, at least," he said. "Might forgive him in a few days."
She nudged his ribs with her shoulder. "He's never allowed in here again."
"He'll knock like the place is rigged from now on," Brock said. The amusement in his voice thinned into something softer. He tipped his chin toward the digital glow on the nightstand. "We've got a couple of hours before the brief. Coffee. Shower. Food. Then we act like we slept and showed up on time like civilized people."
"Civilized is pushing it," she muttered, but the corner of her mouth quirked.
He set his cup back within reach and eased her in again, arm firm around her, sheet still held where she wanted it. His mouth found her hair, a slow press that lingered a heartbeat longer than casual. "Five more minutes," he said, voice low against her crown. "Then we move."
She let herself sink into him at that, cheek finding his chest again, fingers tracing one of the old scars there in a lazy line. Outside, the vents hummed and the city's noise stayed small. Inside the room it was just warmth, coffee cooling on the dresser, and the quiet between them, held as long as they could before the day came knocking again.
** ** **
The war room still carried last night—roast and frosting gone to a faint grease in the air, cheap liquor dried into the grain, all of it buried under burned coffee and a swipe of industrial cleaner. The overheads hummed with a flat, electric buzz that needled her hangover. The wall screen slept in a gray pane; a metal carafe sulked on a side table beside paper cups that had seen better days.
Harper had her boots hooked on the table's lip, heels crossed, the cool laminate against her ankles a small mercy. The caffeine had landed, but her head still pounded like someone working drywall in the rafters. Hot water and his hands had chased some of the stiffness out of her that morning, but they'd traded it for a deeper pull low in her hips, a fresh ache written in while steam fogged the tile. She tipped her chair back two inches and closed one eye against the light.
Brock sat to her right, posture easy but not lazy, elbows on the arms, hands laced loose. He'd taken the end seat with the sightline on the door, habit more than choice, but there was a looseness under it that hadn't been there weeks ago—the top button of his shirt open, tape still faint at his ear, a shadow of stubble roughing his jaw. Whatever the night and the shower had taken out of him, it had left him settled, something satisfied in the way his shoulders rested against the chair as he watched the room wake.
The handle turned. Harper had her boots off the table before the latch finished its click, feet hitting the floor in a rushed thud that knocked a jolt up her already angry skull. It was pure reflex—caught-in-the-act, schoolkid-fast—and out of the corner of her eye she saw Brock's mouth tip, the suggestion of a grin he never let fully form in here.
Vex came in on a slip of colder hall air, a folder tucked under his arm, the collar of his jacket still turned from outside. His gaze did its usual circuit—corners, ceiling, exits—then skimmed the table. It passed over Harper's drawn face, the careful way she held her shoulders, the coffee cup parked close; it took in Brock's open collar and settled posture the same way it had after a dozen other hard nights. None of it earned more than a flick of attention; whatever notes he took stayed behind his eyes, filed as background, not problem.
He didn't bother with hello. He set the folder down, flipped it open with one fingertip, and spread grim photocopies across the table before taking the head seat, attention already on the pages.
The door eased again before the room finished settling around him. Nolan slid in sideways, empty-handed, that smug little curve already trying to live on his mouth as his eyes went straight to Harper. Heat climbed the back of her neck so fast it made her stomach tilt. She dropped her gaze, let her hair fall forward, shoulders drawing in as if she could fold herself smaller in the chair and erase the memory of him at Brock's door.
Brock didn't look over. The sound he made could've passed for a cough, could've passed for a laugh, as his knuckles brushed hers under the table for a second—steady there.
Nolan took the chair two down, angled to keep both door and screen in sight. While Vex's head stayed bowed over the folder, Nolan's gaze clipped past Harper to Brock, a quick, wicked cut of eye that said nice work without a word. Brock met it for half a breath, expression flat enough to pass any audit, and Nolan's smirk twitched wider before he smoothed it away.
Vex lifted his eyes a moment later. Whatever had almost lived on Nolan's face was gone. He said nothing—there wasn't anything he could add that the room didn't already know.
Vex tapped one finger on the photocopies until the room stilled.
"Tomorrow," he said, voice flat as the fluorescent hum. "Daylight. Clean cover. You three walk in like inspectors, tag what needs tagging, lift what we need, and walk out the same way. Alarms stay quiet. Nothing left behind. You're not there to break anything—just mark it so we can follow the flow."
His fingertip dragged across the first sheet: grainy security stills of a warehouse bay, forklifts parked in rows, serial numbers slashed in marker on pallet sides. "Eastbank Produce. Maw's been routing freight through the dock all month. Frozen greens on the manifest, cash under the wrap. We've hit their guns, we've hit their files. Now we hit the money. Tags tell us where the pallets run after they leave the dock. Cashroom tells us how much. Put them together, we own their ledger."
He glanced once at Harper, long enough for the weight to land, then back to the paper. "Two trackers inside. Pallets pre-flagged by Roth and Dane's team—Bay Six, Bay Nine. Voss, that's yours. Looks like inspection, feels like paperwork. Don't draw eyes."
He shifted the next sheet, showing the cashroom schematic—a gray box with a single door, counters and a terminal sketched inside. "Lawson, you ghost the terminal. Drive's prepped. In, slot, out. Nolan runs interference—wrong crates, lost manifest, whatever buys seconds."
The folder snapped closed under his palm. "You'll have thirty minutes, tops. In uniform. Out before the foreman finishes lunch. If you look like you belong, they won't ask twice. If you don't—" His eyes went back to Harper, not blinking. "—they'll remember your face."
Silence swelled behind it until the buzz from the lights filled the gap again. Vex leaned back, jacket creaking at the shoulder. "That's the work. Questions?"
Nolan leaned back in his chair, arms folded loose, the faintest twitch at his mouth like he already saw the angles. "Day job with a clipboard," he said. "Finally in my wheelhouse."
Brock didn't smile. He gave the single nod Vex expected, steady and contained. "Drive loads clean, tags ping, we're out before they count heads. Understood."
Harper tapped the back of her pen against the folder edge, caffeine still drumming under her ribs. "So I plant the tags, walk casual, and that's the job," she said, more statement than question.
Vex's eyes cut to her again, flat. "That's the job."
The room held it for a breath, the hum from the fixtures settling in around his words.