While I make sure to give each breast equal attention, her hand works faster. “Fuck, Maddy,” I moan through gritted teeth.

“Ky, don’t ah...don’t...stop...so...ah!”

My tongue laps at her nipples, my fingers finding the same rhythm as her thrusts.

“Ky, I’m...”

I close my eyes, trying to hold off.

“Shit...ah...shit. Ky!”

She tightens around my fingers as her body shudders.

But her hand on me never stops.

Not once.

“Jesus shit!” she cries.

“Fuck babe!”

She comes around my fingers.

I come on her stomach.

She kisses me until every last drop’s expelled.

We stay silent; our chests rising and falling as we try to catch our breaths. My mouth’s too dry to speak. Luckily, she breaks the quiet. “That was...”

“Breathtaking,” I finish for her.

She laughs and releases me. I do the same. Then she looks down at her stomach and the mess that I’ve made. “Shower?” she asks.

Somehow, even after everything it has been through, my dick still responds at the thought.

“Just a shower,” she warns. “And cuddles after...”

I raise my eyebrows.

“You have to stay now. You can’t give a girl a world-shattering orgasm and just leave.”

MADISON

People do crazy things when they feel like the clock is ticking too fast, or too slow, or not ticking at all.

13

KY

DOCTOR AROMA SMIRKS, eyeing me while she kicks her foot back and forth. “How’s that self-pleasuring going for you?”

I laugh once. “I’m getting a little help in that department, actually.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I mean, we’re not sleeping together, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“That’s not the be all and end all of a relationship, though.”

“Hey...calm down. I didn’t say anything about a relationship.”

She smiles. “Well, let me ask you a question then.”

“Sure.”

“Would it hurt you to lose her?”

I shrug, even though I know the truth. “Maybe,” I lie.

She smiles again, eying my sideways. “Maybe it’s a good thing. You and her. Maybe it’s a start.”

“A start?”

“To you realizing that your existence isn’t worthless. That you have something to lose. And it starts with her, but it doesn’t have to end there, Ky. You have a lot to lose. You just don’t know it yet.”

***

You know what’s better than waking up in bed with Madison? Nothing. Not a goddamn thing.

She rolls over and lazily throws her arm over my stomach when my alarm goes off. “Make it stop.”

I sit up, looking around her dim bedroom for my phone. “Where the hell is my phone?”

“Ignore it.”

I finally find the flashing light of my phone in the pocket of my jeans, discarded on the floor from last night. “I need to go train.”

She wraps both arms around me now, pulling me back down. “Skip it,” she mumbles, her eyes still closed.

I kiss her quickly. “I can’t.”

She grunts in response and lets me get up. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Your place or mine?”

She smiles, her face half smeared into the pillow. “We’ll find each other,” she says. “We always do.”

Leaving Madison in bed is hard. Too hard. I get dressed and just stand at the foot of her bed watching her sleep. She sighs sleepily when I kiss her goodbye and rolls over to her stomach, her head pillowed by her folded arms. “Hurry back,” she whispers.

And I kiss her again.

***

“So here’s what you need to do,” Jax says.

I’d called him on the way to the gym because he said he had a plan.

“Drop your phone on the table next to his when you get a chance and just accidentally pick up his and go through it.”

I laugh. “That’s your plan?”

“Dude. I can’t get authorization on anything here. The guys in the precinct—they kind of hate me.”

That gets my attention. “What do you mean they hate you? Are they causing shit for you?”

“Calm down, Captain Combative. I’m a big boy now, I can take care of myself.”

The tension leaves my shoulders.

He continues, “It’s just that I’m young—the youngest that’s ever made detective. All the old timers—even Serge—they don’t want to listen to a punk like me.”

“That’s...fair, I guess.”

“I know he’s there at the moment, and you said you guys had the same phone, so just try it. What harm can it do?”

“He could kick my ass.”

“You can take it.”

“This is a shit plan.”

“Try. That’s all I’m asking.”

“Am I looking for something in particular?”

“No. I’d be surprised if it weren’t pin-locked. Just try.”

“Okay. Bye.”

“Laters.”

I step into the gym and bump fists with Tiny standing next to the door. I look him up and down jokingly. “You’re here a lot. Ever think of maybe doing more than just standing at the door?” I tap his stomach with the back of my hand.

His lips press together, trying to hide his smile.