Page 47 of Steel and Ice
I angled myself toward him and let the distance between us dissipate. At the hood I stopped and listened as heat hissedfrom the engine, ticking as it cooled. The window framed Colt’s outline.
He didn’t reach for me or shift. Only the rise of his chest moved, and the night seemed to notice and rearrange itself.
“Hands?” I asked.
Colt raised both and set them open on the wheel. His palms were quiet—nothing to take, nothing to hide.
I opened the door and climbed into his truck as the leather moaned beneath me. The cab smelled of cold air, soap, and the faint mineral of Colt’s skin.
No radio, no music. City sounds moved outside like water under a pier.
His hands stayed where I could see them, which steadied me more than I thought it would. I reached over and gently touched the bruise on his cheek. A touch that said I understood tonight.
The sacrifice he’d made for me. I leaned in and let my mouth find his. Even, unhurried. Enough heat to answer the question the dark street had asked.
Colt breathed against me and let out a low sound that could have turned into hunger.
“Travis is in custody,” he said, close enough that his words almost touched my lips. “Parole violation.”
The facts clicked into place, a latch finding its strike. I didn’t need any details. I’d been around long enough to know what would happen to Travis.
He’d be put away for years given the video and his history.
“Home?” I asked, barely louder than the engine.
He drove like he’d saved the motion, as if his body knew the way to my house. Light from streetlamps broke across the hood of his truck in neat bands. Our faces reflected back to us in the glass before they disappeared again. Block after block, city streets.
Colt’s hands gripped the steering wheel until I lifted one, by a few degrees, and let it hover near my thigh without settling.
Not a test—permission he could take or leave.
He took it.
We slid onto my block and pulled up in front of my house. My neighbor’s doorbell LED woke as we nosed to the curb. One slow blink, a tiny electric eyelid that told us we were worth remembering.
We crossed the sidewalk without hurry, the city moving in our periphery. Someone dragged a trash bin down the street, while another person clicked a bike chain.
Colt didn’t touch me; I didn’t ask him to. The nearness was its own intoxicant with its own voltage.
Inside, I turned the deadbolt and eased the latch forward. I listened to the clean click after the repair. It held with a clean, confident seat. No false kiss at the strike, no stutter. Colt had fixed it earlier. It’d been quiet work; he rehung the plate, shortened a screw. He taught the door to say yes without having to force it.
Colt stepped inside. The air changed, like weather inside walls.
His mouth found mine, greedy. I answered, a promise I’d held inside. Collar fabric bunched in my fist. I pulled him in, not to direct him, only to keep the gravity honest.
Colt made a sound that lit the room and me from within.
Plaster cool at my spine; his chest a heat I knew. His breath broke, then steadied against my cheek as I gave him my mouth again.
The latch held. So did we.
**
