The discomfort persisted even after the storm passed.
Hidden, borrowed, and all but forgotten, Audrey carefully took out the remainder of her wet equipment in the isolated cabin in the middle of Colorado's isolated wilderness, her fingers shaky. Sebastian had kindled a fire nearby, and it was burning low, its flames creating agitated shadows on the stone hearth. Outside, the forest was still, the trees whispering as though they were protecting the secrets of the night.
Since they had passed the border post, she had not spoken. Her quiet was thick, not aloof or frigid. Overflowing with everything she was afraid to say.
Sebastian watched her from across the room. He didn't push. Not tonight. Not after everything they'd been through—choppers overhead, gunfire in the valley, coded messages that led nowhere. And Heretic. Always Heretic.
Like trapped breath before a confession, the isolation of the cabin surrounded them, thick and waiting.
Audrey turned and met his eyes.
"You're staring," she replied quietly, observing rather than accusing. She murmured softly, with a hint of something unsaid.
He didn't flinch. "Since Marseille, I haven't turned my head away."
Her mouth opened slightly, letting out an uninvited breath. Her mouth tightened. "Months have passed since then."
"I recall," he said.
His steps were deliberate and silent on the worn floorboards as he moved closer. His fingers lightly, almost respectfully, touched her arm. Something that had been waiting too long was triggered by the soft touch. It wasn't an emergency. It was profound. Known. the type of pull that doesn't request consent.
"Don't," she said, refusing to back off.
However, she also remained still.
He froze. "Do what?"
"Make me forget how dangerous this is."
He leaned in. His voice brushed her neck. "Maybe just for tonight… forgetting is survival."
She didn't back off.
Her fingers gripped fabric soaked in smoke, perspiration, and something distinctly his as her hands went for his shirt. She pulled him in, not for solace but for assurance. To experience his weight. To realize that despite everything they had lost, they had not disappeared.
His lips met hers.
Nothing to say. No introduction. Just instinct, heat, and breath. She ran her fingers through his hair. Even though the world outside was anything but, his hands followed the slope of her spine, securing her to something tangible and unquestionable.
Clothes fell to the ground in gentle disclosures, slipping away piece by piece.
To the pressure of skin, to the cadence they established, to the silent exclamation of her name, everything shrank. As if remembering him, her body shifted beneath his. As if it'd been waiting.
As if it had never forgotten its proper place.
But even as their bodies moved in sync, the air wasn't quiet.
Outside, a branch snapped. Just once.
Her eyes opened instantly. Alert. A soldier's instinct, never gone.
Sebastian heard it too. He stopped, breath ragged, forehead resting against hers.
"You heard that?" she whispered.
He nodded.
A beat of silence.
Then another crack. Closer. Deliberate.
He was already on his feet, reaching for the Glock on the nightstand and slipping out of bed in one smooth motion, naked and uncompromising.
Clinging to the sheet, Audrey sat up and slipped approached the window, being cautious not to let her shadow pass through the candlelight behind them. She looked at the treeline; all she saw was moonlight and woodland.
Her voice was hardly audible above a whisper when she queried, "Thermal?"
The scope was already being powered up by Sebastian.
Silently, she pulled on her trousers with fast, deft hands. The rush in her chest had changed—dread replacing desire—but her skin still tingled as it had before.
"Anything?" she pressed.
He frowned, eyes fixed on the scope. "A heat signature. But fading. Could be a deer."
She shook her head. "Too calculated. They're watching us. Maybe testing response time."
He looked at her then, something hard and dark in his expression. "Heretic."
It wasn't a question.
Audrey wrapped herself in the shadows again. She didn't answer. She didn't have to.
The warmth between them still clung to her skin, but it was fading now, replaced by the cold steel of purpose.
This wasn't over.
It had never been over.