Page 115 of The Honeymoon Hack
He’d come for me. He’d risked his life for me.
God, I loved this man.
“I’ve got you, Bug,” he gasped, crushing me against his chest. The scent of blood and chemicals surrounded me.
He made a turn, ricocheted off a rack door, and threw us both to the ground, his body covering mine as the world exploded.
The sound wasn’t just loud—it was massive, seeming to come from inside my bones. The raised floor shook beneath us like an earthquake, and chunks of concrete and metal rained down around us. Will braced my head with his forearms, covering my face. The air was filled with choking smoke and the acrid smell of burning electronics.
Will’s weight pressed me into the floor, solid and warm and wonderfully, impossibly alive.
Debris fell for ages—metal fragments pinging off surfaces, the groan of damaged infrastructure adjusting to the blast. When it finally stopped, the air itself felt different, thicker. As though the world had expanded, but was still contained in this server room.
Will lifted his head cautiously, blood still seeping from the gash across his forehead. His brown eyes were wild, pupils dilated, but focused entirely on me.
“Are you hurt?” He sprang off me, running his hands over my arms and shoulders, checking for injuries with frantic thoroughness, his fingers trembling.
I took inventory: Taste of smoke and concrete dust, check. Heart racing, check. Nothing obviously broken or bleeding, check. “I don’t know if I got all of Fenix’s data.”
Will stared at me for a heartbeat, then spluttered a laugh. It quickly evolved into deep belly laughter that shook his whole body. He settled on the floor next to me, tears mixing with the blood on his face, cutting clean tracks through the dust and grime.
“Only you,” he said, still laughing between gasping breaths, “would nearly die and immediately worry about whether your files finished uploading.”
True. It was an odd comment for the moment. “I’m probably in shock.”
“I’m definitely in shock.” He took a long breath, steadying himself, and cupped my face in his hands. His thumbs moved against my cheeks in gentle, comforting strokes.
“Tell me that’s not your blood?” I said.
He shook his head. “Only a little of it.”
I ran my fingers through his hair, damp from sweat and probably more blood. “I think I’m done with fieldwork, Will.”
“Not a good change?”
“I thought I was going to die.” The memory of Lark’s blade at my throat. Each time the gun’s barrel had found me. I wrapped my other arm around Will’s back—his strong back that had protected me from the falling debris. “And then I’d think about you.”
“Is this the shock talking?”
“Probably.” Otherwise, I might have kept the rest of my words inside. “I’ve always known I wanted you in my life, but I finally realized I was just scared ofhow damn muchI wanted you. When I heard those gunshots”—my breath caught, but I powered through—“it was like my entire world crumbled.”
“I’m here, baby.” His thumbs brushed underneath the rim of my glasses, swiping away the tears I couldn’t hold back anymore. “I’m okay.”
“Bug, not baby,” I said with a sniffle. “I don’t wantthatto change.”
“You still want the rest?”
“I want everything.” I pulled his face down to mine, needing to wrap myself in him. When our lips met, it was my way of showing him how happy I was that we were alive and we were together.
His mouth tasted like metal and smoke. The blood on his shirt seeped into mine. But I didn’t care.
Nothing had ever tasted or felt better. Because I had my Will.
He was all I’d ever needed.
“Are you two okay?”
Will broke from the kiss, so we could both look up.
