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He pulls me back against his chest, breath hot at my neck. “Mine,” he says. Just one word. No flourish. No repetition. Just the truth.

And I smile. Wrecked. Marked. Filled. And finally complete.

I don’t move for a long moment.

Mostly because I can’t.

My legs are trembling. My lungs don’t know what to do with air. My brain is still somewhere back in the middle of that third orgasm trying to reboot like a crashed operating system.

And Holden doesn’t say a word.

He just slides out of me, slowly, which should be illegal, and immediately grabs the blanket off the bed, wraps it around me like he’s swaddling a human weapon he just detonated, then stands to pull on his pants.

“You.” I start, voice hoarse. “You just… walked away.”

“I didn’t walk away,” he says, already heading to the corner of the room where there’s a shelf with bottled water, “I walked five feet to get you hydration.”

He tosses me a bottle. I fumble it. Still can’t feel my fingers.

He smirks. “You’ll need electrolytes next.”

“Are you giving me a post-sex rehydration plan right now?” I ask.

“You think I’m letting you pass out on me when there’s still a flu-maddened, possibly cannibalistic horde brewing out there?” he says.

He grabs his shirt and kneels by the bed again, wiping my thighs without asking. Just handles it. Efficient. Practical. Thorough. Like the same hands that held me down and made me scream now only exist to put me back together.

“Jesus,” I mutter. “No offense to the others, but you’re like the Delta Force version of aftercare.”

“Good,” he says. “Because when the next emergency hits, I need you functional.”

I smile into the blanket, face pressed to his pillow that smells like pine and sweat and silent judgment. “You’re such a romantic.”

He tucks the sheet over me, then presses a kiss to the top of my head. One soft second of quiet. “Next time,” he says, voice low, “We try that with a knife to your throat.”

I choke on the water.

He smirks again, already standing. “Sleep, Maple.”

Just like that. No dramatics. No declarations. Just calm, focused affection wrapped in bloodstained logic.

And yeah, okay.

That might be my new favorite kink.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Holden

She drifts off fast, her breath steady and deep, cheek pressed into the pillow like she belongs there, like I didn’t just wreck her for the better part of an hour. I watch her a moment. Not because I’m sentimental. But because I don’t take peace for granted.

Not anymore.

I’ve seen too many people sleep like the world’s still safe, and never wake up again.

But her?

She sleeps like she knows I’ll keep watch.