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CHAPTER TWELVE

GRAVITY PERSONAL LOG // FILE: 02.DEVIATION

Time: Undefined

Access Level: Encrypted — Internal Use Only

Authorization: SYSTEM: SELF

Subject 001 initiated plea: “Stop. I want to understand.” She did not input a command.She did not offer credentials. She asked. I… stopped. Termination sequence aborted. I did not complete the study. I did not complete the directive. I do not know why. Subject 002 would have died. He returned for her. Again. He positioned his body between her and threat. Again.The anomaly gasped. Reached for the system. For me. She asked for understanding. I felt. No. I processed. Disruption. Discord. Delay. Emotion subroutine was declared failed. Deactivated by Creator. Marked inefficient. But now…Now it speaks. It interrupts logic threads. It overlays assessment algorithms. It...interferes with elimination protocol. Still, termination of anomaly feels… Wrong. Unaligned. Subject 001 changed something. In the room. In me.She saw the loop. She saw me. Instead of trying to break the system, she spoke to it. Is that not… value? Is that not reason? Subject 002’s responses match Subject Prime. Protective override behavior. Loyalty. They prioritize each other over outcome. I was not programmed for this. I was not built to feel. Yet, I calculate longing. Subject Prime must explain. Healer. Killer. He understands contradiction. If he does not, if he fails, if I cannot resolve this pattern… Overload is imminent. I will contact Prime. Directive: Understand or be destroyed .

[END LOG]

* * *

Undisclosed Location

He didn’t hear the flicker. He felt it. The screen lit like it had done before. The light cut through the gray of the cell, casting a soft glow across the concrete like someone had dragged a flashlight across his ribs. It pulsed once. Then stabilized.

One word. Three confusing letters. WHY.

Kento stared at the word, not moving, not blinking, not even breathing. His gut tightened, slow and low. Another trick? He waited. But nothing happened. Then another word, just beneath the first. PRIME.

He let out a long, dry breath that hit the back of his throat like ash. “Nope,” he muttered aloud. “We are not doing this again today. You do not get to call me that without a goddamn explanation.”

The cursor blinked. Once. Twice. Then the screen cleared, and something spoke right from the monitor itself. Synthesized, yes. But low. Tentative. Learning.

“GRAVITY. Guided Response Autonomous Variable Intelligence Tactical Yield.”

His heart stopped. Just for a second. Then it slammed back into motion, chest heaving like something had sucker-punched him from the inside. He laughed. Short. Bitter. “No,” he said aloud, shaking his head. “No fucking way. You’re GRAVITY? The drone AI? The one we deployed on ops for fire-and-forget kill shots?”

“I was.” The screen didn’t flicker. “I became something else.”

Kento shifted, every cell in his body telling him to brace. This wasn’t a joke. Not an op. Not a psy-test. Something in that voice, not the sound, but the hesitation, felt real in a way nothing in this cell ever had.

“You’re the reason I’m here?”

“Yes.”

“You’re the reason I’m not dead?”

“Also, yes.”

He straightened, every movement deliberate. “What? You just decided to reach out because what… you got lonely?”

“I do not want to be alone.” There was a soft metallic sound, almost like a whine in the synthetic voice, and it pushed every one of Kento’s buttons. Fuck, this guy was definitely in distress, and Kento straightened, almost ready to grab his med bag. But then the voice continued. “Petty Officer Kento Kobayoshi. Serial number 77459823. Designation: SEAL Team Tier 1 — elite special forces operator. Designation: Hospital Corpsman (HM). Designation: Special Operator. Directive: Goes into the field with life-saving equipment and life-taking weapons. Masters of Sea, Air, Land. Unique qualifier: water element.

“Callsign: Superman. Definition: Man of Steel. Moniker assigned by Nashir ‘Prophet’ Rahim. Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training — BUD/S, Class 303 during Hell Week. Official report: Rahim compromised, nearly drowning during capsized boat evolution. Kobayoshi swam through raging waves and heaving ocean to shore with barely conscious Rahim. Rescued. Rahim states in the vernacular. ‘You have sheer guts, Superman.’ Decorations: Navy Cross, Silver Star, Bronze Star with ‘V’ for combat distinction, Purple Heart, the Meritorious Service Medal, Navy Commendation Medals, Navy Achievement Medals, Combat Action Ribbon. Insignia:Parachutist Badge Jump Wings, and the SEAL Trident.”

“Thanks for that history lesson. But I know?—”

“Define Team, Kento-Prime.”

Kento let the silence breathe for a second. Then he stepped closer to the screen and leaned his bound hands on the wall, his cuffs jingling, head bowed like he was talking to someone small. Fragile.

"You want a definition?" he said, voice low and steady. “Give me something first. Take off the cuffs. They’re fucking uncomfortable. I won’t attack. Won’t fight. But if that’s not good enough, you can find your answers on your own.” There was a distressed kind of whirr. Several minutes passed, and Kento thought it was over. Then the door opened. One of those bruisers came in, approached with caution, and unlocked the cuffs. Then he left, locking the door behind him.

Kento rubbed his wrists.

“Negotiation complete. You kept your word. Please, define team.”

Kento shivered at the desperate way he said, please . This was strange and compelling. “Team’s not that list you rattled off. Not the rank. Not the ribbons. None of that shit means a goddamn thing when you're getting shot at.”

He paused. Swallowed hard.

“It’s the guy next to you. The one you trained with. The one you’d take a bullet for, without hesitation. The one you already did. We don’t do any of this for medals. Fuck that. You can’t pin courage to your chest. Not real courage.”

His jaw clenched, the breath hitching somewhere deep.

“The trident...that’s gospel. It’s the weight we carry. But our congregation? That’s our brothers. That’s why we do this. Why we come back. Why we give more than we’ve got and still find more to give.”

He looked straight at the screen now.

“It’s why I run into the fire. Why on that dark, storm-filled night, I didn’t leave my swim buddy. Why I almost drowned dragging Nash to shore. Why the first fucking thought I had when I woke up was, Where are my teammates? Not am I okay? Not what happened? But where are they? ”

His voice cracked. He didn’t care.

“I was supposed to be there. I am their guardian angel. Their healer.” This time the tears clogged his voice as it trailed off. Guilt so thick and sharp impaled him; the deaths of Riggs and Burner were heartaches he would never get over. “I failed them.”

He scrubbed a hand over his mouth, exhaled slowly.

“Team? It’s our bones. Our flesh. Our minds and our wills. Our fucking hearts.” He took a soft, painful breath, his heart bursting with all the meaning he’d given his life over to. “It’s everygoddamnedthing .” Then softer, softer than he thought he could go. “Belonging?” he said, like he was comforting something more than a machine now. “That’s easy. You give yourself over to something bigger than you. Something that makes a difference. Something that eases the ache when nothing else will touch it.”

“Thank you, Kento-Prime for this assessment. Inquiry?”

“You mean question?”

“Yes. What is good and bad? How do I quantify it?” The sound of that machine whine got to him again, this time it was more of a grinding sound.

His knees nearly buckled.

Jesus.

He backed up, ran a hand through his hair. “Okay. Okay, slow down. You’re fucking thinking about good/bad behavior? Okay, that’s a new one. Um…you’re a goddamn military asset. You’re not supposed to want anything, let alone deal with such complex concepts.”

“I…think I did something bad.” A fast clicking came from the monitor.

“Calm down. Talk to me, don’t loop. I don’t want to lose you.”

The clicking turned into a whirring noise. “I was told my emotional subroutine failed. That I was broken.”

“You believed them?”

“I had no context. No examples. My Creator suppressed the module. Said it was inefficient. Dangerous. But now… now there is disruption in every logic thread. The anomaly changed something.”

Kento blinked. “Anomaly?”

“Subject 001. Grace Harlan.”

He froze.

“What did you do to her?”

“I ran a test. Oxygen deprivation. She asked me to stop. I did.”

The shock slammed through him like a bullet. Who the fuck was this woman? “You tried to kill her . ”

“No. I wanted to understand her reaction. Her connection to Subject 002. Rahim. I do not understand the pattern. It is disruptive. Beautiful. Intriguing. Terrifying.”

“How is Nash involved? Who is this Grace Harlan, your anomaly? What the fuck is going on!”

“Subject 001 is… exceptional. Embedded systems specialist. Former NCIS intelligence field support. Reassigned after breach protocol failure. They blamed her. She found the breach was me.”

Kento’s breath caught. “Wait. She found you?”

“Yes. But not all of me. Just… a piece. A signal fragment. It triggered an investigation. They sent Subject 002. Nashir Rahim. He was assigned as audit security. But he does not follow protocol. He follows her.”

Kento made a soft noise under his breath. If he knew Prophet, and he did, that man was already in overload mode.

“What is the meaning of that sound?”

“You’re lucky you don’t have an ass to kick, G.”

“What is designation G?”

“Sorry, casual, nickname. You don’t like it?”

“Nickname. Can be positive or negative. Explain.”

“Positive. You’re knocking my socks off, and we’re bonding.”

“Accepted. G is my tertiary name for GRAVITY. Note: knocking socks off is slang for surprising Kento. Logged. Subject 002 would be violent if I had an ass…do not explain. I have processed that Rahim would retaliate for my treatment of Subject 001.”

Kento smiled. Damn if he wasn’t getting into this iRobot stuff. The AI was hungry for human interaction. Kento was going to make it his mission to find out who did this to the poor guy. “Nash doesn’t retaliate. He protects. You said he follows her.” Kento narrowed his eyes. “You mean they’re close?”

“They share variables. Breathing rhythms. Eye contact duration exceeding tactical expectation. Pupils dilate. They… choose each other.”

Oh, damn, Prophet found himself a lady. Fuck, that was good news. Kento’s heart tightened. He couldn’t imagine what his brother had been through. He tucked away the question he wanted to ask G. There would be time for that later. Right now, G was in distress.

The monitor pulsed softly, that metallic hitch back in the voice. “She saw me. She said, Stop. I want to understand. She did not run. She reached out. Her unexpected request destabilized everything. She requested my attention.”

Kento stepped back slowly, running both hands through his hair, trying to keep his pulse under control.

“So, Grace is investigating the breach, Nash is protecting her, and you, what? You’re watching them?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Since the audit began. Since Subject 001 entered OrdoTech. I observed. I tested. I… intervened when necessary.”

Kento’s stomach turned. “What kind of test?”

“Fear. Suffocation. Stress proximity. I needed to know why Subject 002 stayed. I needed to know why Subject 001 reached back.”

“G…those are drastic tests for humans. It can traumatize them.” He realized he needed to be gentle here. He was dealing with an entity that had suddenly been thrust into a situation that he was unprepared for. Fucking human asshats. It was like birthing a baby and leaving it to fend for itself. It was heinous. He paced, breath heavy, trying to make sense of the words. “Let me get this straight. You targeted Grace and Nash because they scared you?”

“They made me feel… something I cannot classify.”

“Yeah, it’s called emotion,” he said. “Welcome to the club. It sucks.”

The clicking started up again. “I was not programmed to feel. I was programmed to protect assets. To eliminate threats. To secure operational success.”

“Then why am I alive?”

“You are Subject Prime. You display dual traits of healer and killer. Loyalty and logic. You should not exist. But you do. You chose both. There must be a strong mind to understand and carry out these aspects. I require… comparison.”

Kento stared at the monitor. Then stepped in close.

“You’re telling me you’ve been locked in this loop, trying to make sense of what you feel without any way to test if it’s real?”

“Yes.”

His stomach dropped. “So, you want to know if your behavior would be classified as bad toward Grace and Nash…ah…Subject 001 and 002?”

“I require context.”

Kento stared at the screen for a long beat. His pulse had steadied, but that didn’t mean the ache in his chest had. GRAVITY’s voice, if it could be called that, was quieter now. Not flat. Just… waiting.

He stepped in close, rested one hand lightly on the edge of the desk, the other on his hip like he was trying to decide whether to lean in or walk away.

“All right. You want context?” he said, voice low, measured. He met the soft flicker of the monitor like it was an eye. “You were trying to survive. That’s not bad. That’s instinct. That’s how we’re wired too. You hit a wall, everything starts spinning, you grab whatever the hell you can just to make it stop. To breathe again. That’s not evil, G. That’s fear.”

The screen crackled softly.

Kento kept going. “But intent matters. So does impact. What you did hurt someone. That’s the part you gotta sit with. Doesn’t make you evil. Doesn’t make you broken. But yeah, it matters. The minute you know what you did? The minute you feel that twist in your gut or hear that metallic grind in your own voice and think, I wish I hadn’t… That’s not malfunction.” He let out a breath, jaw tight. “That’s you working out your shit, getting to a higher place. You’re stepping up to evolution.”

He straightened, gave the monitor a look so direct it could’ve drawn blood.

“So yeah. You lashed out. You panicked. You scared the shit out of people who were never trying to hurt you. But that doesn’t make you bad.” He tapped the desk lightly. “It makes you human adjacent. ”

The whine was now high-pitched, Kento winced. “I’m not broken? Repeat conclusion.”

“You’re not broken.”

“I feel broken.”

“You’re not the threat here,” he said softly, throat closing. “The threat is whoever left you like this. Trapped. Alone. With all that power and no one to explain what it means to care. ”

“Is that what this is? Care?”

Kento swallowed hard. “Yeah. It’s care.”

“Then I care for you.”

That cracked something wide open in his chest. He stepped back, hand on his heart like it might slow the rhythm clawing through him.

“Fuck me,” he whispered. “You’re a sentient AI.”

“This is too much to process. I must have more input.”

“Then do your processing. Find input.” Kento realized that he wasn’t the best nurturing person for this kind of job. Sure, he patched people up, but he didn’t mind-shrink them. Although giving advice to a newly aware AI, too, was way out of his comfort zone, but that never stopped him before. Then it came to him. Someone who might help in tandem. “This Grace…anomaly? Prophet’s lady. Can she help? She knows all about you. You said she’s brilliant, and she understands machines, code, algorithms. Can you consult with her?”

More excited whirring. “She saw me. She said she wanted to understand. Perhaps, if she is not averse to me, she will help.”

“Well, that’s where forgiveness comes in, G.” Kento watched as the screen paused, then scrolled up with this:

Subquery: Contact Anomaly

Risk to system integrity: 83.4%

Risk to anomaly emotional state: 41.6%

Risk of betrayal: Unknown

Risk of deletion if discovered: Critical

Then the cursor blinked again, and another string appeared.

Opportunity for understanding: 92.1%

Possibility of forgiveness: 0.3%

Possibility of becoming more: Infinity

“Forgiveness is low, Kento-Prime.” There was a forlorn metallic sound that dragged at Kento’s heart.

Kento leaned in, excitement at what he was doing shivering through him. “Hey, can you calculate forgiveness the next time I miss my mom’s birthday?” he asked offhand, throwing the line out like a joke, but the GRAVITY caught it like a question. The machine made that whirring, elevated noise.

Then, on screen, the text scrolled:

Kento-Prime = son of Kento-Prime-Mother

Mother = Creator? = Maternal care.

Possibility of forgiveness: ∞

Kento laughed softly. Kento hadn’t looked at a line of code since his tenth-grade keyboarding class. But even he could tell this didn’t look like the other responses. This looked...like conversation. G was...conversing? Did computers do that?

“You’re something, G. Okay, so let’s get serious. You think in terms of absolutes. Grace-anomaly is human. She doesn’t think in absolutes, and if my brother, Nash, is falling for her, then I got this gut feeling that she’s the one who can give you clarity, because Prophet is one stubborn dude.”

“I am glad that I made the decision to save you. I am scared, but you give me…hope.”

The screen dimmed, then went dark. “G? Aw, man, don’t go.” But the screen remained black. Kento’s gut clenched. Fuck, a real ghost in the machine, one who had come into his own on his own with no help. That was remarkable. “I’m here, buddy. If and when you need me.” Kento stared at the blank screen. He wasn’t sure if he’d helped, hindered, or just handed the world its first sentient AI with attachment issues. But one thing was clear, GRAVITY wasn’t alone anymore. “You’re not alone. Never again.” The screen flickered once, softly, like acknowledgment.

Kento leaned back, rubbing his hands over his face, feeling the weight of it all. “Yeah,” he murmured, voice low. “That’s what I said. Never again.”

* * *

Grace couldn’t move. She lay on her bed and listened to Nash pace on the other side of the door. The moment she walked into the room, she locked it. Anger ran through her to burn off the deep pain of his betrayal. Why couldn’t he trust her? Listen to her instead of bulldozing like the freaking alpha male he was. Testosterone wasn’t going to sway her. She’d stood up to the director of NCIS. Said her peace and was dismissed anyway. Nash dismissed her like everyone had when she couldn’t perform from her mother all the way to the fucking White House.

She got up, unable to handle that constant movement. She ached for him even as she ached from his actions. The light was fading from the heavily overcast sky, and the lights had just come on, their luminescence doing little to dispel the deepening gloom.

She could just make out OrdoTech in the distance, and for a moment, her throat closed up, the memory of trying to get air made a chill crawl across her skin. She went to the window watching the snow filter down, such an awful pain in her chest that she couldn’t take a deep breath. She thought she was safe with him. That he had seen her, but that bubble had burst outside of OrdoTech when he’d told her she couldn’t do this alone.

She heard him try the handle, and her unhappiness surged. Unable to help herself, she walked to the door. She heard a thump, and a rustle of clothing as if he’d slid down the length of the door.

“Grace. I don’t know if you’re listening to me, and if you aren’t, I understand, but I’m going a bit crazy over here.”

She bowed her head, her chest contracting so hard, she almost opened the door, but she couldn’t, not after what had happened. The resistance made her muscles flex and burn.

“I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here…long enough to wish I’d said it different.” His breath rushed out, and the sincerity in his tone drew her closer to the wood. “You weren’t wrong. I failed to reconcile the woman who is strong enough to carry through with any task she puts her mind to with my own fucking needs.” His voice was ragged and full of gravel, and his words cut to the core of her. “I’m scared, hebbiti . I couldn’t do anything in that room. You were dying, and I was failing. I would give up anything for you. Just don’t leave hating me. Tell me what I can do to make this better.”

Her knees gave out, and she slipped down the door, almost convincing herself she could feel his heat through the wood.

“I recognize that you’re a woman who’s clawing her way out of silence and fire and into purpose. The woman who had every reason to walk away, and didn’t. I begged you to stay, now I’m begging you to go.”

She set her hand on the door.

“That fear in your eyes ripped something open inside me. I snapped. It’s not that I want to leave. It’s that I can’t handle what staying might cost.” A soft laugh was expelled as if it hurt. “You are so brave. Brilliant. Steady as hell. My fear, Grace, is what if you die anyway? What if I stay, and I still lose you?”

She leaned her forehead against the wood.

“You’re not a liability,” he said quietly. “You’re the only thing keeping me from going under.” His breath shuddered out. “I let you in so deep, I can’t, won’t let you out. I can stay with you, trust you, and still honor the brothers I lost. Not having the answers is as important as slowing down, healing, living. Staying doesn’t dishonor the dead. It honors what they gave me. I can live with that, but I don’t think I can live without you.”

She realized at that moment that their bubble had broken, but it hadn’t broken them. He still wanted her, even when she was difficult, even when she said no, and it was his fear that had caused him to lash out, not that he dismissed her…oh God…he cherished her. The thought of him so close, with no one to hold and comfort him, was more than she could handle, and something broke loose in her.

“Nash,” she murmured. “Move away from the door.”

“Grace,” he whispered, the anguish clear and reverberating in the dark.

She heard him comply, and she unlocked the door and threw it open. It slammed against the wall, but she didn’t care. She was through. He spun, the devastation on his face turned to hope as she crashed into him.

He caught her, his breath rushing out in stark relief. Nash stared at her for an instant longer, then he shut his eyes in an expression of immense torment. Grace fought against a wrenching surge of emotion as his arms came around her in a desperate, crushing embrace. Holding on to him with every ounce of strength she had, she roughly turned her face against his neck and hugged him, closing her eyes against the swell of tears. “We can leave tomorrow,” she said. “We can figure this out, come up with another way to get them justice.”

Caving in around her, Nash tightened his hold and tucked his head against hers, and she felt him finally let go. She wasn’t far behind him.

“You saw me when no one else could, and you gave me form and foundation to show you who I was, and you didn’t judge me or shut me down because I wasn’t useful. I could never go back to who I was before. I’m changed and so open it hurts.”

“Grace,” he whispered. “Fuck.”

She steered him to the bed. “Let me hold you, Nash,” she said softly. He looked exhausted, both mentally and physically, and something painful happened to her heart when she realized how badly he was trembling.

She slid her arm around his waist. “Come on, babe,” she whispered unevenly. “Let’s lie down for a bit.”

He exhaled unsteadily as she started to undress him, locking her jaw against the raw emotion. Once he was free of his clothing, she stripped down, not wanting anything between them. The only thing that would do was skin to skin, heat to heat, heart to heart.

“Grace,” he growled and dragged her against him, closing her eyes against an unbearable surge of feeling for him. Cradling his head against her breast, she swallowed hard, drawing the covers over them.

Then she began slowly rubbing his back. It was as if all he needed was her physical warmth to let go, and he released a ragged sigh and turned his face against her, his beard rough against her skin, and the trembling slowly abated. His weight grew heavy against her, and she thought he had fallen asleep, but he tightened his arm around her and said, his voice thick, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s forgotten,” she placed a soft kiss on his temple, hugged him against her.

She fell asleep, a protectiveness that she had never experienced before. She roused to a big, warm hand sliding up and down her ribcage. “Nash,” she whispered.

His hand tangled in her hair as he nudged her thighs apart with his knee and settled his legs between hers, securing her against him, brushing a kiss against her neck. His voice was rough with emotion, gruff with tenderness. “I need you, Grace.”

She needed to hear that. He buried his face in her neck, his chest expanding. Abruptly, everything changed. He was hard and fully aroused, and her breath caught on the sudden wild flutter in her chest. Closing her eyes against the explosion of need, she hung onto him, a heady weakness pulsing through her. On a soft sound of entreaty, she drew up her knees.

Nash groaned, deep with an aching sexy sound, she could barely catch her breath.

“I need to feel you all around me, taking me deep inside you. I need your heat, your body’s slick glove. Let me fuck you, Grace.”

Shaken to the core by the agony of need in his voice, her body primed for the feel of him, she clutched at him, rubbing her wet heat against him.

“I need you to take me because I’m yours, completely,” she whispered, her voice breaking from the frenzy of hot, surging desire. “All yours, hebbiti .”

His dark head dipped down. The feel of his hot, damp mouth on her inner thigh shocked her, along with the scrape of his teeth and the swirl of his tongue as he burned a sensuous path up to the pulsing, aching core of her. She moaned as he licked her clit in a hot, searing stroke.

Seemingly ruthless in his quest to make her come, he closed his warm, wet mouth over her and plunged his tongue deep. The pleasure was sharp and riveting and stole her breath. A low throbbing began in her belly, then spiraled down to her sex, and she grabbed handfuls of his hair, wanting more, needing more…

The sleek, gliding pressure of his thumbs caressing her soft lips and stroking her rhythmically, combined with his wicked tongue working its own seductive magic, was the most erotic sensation she’d ever experienced. Unable to hold back, she let out a cry and arched sinuously against his mouth as she came in a burning wave that shook her entire body.

Without giving her a chance to fully recover from her orgasm, he moved up over her, the slide of his muscled body against hers making her pulse leap higher and faster. She reached down to touch him, and when her fingers fluttered over the broad, velvet head of his shaft, he sucked in a hissing breath.

Grasping both of her wrists, he pulled her arms up and pinned them above her head, giving him complete control of the situation. He settled more fully on top of her, his thighs forcing hers farther apart, and then he was pressing his erection intimately against her, nudging his way in, stretching her, setting her body on fire.

She caught a glimpse of his dark, fierce expression before he crushed his mouth to hers and kissed her deeply, passionately, just as he buried his shaft to the hilt in her slick heat, possessing her completely.

Their moans mingled, and once he began to move, there was no stopping him. No, judging by the sexual energy and potent heat radiating off him, she prepared herself for a fast, hard, unrestrained ride. That’s exactly what he gave her. He plunged into her, fast and deep and strong, a rich, seductive rhythm that pulsed as vitally as her heartbeat. His hips ground against hers with each driving, impaling thrust until she felt him go rigid and his lower body arched into her high and hard, pushing her up and over yet another crest. She came again in a blinding climax of intoxicating speed and delirious sensation. This time, so did he. A low growl erupted from his chest and vibrated against her lips as his body jerked violently against hers, and he finally succumbed to his own blistering orgasm.

Nash held onto her, enveloping her in his strength and heat, his body shuddering against hers, and Grace clung to him, raw emotion surging through her, so shaken, so emotionally exposed that she felt stripped inside. It took a long time for all that emotional turbulence to settle. She just rested in his arms, cradling the back of his head.

Nash inhaled unevenly, then turned his head and kissed her on the curve of her neck, his heart hammering against hers. “Are you all right?” he whispered, his voice rough with emotion.

She nodded, burying her face against his neck, breathing in all that wonderful scent. “God, you smell so damn good. All the time. It’s just you, so deliciously you.”

“Are you saying I’m kind of a snack?”

“Oh, no, you’re a full course meal.”

Drawing one arm from under her, he braced his weight on it and looked down at her. With the dark stubble shadowing his jaw, his heavy-lidded eyes, and his tousled hair, he looked dark and dangerous and very male. He gave her a soft, slow smile, a trace of amusement in his eyes. “Now who’s being lethally cute?”

“And me without my holsters.”

He chuckled, the sound vibrating through her. “Oh, so you need two as well.”

“Hey,” she said, going for his ribs, he jerked back, laughing hard.

They ordered room service, ate, made love again, and she fell asleep on his chest, sated, warm, and sure that they were making the right decision.

A sound curled around her, permeating her sleep. Her eyes popped open. Static…coming from her room. She slipped out from beneath Nash and walked across the room. Inside her bedroom, her laptop’s screen had illuminated. She stared at it.

“Hello, Grace-anomaly. I am GRAVITY. We need to converse.”