Page 92 of Under Her Command

“You’re sweaty,” she said, voice rough with sleep.

“I ran.”

“I know. I heard your shoes hit the porch like a stampede.”

Victoria rolled her eyes, but the corners of her mouth tugged up. She crossed the room anyway, drawn like she always was, and pressed a kiss to Isabel’s cheek. Her skin was warm, soft, smelling faintly of shampoo and cinnamon sugar.

“Good morning,” Victoria murmured.

“Mmm.” Isabel’s smile widened as she slid a hand around Victoria’s waist, tugging her a fraction closer. “Better now.”

They stood there for a moment, the cat weaving between their legs, the coffee machine humming in the background, the kettle clicking softly as it finished boiling. Outside, the city was waking up—cars starting, gulls crying near the bay, distant sirens cutting faintly through the air—but inside, everything was soft and slow and exactly the right size.

Victoria glanced at the ring again, then at Isabel, at the way her eyes had gone soft around the edges, at the little wrinkle at the bridge of her nose that appeared when she was truly relaxed.

“You know,” Victoria said quietly, “I used to think mornings were for discipline.” Five a.m. alarms. Perfectly timed runs. Showers cold enough to shock her brain into readiness. Reports reviewed by seven. No room for softness, no time for anything that looked like indulgence.

Isabel raised an eyebrow, but there was no teasing in her gaze now, only curiosity. “And now?”

Victoria let out a slow breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding. She glanced around their kitchen—the photos, the mugs, the cat, the robe Isabel had stolen from her months ago and never given back—and then met Isabel’s eyes again.

“Now they’re for this.”

Isabel’s smile started slow and spread, bright and sure, lighting up her whole face. She tightened her arms around Victoria and pulled her close enough that their foreheads brushed.

“Good answer,” she murmured.

Victoria closed her eyes for a heartbeat, letting the moment sink in—the solid warmth of Isabel’s body against hers, the faint purr of the cat as she circled them again, the low whir of the coffee machine, the sun slipping higher over Phoenix Ridge.

There would still be long days and hard cases and difficult choices. There would still be paperwork and politics and moments when the job felt too heavy. But for the first time in as long as she could remember, Victoria didn’t feel like she had to carry all of it alone.

She had a home to run back to.

She had someone waiting with coffee and cinnamon and a lazy smile that belonged only to her.

And as Isabel pressed another kiss to the corner of her mouth and Moxie meowed indignantly for attention at their feet, Victoria knew—down to the quietest, most guarded parts of herself—that she wasn’t just holding on anymore.

She’d finally, fully let go.

And she’d landed exactly where she was meant to be.