The first thing I feel is his warmth.
Not the cheap motel blanket or the low hum of the wall heater rattling in its casing—but him. Solid, breathing evenly beside me, stretching from shoulder to knee.
Elias.
His arm is slung loosely around my waist, his chest pressed against my back like a second skin. His legs are intertwined with mine.
My eyes adjust to the early light leaking through the threadbare curtains. It filters in gold and dusty, making the outline of his body behind me feel dreamlike. Carefully, I shift just enough to look at him. His curls are a mess, a sunlit halo of tangled blond, half-curled over his forehead, brushing the ridge of his brow. There’s a tiny crease between his eyebrows even now, like some part of him is still half-listening for trouble.
God.
He’s beautiful like this. Real. I let my eyes trace the curve of his jaw, the soft slope of his nose, the spot near the corner of his mouth that always twitches when he’s holding back a joke. I’ve never really seen him like this, apart from that one time we spent the night together in that awful motel at the beginning of this case—back when we thought the farmhouse victim was just another Jane Doe instead of the centerpiece.
Last night flickers in fragments. His mouth on mine. The way he kissed me like he’d already imagined it a million times before, like he’d been waiting to be given permission—not just to touch, but to feel. The press of his body, solid and sure. Hands that didn’t grab but held, fingers spanning my ribcage trying to memorize how I fit in his hands. My hands in his hair, curling at the ends where I tugged him closer.
I remember the sound he made—quiet, low in his throat. His lips trailing from my mouth to my jaw, the hush of his breath skimming my skin, one hand sliding up the back of my neck, anchoring me there, like he needed me to feel how real this was. How real he was.
The way he whispered my name like it was something holy. Like I was something worth praying for.
I don’t know what to do with that. I never let myself imagine what it would be like to be wanted by someone who saw every broken edge and still reached.
I pull away gently, careful not to wake him, and slide out from under the blanket. The cold floor kisses the soles of my feet as I cross the room to the kitchenette. The coffee machine is old, chipped at the base, its handle crooked from God only knows what. I fill it with tap water and enough grounds to drown in coffee. It grumbles to life with a dying wheeze, and I lean on the counter, arms folded, watching it fill. I occasionally peek at Elias, in case he is nothing but a dream my sleep-deprived brain conjured.
The motel is quiet. So is the world.
And for the first time in months, my brain isn’t scrambling for leads or tracing threads on caseboards. I’m not calculating risk, just standing barefoot in a motel room with a man I love.
Yeah.
That word echoes, sharp and sudden.
I’ve loved him, I think, longer than I’ve let myself admit. It was always there, waiting in the corners—when he brought me soup during that one flu week, when he pulled me out of that warehouse fire before I could even register I was in danger, or any other time he showed up and said nothing at all because silence was the only language I could speak that day. I have never let myself touch this feeling. Because we are partners. Because I was married. Because it was safer to keep him in the space between, while I could offer nothing but drown in grief and pretend otherwise.
Last night broke something open and I can’t pretend I don’t see it now.
The coffee machine hisses one last breath and clicks off. I pour the coffee into a chipped mug and add two spoons of sugar. I take mine black.
Behind me, the blankets shift as I turn with the two mugs in hand and the funniest expression on my face.
A smile.
Elias blinks at me, slow and still half-asleep. His curls are flattened on one side, and there’s a crease across his cheek from the pillowcase. He looks like something out of a novel—handsome in that quietly ruined way.
“Morning,” he murmurs, voice sandpapered with sleep.
I try to hide my smile into the rim of the cup. “Barely.”
He stretches, arms overhead, shirt riding up just slightly to show a sliver of pale skin at his waist. I try not to stare. Fail.
“You got up without me,” Elias says, mock-offended.
“I made coffee,” I counter.
He doesn’t answer right away, but takes both mugs from my hands and sets them down on the side table, ceramic clinking. His eyes are glinting with something serious and fully unreadable as he takes my wrists gently in both hands.
“Is everything—” I start, but before I can finish, I stumble half-laughing, half-thrown, and land with a soft thud against the mattress, my body caught between gravity and him. He comes with me, hands intertwining with mine.
“You forgot to add milk,” Elias says, all fake solemnity. “Very serious breach.”
His smile is lopsided, stupidly charming and too handsome for how little effort he’s putting in. My heartbeat stumbles as I look at him, this version of Elias I’ve always known was there but never seen to this extent.
“You’re ridiculous,” I mutter, but I’m already smiling.
He shifts beneath me, his hand finding my waist, fingers brushing under the edge of my tank top, rough from calluses. My breath catches, not because it’s too much, but because it’s almost too good. His thumb traces the curve of my hip, slow, reverent, like he can’t quite believe I’m here.
His hand slides up my back, under the fabric, just enough to press against bare skin. He doesn’t push. Just holds me there, thumb tracing lazy circles at the base of my spine. I lean down to kiss him. My fingers find his curls and thread through as he lets out a low exhale.
My tank top rides up further as his hands glide beneath it—fingertips trailing fire over my bare skin. He doesn’t rush, but it feels like he is mapping every inch like a study.
I gasp softly into his mouth when his palm slides higher, over my breast. He slows, lips lingering at the corner of my mouth, then down to my jaw, then lower—brushing against the side of my neck, thumb gently circling my nipple. His stubble is rough and the contrast makes me shiver.
“You’re so beautiful,” Elias whispers, like it’s something he wasn’t supposed to say but couldn’t hold back.
I blink down at him, breathless, stunned by how much I want to believe him. He leans back just enough to see my face. His eyes are heavy-lidded, golden in the motel light, curls a mess from sleep and my hands.
“Tell me this means something,” he says suddenly.
My chest aches.
“Detective Wexler,” I start, a grin spreading across my face. “The evidence suggests that this, indeed, means something.”
His mouth crashes into mine again—desperate this time. Our bodies shift together, tangled. I pull him closer, wrap my legs around his hips. He breaks the kiss, breathing hard and laughing at the same time. “You undo me.”
I’m smiling so much my face is starting to hurt. “Good.”
We are laughing like two idiots. I’m straddling him, tank top pushed high, his shirt wrinkled under my palms. He’s all muscle and warmth and tension beneath me, his hands now at my thighs, fingers twitching like he’s trying to keep them still.
His head tilts back, bottomless ocean eyes staring at me with sorrow suddenly. “Dalia—”
I know immediately what he is thinking about.
We stay like that—my legs folded around him, hair falling in a curtain around our faces, his heartbeat thundering beneath me like a war drum I don’t want to stop hearing. He doesn’t say anything else, just cups my cheek and kisses me again. Slower this time, like he already knows what it’ll feel like to lose me.
But he doesn’t let go and neither do I.
When the adrenaline fades, we lie back down, legs tangled, faces close. He strokes my side with one hand, the other lost in my hair. I curl into him, press my forehead to the curve of his throat. I feel him kiss the crown of my head and I wish we could stay like this for days, months.
We don’t leave the room. The curtains stay shut, thin motel fabric filtering in just enough light to make everything look sepia-toned—soft and unreal. Elias stretches out beside me, one hand folded behind his head, the other laced with mine. There’s a kind of peace in him I don’t recognize.
My voice breaks the silence first. “We should probably get food.”
Elias grunts softly, eyes still closed. “Food’s overrated.”
“You say that until you’re starving and eat four protein bars in a row like a war criminal.”
He chuckles. “Those bars were expired.”
“You knew that and still ate them.”
“I was trying to impress you.”
“You’re disgusting,” I whisper, smiling despite myself.
He turns his head toward me slowly, like this moment is fragile enough to shatter if he moves too fast. “But it worked, didn’t it?”
I face him. “I’m so very impressed.”
He gently flicks my nose.
“I’m scared,” I admit, because I can. The words rush out of me despite the playfulness of the moment. “And I’m angry.”
The admission surprises even me. The anger I’ve been carrying—at Markus, at myself for letting Wren slip away that day, at the system that thinks bureaucracy can solve what blood and obsession built. At the way this case has carved hollows in me I didn’t know existed.
“I know.”
“And feel guilty.” My voice drops to a whisper. “For this. For wanting something while they’re still out there.”
Elias says nothing at first, just traces patterns on my skin like he’s reading evidence I can’t see.
“You’re allowed to live,” he says finally. “Even after. Even during.”
The ache in my chest pulses, a quiet weight pressing just beneath the ribs. Outside these walls, the real world waits—Locke with her polished control, the commune with its hungry darkness, the endless parade of missing women who become Jane Does become cold cases become forgotten files in someone else’s cabinet.
“Why didn’t you ever…?” I start, then let the question hang.
“Date?” Elias finishes, voice light but careful.
I glance back, surprised he read my mind. But then again, we’ve always been good at reading each other. It’s what made us work as partners long before we worked as whatever this is.
“Yeah.”
He shrugs like it’s nothing. He traces circles on the back of my hand with the same methodical precision he uses to map crime scenes. “You were always there.”
I don’t say anything for a long second. He fills the silence with a small, almost apologetic smile.
“You were my partner,” he continues. “Still are, technically. It didn’t seem fair to anyone else. I couldn’t imagine trying with someone who wasn’t you.”
I let out a breath that sounds too much like a laugh. Not because it’s funny—but because it’s the only thing I can do to keep from feeling dizzy.
“I always thought you were just picky,” I murmur.
“Oh, I am,” he laughs and kisses my hand.
It should be nothing—just a light kiss to the back of my knuckles, a warm breath, a quick smile—but it crackles under my skin like live current. His lips linger there for a moment longer than they need to. My pulse is going wild in places I didn’t know could ache like this. I watch him, the curve of his profile as he ducks his head a little, curls falling forward like they’re always meant to. He doesn’t meet my eyes right away, maybe because he’s afraid of what he’ll see there.
I shift a little closer. My bare feet brushes his under the blanket.
“You really are a fool,” I say softly.
My heart stutters. There’s a part of me—frayed and wrecked from all of this—that wants to bolt. The part that knows this moment will make everything harder when we have to walk back into the precinct and pretend we’re just partners again. The part that’s terrified of losing the one constant in a career built on examining loss.
I lift my hand, touch the edge of his jaw with my fingertips. He grins back at me, a little crooked.
“I know,” Elias responds. “But I’m your fool.”
The words hang between us like a promise and a threat. Because tomorrow we’ll have to face Locke’s cold calculations and Everett’s bureaucratic demands and the endless machinery of a system that doesn’t care about the people it claims to serve. Tomorrow I’ll have to step back into the darkness of this case and pretend my heart isn’t beating in a completely different rhythm.
But this morning, in this shabby motel room with case files and coffee growing cold on the nightstand, I’m allowed to be something other than the detective who couldn’t save her own daughter.
This morning, I’m just Dalia and that’s enough.
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