Only Her Touch
Later, tangled together in the soft dark, Roberto's fingers tracing slow, absent patterns along her spine, Alicia allowed herself, for the first time in weeks, to simply exist inside her own happiness without immediately searching for the next threat waiting to interrupt it.
It didn't last long. It rarely did.
Roberto's phone buzzed softly against the nightstand sometime near dawn, and he reached for it with visible reluctance, blinking against the pale early light.
"It's Marsh," he said, sitting up slowly, his expression sharpening the moment he read the message.