She was a dead weight against him, slumped and trembling, her face buried in the crook of his neck. Soap held her, his arms wrapped tight around her back, his own breathing a harsh, ragged rhythm against the side of her head. He was still inside her, softening now, but she pulsed around him in slow, involuntary flutters—aftershocks that made his own spent muscles twitch in sympathy.
The bunker was silent except for their labored breaths. The air was thick with the smell of them—sweat, sex, the sharp tang of gun oil from their discarded gear. The canvas of the cot was rough and damp under his thighs.
Her whole body shook. It wasn’t a chill. It was a deep, systemic tremor, the kind that follows a total structural failure. He could feel it in the muscles of her back under his palms, in the way her ribs expanded with each shuddering inhale against his chest.
He waited for his voice to find its way back from the raw place he’d shouted it into. His throat felt scraped clean. “Sam.” Her name was a low rasp, barely audible. He cleared his throat, tried again. “You okay?”
She made a sound. A small, muffled noise against his skin. It wasn’t a word. It wasn’t pain. It was a soft, broken exhale that vibrated through her chest into his.
Soap closed his eyes. The realization hit him like a delayed round. He’d fucked her senseless. Completely. The precise, clinical medic who’d taped his wound with steady hands was gone, dissolved into this boneless, trembling creature in his lap. A fierce, possessive warmth flooded his chest, followed immediately by a sharper edge of concern.
He shifted his hands, one sliding up to cradle the back of her head, his fingers threading into her damp hair. The other rubbed slow, firm circles on the tight muscles of her lower back. “Easy,” he murmured, his brogue rough. “I’ve got you. Just breathe.”
She nuzzled deeper into his neck, her nose cold against his overheated skin. Another tremor racked her, and she let out a shaky sigh that was almost a sob. The sound went straight through him.
“That’s it,” he whispered. “Let it out. No one here but me.”
He kept up the motion on her back, feeling the knots begin to loosen under his palm. Her breathing started to even out, the frantic gasps slowing into something deeper, though the occasional shudder still took her. He could feel the slick heat of her, the evidence of both of them, cooling between their bodies.
Slowly, carefully, he began to rock her. Not a sexual motion. A gentle, side-to-side sway, like calming a spooked animal. The cot creaked softly beneath them.
After a long minute, she stirred. Her hands, which had been limp at her sides, came up to rest weakly against his chest. Her fingers curled slightly, not gripping, just resting on the scarred skin over his sternum.
“M’sorry,” she mumbled, the word slurred and thick against his collarbone.
Soap went still. “Sorry?”
“For… collapsing. Unprofessional.”
A low laugh rumbled in his chest. It felt strange after the violence of before. “Christ, woman. Unprofessional?” He tightened his arm around her. “You just took me apart. There’s no protocol for that.”
She was silent for a moment. Then her head tilted slightly, her lips brushing his skin as she spoke. “Did I?”
“Aye.” The word was absolute. “You did.”
He felt her breathe in, a long, slow draw of air that filled her lungs and pressed her more firmly against him. Her fingers flexed once against his chest. A silent acknowledgment.
The last of the tension seemed to leave her then, the final tremor subsiding into a profound, heavy stillness. She was utterly pliant in his arms. Soap rested his cheek against the top of her head, staring at the opposite concrete wall. The emergency light cast long, stark shadows. The world outside this room—the raid, the mission, the waiting silence—felt like a distant rumor.
Here, there was only the weight of her, the slowing beat of her heart against his, and the quiet, humbling truth that she trusted him enough to fall apart completely. He had never held anything so shattered, or so whole.