His gaze met hers for a brief, direct moment. Something flickered there, and then settled.
Dakota shifted under the covers carefully her movements slow, each one considered, the weakness of her body requiring her full attention, and drew the blanket back on the empty side beside her. The fabric rustled softly in the room's hush, the hollow she had made in the bedding a wordless, unambiguous invitation.
"Come here," she said quietly.
Kade went still.
"I have work...."
"The work has waited long enough," she said, gently and without force, cutting across the objection before it fully formed. "Sit down."
No command in it. No demand that asked too much of either of them. Just the steady, clear assessment of someone who could see his need more plainly than he was allowing himself to see it, who understood, perhaps better than he did in that moment, what another few hours of this particular discipline would cost him.
