The knock wasn’t a knock. It was a fist cracking against wood like it meant to split the doorframe in two. You barely looked up from your papers, red pen suspended in air above a soldier’s psychological assessment. You’d known that sound. Regan. But something in it—wild, sharp, unchained—tightened the back of your throat. Then the door slammed open. He filled the threshold like the war itself, like noise and blood and too many winters. Steam curled off his shoulders from the frost outside. His uniform was half-undone, coat open and shirt loose, and his mouth—his mouth was parted as if he’d been running with something too big for breath caught inside him.

“Close it,” you murmured, already folding the file closed, calm as your heartbeat thundered inside your ribs. He didn’t.

“Regan?” you said, rising halfway from your chair. He didn’t answer. Just strode in, fast and uneven, and kicked the door shut with the heel of his boot hard enough to rattle the shelves. You opened your mouth again, but then you saw his eyes—glinting, feral, alive in a way you hadn’t seen since before the convoy raids.

“They told me,” he rasped. “It’s over. Done. It’s done.”

You didn’t speak. You couldn't. Because he was on you already. The table scraped back as he lifted you into his arms with a growl deep in his throat—not gentle, but not hurting. Just starved. His mouth crashed against yours, heat and desperation and breathless pressure all at once. He tasted of wind and sweat and something almost sweet, something that burned from the inside out.

“Mine,” he said into your mouth, lips trailing to your jaw, your neck. “You hear me? Mine. Not the war’s. Not this base. Not the cold. Mine.”

Your feet left the ground. You yelped—half-laugh, half-moan—as he set you down not gently on the wooden table, knocking aside files, ink bottles, and your thermos of barley coffee. Pages fluttered to the floor like defeated flags.

“We’re going back,” he hissed. “To Britain. To a bed that doesn’t creak with frost. A room that smells like you and cinnamon, not petrol and men.” He kissed down your throat, hands digging into your waist, your hips. “You’ll wear that red sweater again. The one you always said was too snug. I want you to wear it and make tea with your crab waddling behind you.”

“Regan—” you tried, but he growled and kissed the word from your tongue.

“You know how long I’ve waited to not die,” he said into the curve of your collarbone. “Not just survive, not shoot and run and shoot again—but live. With you.”

You were panting now, lips bruised, legs trembling as he pushed your skirt up in one motion like he was tearing away the last layer of war between you. The desk bit into your thighs, but you didn’t care. Your hands were in his hair, pulling, anchoring him because the moment felt like it might sweep both of you into some burning place if left untethered.

“I saw your name on the list,” he groaned against your ribs, lips moving like prayer. “They’re letting you go with me. No more papers. No more stiffs in the morgue. Just you, your damn crab, and me.”

“Back home?” you whispered, blinking rapidly. “Truly?”

He stilled. His hand came up to your cheek—calloused, dirty, trembling—and he stared at you. Not like a man. Like a wolf who’d been caged too long and had finally scented the forest again.

“I’ll buy a flat. Somewhere loud so it feels alive. I’ll cook, or learn to cook. You’ll laugh again. Real, from-your-stomach laughter. I want to hear it every day until I forget what dying sounded like.”

You nodded, tears sliding down your cheeks. He kissed them away like they tasted like his future.

“I’ll take care of you,” he promised, forehead against yours, panting. “Won’t let anyone stare. Just me. You let me look. That’s enough. I won’t stop looking. Not ever.”

“I know,” you said, voice cracking.

He kissed you again. This time slower. This time with reverence. Like he was sealing a vow into your bones. And then he picked you up again—arms locking around your thighs—and kicked the door open, not even glancing at the shocked young clerk in office.