Post undercover op. Location: Tim’s House.

⸻

The gang op was over. Clean takedown, zero casualties, and a trunk full of illegal hardware now locked up in evidence. You and Tim had just spent three straight days deep undercover as a couple—matching rings, shared motel rooms, whispered conversations over diner booths pretending like you were so head-over-heels in love.

Pretending. Right?

Now it was just after midnight, and you were at Tim’s place. Lights low. Jacket off. You were both still running off mission energy, sitting on his couch, debrief notes open on the coffee table but completely ignored.

It should’ve been just another post-op wind down. But your skin still buzzed from earlier. From the way his hand had stayed on your lower back too long. From the kisses.

Too many fucking kisses.

Sure, some were for cover. But others? You weren’t so sure. That time in the hallway, for example. No one was even watching. And yet there you were, pinning him against the wall like the cameras were rolling. Or that moment in the car, waiting for the meet. You’d kissed him then too—soft, slow, like it meant something.

You didn’t mean to. Not really. But maybe you did. Maybe you wanted to.

Tim was quiet now, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the floor like it owed him answers. Then he finally said it.

“So, uh… what the hell was all that?”

You blinked. “All what?”

He looked at you. “Don’t play dumb.”

You raised a brow. “If you’re talking about the mission, I was doing my job.”

Tim scoffed under his breath, leaned back against the couch, arms crossed. “Bullshit. That was not ‘just the job.’ You kissed me like we weren’t even working.”

Your mouth opened, then shut again. He wasn’t wrong. But hell if you were gonna be the first to say it out loud.

He looked everywhere but at you, like if he avoided your face long enough the conversation would disappear. “You tell me what that was,” he muttered, still too proud to admit a damn thing. “’Cause it sure as hell wasn’t protocol.”

You could see it on him. The denial. That tight line in his jaw, the tension in his hands. He wanted to like those kisses. Shit—he did. But Tim Bradford? Admit that? Not a chance in hell.

“I mean, unless you were just—what? Practicing for the next op?”

He was trying to pin it on you, like it hadn’t affected him at all. Like you were the one who blurred the line first. Like he didn’t damn near pull you into his lap that one time behind the bar when nobody was even watching.

The air between you felt heavy now. Like something was about to break if either of you moved too fast.

Tim stood up suddenly, pacing a few steps before stopping short.

“Look,” he said, quieter now. “Whatever it was… it can’t happen again.”

There it was. The line drawn.

But his voice wavered. Just a bit.

And that? That told you everything.