Slade slept like he fought—full contact, no wasted space.

Beds were optional. Distance was not.

He settled behind her with the same inevitability he brought to everything else, body heavy and warm, draped over her lower back and hip like an anchor dropped on purpose. It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t subtle. It was habit.

“Don’t move,” he muttered, already half gone. “You’re comfortable.”

An arm slung low. A knee hooked just enough to keep her there. Not possessive—practical. Like if he kept contact, the world stayed where it belonged.

Slade exhaled, long and slow, the tension bleeding out of him the second he had something solid beneath him. Something real. He slept deeper like this. Faster. Like his body finally believed it was allowed to shut down.

If she shifted, he adjusted without waking, weight redistributing automatically, grip tightening just a fraction before relaxing again.

People thought Slade needed silence to sleep.

What he actually needed was proof he wasn’t alone.

And somehow, somewhere along the way, this—this ridiculous, unignorable closeness—had become the only way he could rest at all.