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He mumbles in his sleep, his head heavy against your chest. Something about keeping that kid off the streets, off speed. Something about how the only kind of speed that kid should have in his life is track and field. A hand on his head and you wake him up, reluctantly, like one might wake a slumbering child. He mumbles he loves you and climbs over you out of bed, catching the warmth in your eyes as he passes you over. It’s easy, you know. With him, you don’t even have to try. He can read you like an open and shut case. Every blink, every nod, every wrinkle. You’re convinced he knows what you’ve been wanting to say to him before you even realized it yourself. You feel naked around him. It’s terrifying, it’s shameful, it’s… relieving. At some point, you gave up putting up your walls. Walls are helpless against men built like battering rams. He holds the power now that you’ve stopped trying to keep him out. But he doesn’t, really, because you’ve never told him you love him back. But he could read your mind to you if he wanted to, so he holds the power, but it doesn’t feel that way. Not when you can silence him with a glance, make him blush with a touch, leave him in a daze with a single chaste kiss… it’s exhilarating. Remember the last time you felt this way? Mixing police work and pleasure? You know you shouldn’t. It’s dangerous. You know how it clouds your judgment, how the world intensifies when your partner is your partner. You shouldn’t, you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t. But when was the last time you broke the rules? You break the rules every night with the smoke between your lips. You know it’s bad for you. Do you really think the knowing makes it okay? It doesn’t, but it makes it exciting. It makes it better. It puts you in the driver’s seat, gives you control over your own danger. Control, restraint, composure. You are less of yourself without it. You look over at a man who is the definition of a bad decision. That a man like that would give you all the control in the world, and that that would make you feel the safest you’ve ever felt. He fumbles with his socks, finally pulling a mismatched pair over his feet. You reach under the bed and place a matching sock into his hands. You tell him you love him too.