Something flashed in his eyes—want, yes, but also restraint sharpened to a blade. “If I go in there with you, you’re not coming back out upright.”
“Promises, promises,” I muttered, but my cheeks went warm.
I was enjoying this.
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Rain check, babe. I need to keep my brain online right now.”
“Fine,” I sighed theatrically.
His voice followed me as I closed the door. “The second you need me, you say my name. I don’t care if I’m halfway across the marsh.”
There it was again, that dark, absolute thing in him.
I turned on the water and let the room fill with steam. As I stepped under the spray, I caught a flash in my mind of another kitchen long ago and water running and my mother’s voice turning to nothing. My lungs tried to close.
“Gideon?”
The door opened on the second syllable. He didn’t barge in—he just cracked it, staying on the dry side of the threshold. “Yeah?”
“I’m okay,” I said quickly. “I just—wanted to make sure you were still there.”
His shoulders dropped half an inch. “I’m not going anywhere.” He rested his palm flat against the doorframe, like he was bracing the whole room. “Get clean. I’ll be right outside.”
I scrubbed faster than usual, but the hot water did its work, chasing the chill out of my bones. By the time I wrapped a towel around myself and stepped back into the bedroom, he’d already laid out clean clothes for me—soft T-shirt, worn shorts, one of his hoodies.
He looked me over, slow, checking for more than bruises. “You good?”
“As good as I’m going to be today.” I tugged his hoodie on and watched the way his eyes heated at the sight.
“That’s mine,” he said, completely illogical.
I lifted the hem and flashed him an inch of bare thigh. “Is it?”
His nostrils flared. “You’re trying to get me to throw you back in that shower.”
“And you’re the one saying we don’t have time,” I shot back, a little pleased with myself for still being capable of banter.
He disappeared into the bathroom long enough for the pipes to groan and the steam to billow—just a quick rinse, the kind a man takes when he wants to be clean but refuses to waste time. When he came back out, droplets still clinging to his hairline, he looked sharper, more dangerous, more Gideon.
His mouth curved as he dressed. “Come on, trouble. Breakfast before I forget we have problems.”
Downstairs, the kitchen smelled delicious.
“Sit,” Maude ordered the second she saw me, pointing at a chair like a general. “You look better. Still peaked, but better. We’ll fix that.”
I sat. Gideon hovered behind my chair, one hand on the back of it. Every time Maude moved too close to the back door or thewindow, his gaze tracked her. He was a caged wolf in a room full of people he’d decided were his.
She set a plate in front of me that could have fed a small regiment—eggs, bacon, biscuits, fruit. Another one landed in front of Gideon, even bigger.
“Eat,” she said. “You’re both too thin for my liking.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, because arguing with Maude about food was a waste of breath.
We dug in. For a few blessed minutes, the only conversation was between forks and plates. It wasn’t until my second biscuit that the question that had been sitting at the edge of my mind elbowed its way in.
“So,” I said, swallowing hard. “How do we … live? With him out there?”
The room tightened. Gideon’s hand found my shoulder, thumb drawing a line along my collarbone like he was reminding himself I was solid.
