She wanted everything she’d denied herself when she’d been drowning in panic and ghosts.
But with him?
She felt almost found.
The air changed.
He hadn’t moved. Hadn’t spoken. But something in him shifted, something low and primal that struck her like a current. His nostrils flared. His jaw flexed. His eyes, already dark, turned molten, pinning her in place with a heat that saw straight through her.
He felt it. The want radiating off her in waves. The ache she hadn’t spoken aloud but had no chance of hiding now.
For a split second, the distance between them pulsed like a live wire.
Then, just barely, his hands curled into fists at his sides.
Control. It thrummed off him.
He was holding himself still with the same kind of restraint that cracked bones and forged warriors. Not because he didn’t want her. But because he wouldn’t take until she reached for him first.
That…that…undid her more than any kiss could.
She tried to retreat, to remember her pride, but her mouth moved before her spine could stiffen.
“What are you doing here?” Her voice cracked like brittle porcelain. “You need to go.”
His jaw flexed. That unreadable expression sharpened into something dangerous and immovable.
“You’re crazy if you think I’m going anywhere.”
He stepped over the threshold before she could stop him, crowding her space, not in challenge but in claim. Her body betrayed her completely. Her knees wanted to buckle. Her spine wanted to melt. She’d been so strong, so stubborn, so unwilling to ask for help, and now the very sound of his voice was undoing her.
She felt it the moment his hand landed on her back, broad and warm through the threadbare fabric of her shirt. A simple touch. Nothing more. But it detonated something deep.
The center of her chest went tight, her eyes burned. Her body remembered him as sanctuary. Her soul remembered him as home.
He turned toward the kitchen and froze.
“Christ,” he muttered under his breath. His face tightened in a way that had nothing to do with judgment and everything to do with fury, fury at her pain, at her pride, at the goddamn state of things. “I’m not leaving you like this. So get used to it.”
She was too stunned to fight. Too raw to protest. In three strides, he had her moving toward the sofa, careful not to jostle her, like she was something both precious and fragile.
Then she heard it.
Footsteps.
Voices.
The creak of the porch.
Bailee jerked her head toward the door and saw them, three figures standing just outside, framed by dusk and uncertainty. Teenaged boys. Well, not boys, not really. Young men. Big enough to make her wince at the idea of whatever came next.
She blinked. Once. Twice. “Oh, for the love of the Ancestors, you brought back up?” she hissed.
Two handsome-as-sin redheads, one with a mop of unruly hair, the other shaved down to tufts of silk. The third kid, holy hell. Tall, Native, and stunning. She looked at Bear, then back to the boy. They had to be related. His brother?
The first redhead stepped forward with an easy grin that made him look pure rogue. “Flynn Gallagher. ‘Fly,’ ma’am,” he offered. “This is Cormac Kavanaugh. We call him Shamrock.” The buzzed guy gave her a little salute, like she was some queen and he was the court jester.
Then came the third.
