He looked at her, and the room stopped breathing. That stillness, the one that lived in his bones, deep and primal, wrapped around her like gravity, drawing her in with a force her trembling hands couldn’t fight.
He wasn’t just a man standing in front of her.
He was a storm she had walked straight into, and her whole body answered like it had always belonged in the eye of it.
Her knees almost buckled.
She caught the doorframe with one hand because he shifted her world, unbalanced her. How was she supposed to remember why she’d come here? How was she supposed to form a single coherent thought with this man standing in front of her like that?
His eyes locked onto hers, bear-dark, fierce, quiet, and wanting, and the whole world collapsed to the heat in his gaze, like he was calling her home with nothing but the way he looked at her. The water still clung to his body, beads sliding down every carved line of muscle, and something low inside her trembled, answering him before she could stop it.
“Bailee,” he said, low, still dripping, still devastating.
Her breath caught. Her mouth went desert-dry. Her pulse thudded in wild, helpless rhythm.
Every inch of him called to her. Every fear in her screamed. Every truth in her whispered, yes.
She swallowed hard, chest tight, heart hammering like it wanted out, wanted him, wanted to stop running from the thing she wanted most.
She had come here to give herself to him, not with a perfect explanation or a healed heart, but in the only way she knew wouldn’t break him further. She didn’t want to keep hurting him. She didn’t want to keep pushing him away. She hated herself for every wall she’d thrown up, and she didn’t know how to stop.
But with him standing there, water sliding over skin and silence wrapped around him like power, all she could think was?—
Oh, Ancestors. I want him. Great Spirit help me, I want him.
The words she needed to say, the promises she needed to make, the life she needed to take back, all of it scattered like thin, useless ash. Blown away in a mind that had been running for so long that stopping felt dangerous, unfamiliar. Like finding footing on a rocky path she wasn’t sure she had the strength to climb.
Yet here she was.
Shaking.
Wanting.
Standing in front of the one man who made her feel seen…
and terrified
and alive
and unworthy
and whole
all at once.
She couldn’t run anymore.
16
At this moment, everything faded. It was just her and Dakota, and her desire to have him was nothing short of desperation. Her whole body vibrated with such a powerful surge of adrenaline, there was no stopping her. Her eyes roamed over him as she pulled the tank over her head, slipped out of her panties as she crossed the room to where he was standing.
“Bailee,” he whispered, his breathing ragged, his voice husky.
With a jerk, she met storm-soaked bark, rich and burning at the edges as they bored into her, searing her with that aching look. Color slashed across his high cheekbones. His gaze raked down the length of her naked body. His eyes lingered on her chest, and in response, her breasts swelled, and her nipples tightened even more until they were almost painful.
She reached him, and he was so still, as if he was carved out of granite. She leaned into him, and when the throbbing tips of her breasts touched the hard, damp wall of his chest, she gasped at the exquisite pleasure.
He clasped her to him, the exquisite feel of his hard, ridged belly, thick, mouth-watering erection, and heavily muscled thighs aligning so perfectly with hers, sending arousal thrumming heavily through her veins. His dick swelled against her.
