He settles beside me, close enough for warmth but far enough for choice. My body remembers the kiss—we both do—but he doesn’t push.
“I checked the perimeter,” he says. “Tracks on the ridge road were from a ranch truck. Not unknown.”
Relief loosens something in my spine. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” he murmurs. “Keeping you safe isn’t a favor. It’s…” He hesitates, searching for a word he hasn’t used in years. “Instinct,” he finishes.
The firelight flickers across his jaw, his cheekbones, his steady eyes that look at me like I’m something to protect, not something to run from.
“Wyatt?” I whisper.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know what happens next.”
“Neither do I,” he says softly. “But whatever it is… we don’t have to rush.”
But then he tilts his head, and his voice gains a new weight. “Unless you want to.”
Heat slides through me, low and insistent.
I look at him—really look—and the truth rises before I can stop it.
“I want…” My voice falters. “I want more. Of you.”
Wyatt’s jaw tightens, breath hitching. But he doesn’t reach for me. He waits.
God, the restraint of it wrecks me.
So I lean into him, slow and deliberate, and rest my head against his shoulder. His breath leaves him in a quiet rush, and then his arm lifts, tentative at first, settling around my back.
I melt into him.
“Okay,” he murmurs into my hair. “We’ll take it from here.”
No demand. No pressure.
Just a promise wrapped inside a man who keeps them.
Chapter 10
Sadie
As the quiet stretches, his arm steady around me, something Shay said nudges into my mind.
I tilt my head back to look at Wyatt. “Why did Shay call you Saint?”
Wyatt lets out a low, resigned sigh like he’s been waiting for the question.
“The callsign Jackson and Sawyer gave me.”
“Jackson and Sawyer? You mean Tex and Tank? Those are their real names?”
He nods.
“Why Saint?”
He rubs the back of his neck, a faint flush touching his cheekbones. “Because I had… morals when we were on deployment.”
