His breath was ragged when he whispered her name. “Winter.”
“Jace,” she whimpered, her voice soft and unsteady, but full of trust that he probably didn’t deserve from her. He lifted her easily, her fingers clutching at his shirt as he carried her toward the bedroom. The cabin walls creaked around them, the storm outside raging harder, but none of it touched the heat that pulsed between them.
The world narrowed to the sound of the fire, the slide of breath against skin, the quiet surrender of two people who had lost too much to keep pretending. “Be sure, honey,” he whispered as he gently laid her across the bed that they had been sharing. “Because if we do this, I won’t be able to walk away from you again. I can’t promise that I’ll be able to stay with you and the baby in Huntsville if the Dead Rabbits keep sniffing around Savage Heat.” Jace worried that Winter wasn’t going to understand what he was trying to tell her until she smiled up at him and nodded.
“Where you go, I go,” she simply stated. Yeah, she got his meaning.
“Even if that means that we can’t stay in Huntsville,” he stipulated. “Are you sure that you can be good with that?” he asked.
She quickly nodded her agreement. “As long as we can be with you, Jace, I’m good with it.” He wasn’t sure how he’d gotten so lucky, but he wasn’t about to question her further. “Just love me, Jace.” He wanted to tell her that he already loved her—probably had since the one night that he finally gave in to his desires for her and made her his. It was the night that they had created their son, and he’d take nothing back from that night.
Jace wasted no time stripping Winter out of his sweats that she borrowed from him. And when he stood to look her over, he nearly swallowed his damn tongue. She was beautiful with her belly swollen with his baby. God, she was the sexiest fucking woman on the planet. His inner caveman wanted to thump his chest and shout that she belonged to him, but they would get to that soon enough.
He stripped out of his clothes, and Winter held her arms out to him, an invitation that he wouldn’t refuse. “I’ve waited so long for you, honey,” he whispered, covering her with his body. “I’m worried that we’ll hurt the baby, though.”
“We won’t,” she wiggled to her side, and he did the same, pulling her into his body. “This might not work either,” she said, frowning down at her body. “I might just be too big for sex.”
He wasn’t willing to accept defeat. “Stay put,” he said, gently kissing her lips as he stood from the bed. He quickly got back onto the bed behind her body and tugged her close. She moaned as he palmed her breasts with his hands, and when she pushed her ass back against his cock, he knew that he had figured out a way for them to work around her belly.
“This is okay, then?” he asked. She moaned and wiggled her ass against his cock, and he couldn’t help his chuckle. “I’m going to take that as a yes.” He snaked his hand under her belly and found her soaking wet for him. He ran his fingers through her drenched folds, and she moaned his name. Jace knew that she wasn’t going to last long, not with the way that she was riding his fingers, and that worked for him because he wanted inside of her more than he wanted his next breath.
“Jace,” she shouted again. He lined his cock up with her wet opening and slid in from behind her. It was his turn to moan as she rode him, finding her release on his fingers.
“So fucking good,” he whispered into her ear from behind as he started pumping in and out of her body.
“You feel so fucking good, baby,” he breathed.
“You do too, Jace,” she whimpered. He wrapped his big hands over her breasts, plucking her taut nipples, loving the little gasps and sighs that she gave him. And when she came for him a second time, Jace couldn’t hold back his release any longer. He pumped into her body a few more times, and when he came deep inside of her, he couldn’t help but wrap his arms around her sated body and whisper the word that he’d been dying to say to her.
“Mine.”
Jace woke before the sun. It was an old habit of his from years of training. But this time, it wasn’t instinct that kept him still — it was the weight of Winter against his chest, warm and soft. Her breathing was slow and even, telling him that she was still sleeping and he didn’t want to wake her. She had been up most of the night, tossing and turning, trying to get comfortable while the baby seemed to play soccer inside of her. Winter’s hair brushed his chin, and her hand rested over his, where it curved protectively around her stomach.
The fire had burned down to embers in the front room, and the cabin was quiet. It was the kind of quiet that usually made his nerves hum, but for once, it didn’t. Not right away. For the first time in what felt like years, the silence didn’t mean danger. It meant peace, and that was something new for him. He’d forgotten what that felt like.
Jace let himself breathe her in — the scent of soap and smoke from the fire mixed with the faint sweetness of her skin. It touched something deep inside him, something that he wasn’t used to wanting this much. He didn’t want to move or think, butthinking was all he seemed to do since Winter showed up on his doorstep.
Every minute they stayed at the cabin, the odds of their being safe there got worse. The Dead Rabbits weren’t the type to give up, and Bolt’s call last night had said enough: they were circling Savage Hell, sniffing for ghosts—namely, him. If one of them followed the wrong trail or found someone who still believed Jace was breathing, it would all come down on them fast. He couldn’t let that happen. Not to her or their kid.
Winter stirred then, her voice soft. “You’re awake,” she said.
He looked down at her, managing a half-smile. “So are you,” he teased.
She smiled faintly, sleepy-eyed and beautiful in a way that punched the air right out of him. For a second, he almost forgot where they were or how much danger they were in. He brushed his thumb over her cheek. “You, okay?”
“I am now,” she murmured, snuggling against his body. “Are you?”
He didn’t hesitate. “I am,” he admitted.
It wasn’t a lie. But it wasn’t the truth either. He was more than okay with Winter by his side now. He was standing on the edge of something he’d never let himself want — a life that could break him if he lost it, and that scared the shit out of him. But it should scare him—right? He was on the cusp of having everything that he ever wanted, and one visit from the Dead Rabbits could take away his new happiness.
They lay in bed, tangled up in each other for what felt like an eternity. And when she drifted back to sleep, he carefully slid out of bed, grabbed his jeans from the floor, and pulled them on. The cold hit him as soon as he opened the front door of the cabin. Snow glittered like glass in the early light, untouched except for the small circle of ground he’d cleared last night. Or so he thought.
Something caught his eye, and it just felt off. He crouched in the snow to assess the scene and groaned when he realized what he had found—footprints. They weren’t his, or Winter’s, and that meant that someone had been sneaking around his cabin while they slept.
The boot prints were big and heavy, with every step looking to be a deliberate mark in the snow. The prints came up close to the porch — close enough to see through the front window if the fire had been burning bright enough. Jace felt sick to his stomach seeing how close they came to the cabin.
“Jace?” Winter’s voice came from behind him, from the front door where she stood watching him.
