That was all it had been since he and his team broke into Rose’s home and snatched her from her bed, and yet it felt like a lifetime.
In those nine days, everything he thought he knew about himself had been turned on its head. He’d come to the realization that what Dr. Gardner had done to him had broken parts of himself that could never be put back together, but it hadn't broken him.
The proof of that was that he’d managed to find the strength and control to put Rose’s needs before his own. Instead of forcing her to honor the deal they’d made, that she remain their prisoner until her brother was dead, he’d given her the freedom to take the reins of her own life.
“You going up to bed?” Dragon asked as Steel switched off the kitchen lights and headed for the stairs.
“Yeah,” he answered wearily. He hadn't slept since Rose called Ridge, and while he could stay awake longer than forty-eight hours when needed, these last two days had been a rollercoaster ride of fear and emotion. More emotion than he’d felt in a decade, and it had caught up with him.
“We’ll get him,” Dragon assured him.
That Ridge had gotten away, obviously remained conscious through the crash, and fled, calling in a helicopter to come and pick him up, should mean that the op was a failure. But since he’d gotten Rose back alive, Steel was having trouble seeing it as such.
“We won’t stop until we do,” he agreed.
“It’s going to be okay,” Dragon added somewhat awkwardly. “Everything will work out the way it’s supposed to.”
“Maybe time you took your own advice,” he told his teammate, his friend, his brother. A man he had fought alongside for almost a third of their lives, a man he trusted with his life, a man who had given in to the monster inside him instead of fighting against it.
If Dragon couldn’t find the strength to put Cassandra first, he was going to lose the woman they all knew he’d fallen in love with.
Love. As Dragon nodded his acknowledgment and disappeared into the Gothic mansion’s darkness, and Steel headed up to his room, the word swirled through his mind.
Did he love Rose?
Since he’d given her the freedom she craved, he had to believe that he did. The thought was terrifying because he never expected to love anyone who wasn't one of his team. Rose was different than his brothers, she’d suffered at her brother’s hands, but there was a softness inside her that she fought against, beat down, because she knew softness could become weakness.
As he stepped into his room, Steel’s gaze moved immediately to the bed, and the small lump curled up in the middle of it. At the sight of his little ladybug still fast asleep in his bed, wearing one of his shirts, the anxiety bubbling in his gut subsided.
By some miracle, Rose had chosen him when given a chance at freedom.
Offering her choices had been terrifying, but it was the only thing he could do. His little ladybug had lived enough of her life in a prison, she deserved the chance to fly high. He just hadn't expected her to fly right back there with him to the place he’d locked her away as though she were nothing but a tool to be used.
Only now he knew Rose was so much more than that.
She was everything.
Stripping off his sweatpants, Steel pulled back the covers enough that he could slide beneath them without lifting them off Rose. While her body temperature had returned to normal by the time they arrived back at the mansion, she’d told him she was still sensitive to cold.
There were new bruises on her body, and she had her second concussion in a week, so Steel tried to be gentle when he molded his body to hers, tucking himself around her like a protective shield.
With a small content sigh, she snuggled closer, her hair tickling his chin, her breath warm against his collarbone. That warmth spread inside him, and even though he had Rose pressed against him, it wasn't enough.
Too much distance.
He needed to be inside her, needed to meld their bodies together into one.
Slipping a hand down her body, he nudged it between her thighs and stroked a fingertip across her center. Just because heneeded to be inside her didn't mean he was going to push into her without preparing her first.
Keeping his touch gentle so he didn't wake her, Steel circled her entrance, bumping a fingertip just inside before moving to her bud and working it with slow, firm strokes.
In her sleep, Rose’s breathing quickened, and she shifted restlessly, her body registering what he was doing to it even as her mind kept her asleep.
When he felt her begin to grow wet, Steel withdrew his fingers, bringing them to his mouth and licking off every drop of her sweetness. Later, he’d feast on her, make her come over and over again until she was sobbing and pleading, unsure if she was asking for more or for him to stop.
But in this moment, he needed to be inside her.
Needed there to be zero distance left between them.
