Barron
I foundher exactly where I knew she would be.
In the center of Wolfe’s bed. Wrapped in his shirt. Hair damp, legs folded beneath her like she hadn’t moved since the last time I touched her. She didn’t hear me come in. Or if she did, she didn’t flinch.
She just breathed.
Slow.
Even.
I stood in the doorway for a long time. Too long.
It felt like something sacred had grown in the space between us. Something that wasn’t quite silence. Wasn’t quite shame. Just weight. Just waiting.
She looked over her shoulder then. Like she felt it.
The heat of me. The tension. The pull.
Her eyes met mine.
Wide.
Open.
Wrecked.
And still?—
Mine.
I didn’t speak.
Didn’t need to.
I walked to the bed. My shirt still open. My belt still undone from the last time I’d sat at that goddamn war table with my brothers and mapped out how we were going to bury Selene.
I hadn’t meant to come back to her. I meant to burn through every lead we had until she was ashes in my hands.
But Cloe wasn’t a detour. She was gravity. And she pulled me back. She shifted as I reached the bed. Her breath caught.
That sound. God. That sound.
I climbed onto the mattress slowly. Not to be gentle—to savor it.
I moved toward her like I had all the time in the world. Like the rage inside me wasn’t blistering under my skin. Like I wasn’t one more memory of her lips away from forgetting who the fuck I was supposed to be.
She didn’t lean back. Didn’t run. She just tilted her chin up. Like she was waiting for it.
For me.
My fingers reached for the buttons of the shirt. Her breath hitched. I slid each one open. One at a time. One for every reason I should have stayed away from her and didn’t.
The shirt fell open. Her chest rose. Tight. Bare. Her nipples already hard. Her skin flushed.
I dragged my fingers over her collarbone. She didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
But her eyes?—
