Her gaze remains hooked on mine for another moment, her lower lip caught between her teeth before she slowly shakes her head. Rolling a little more onto her back, she shuts her eyes, still biting her lip as I move the blanket aside to run the cloth across her chest.
Her skin is flushed, her nipples swollen and tender looking. Carefully, I keep the pressure light as I clean her up, gently wiping her breasts, her curvy stomach, and finally running the cloth between her legs.
She sucks in a sharp breath when I reach the apex of her thighs, her pulse jumping under her jaw, but she doesn’t move or open her eyes. When I’m done, I drop the cloth on the tiles and sit back on my knees, seeing the resignation in Boone’s gray eyes when I glanced at him.
I get where he’s coming from. I can practically feel her emotional retreat myself, like those guards of hers are slowly slamming back into place.
She finally opens her eyes but doesn’t meet ours. Instead, she stands up, letting the blanket slide from her shoulders to her chest and quickly wrapping it around herself. “I think I’m going to head to bed.”
“I’ll walk you,” I offer automatically.
She doesn’t argue, just letting me guide her up the stairs and down the hall. The air between us feels different now, still charged, but gentler somehow. When we reach her door, she turns to face me, one hand on the frame like she isn’t sure if she wants to step through yet.
“Thanks,” she says quietly. “For… everything.”
“Anytime,” I tell her, and I mean it. I hesitate for a beat, but when she doesn’t move to go into the room, I lean over and press a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll be right downstairs if you need anything, okay?”
When I draw back, her eyes are soft and sleepy, but her brow is still a little furrowed. “Thanks, but I think I’m just going to crash. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“See you in the morning.” I wait until she disappears into the room and shuts the door behind her, then I just stand there in the hall for a long moment, waiting in case she realizes she wants to say something else.
It feels like something new and inevitable is taking root between us all. Like whatever started tonight won’t be ending anytime soon, but the way she’d withdrawn afterward is worrying.
Finally realizing she really is in her bedroom for now, I turn and go back to the kitchen and find Boone leaning against the counter with a beer in his hand as he looks out at the sun setting.Dillon sits on the island, swinging one leg like he’s waiting for a verdict of some sort.
Neither of them looks up when I come in, but Boone finally breaks the silence with a heavy sigh. “We might’ve moved too fast.”
I grab a bottle of water from the fridge and twist off the cap. “Yeah. I’ve been thinking the same thing.”
Dillon lifts his head, his expression caught somewhere between guilt and defiance. “She didn’t exactly seem against it. You both saw her. She was into it. And she said she wanted it.”
Boone gives him a look that could peel paint off walls. “That’s not the point, and you know it.”
Dillon sighs, running a hand through his hair and shaking his head. “I do. I just… It’s been a long damn time since anything felt that right. None of us planned it, but it happened anyway, and it was good.”
“Yeah, it was, but that’s what worries me,” Boone says quietly. “We might’ve taken advantage of that. It’s possible we took it too far, too fast, and I think it might’ve been too much for her.”
A slight smirk curves Dillon’s mouth. “If you ask me, we were just enough for her. I know she went straight up to bed after, but maybe she was just shy when she realized what had just happened. We’ve seen that before. It takes some people a while to ease into accepting that they liked it.”
“She’s not like the others,” Boone snaps. “Maybe she was a little shy. It’s perfectly natural, but there’s something else going on with her.”
Dillon sighs. “I thought she was a little off at first too, but I think you’re reading too much into it now. She’s been fine since she got here.”
Boone arches an eyebrow after swallowing a sip of his beer. “You saw how she flinched when we mentioned the motel that first day, right? That wasn’t just nerves about three random guys arriving at her door. There’s something going on with her. She wasn’t thinking earlier when she gave us the go-ahead. She was already a little dazed after that kiss. We shouldn’t have just jumped in without waiting for her to cool down a little.”
“Agreed, but I don’t think that’s our biggest problem.” I cock a hip against the counter beside him. “She’s running from something. I’d bet my next paycheck on it. This, on top of everything else, might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”
Dillon frowns, the humor finally gone from his face. “Do you think she’s in trouble?”
“I think she’s scared,” Boone replies. “If we’re going to have her here and try to make this work at all, we need to talk to her. Make sure she knows what we’re about. What this is.”
I take a slow drink, weighing the thought. Boone is right. “Tomorrow. Let’s just give her time to breathe tonight, then we can sit down with her. No pressure or assumptions. Just honesty from our side, and hopefully, she’ll let us in a little.”
I nod. Whatever Roxie’s story is, she isn’t just passing through our lives anymore. But after what happened today, it’s entirely possible she might try to run. She wouldn’t get far, but none of us want her to feel like she should be adding us to the list of things she has to runfromin the first place.
Dillon looks between us, his expression tightening when he realizes we are stone-cold serious. “So, what are we saying here? We’re going to ask her straight out what’s going on?”
“Not yet,” I say. “She’s wound tight as a spring. If we push her more than we already have, she’ll bolt. We have to play it smart and make her feel safe first.”
