Boone’s gaze goes distant, a calculating gleam in his eyes. That’s the ex-fighter in him taking over, always thinking a few moves ahead. “What do we do when she’s ready to talk?”
“We listen,” I answer. “No judgment. No pressure.”
Dillon nods. “What if whoever she’s hiding from shows up?”
I don’t even hesitate. “Then we deal with it.”
Boone’s jaw flexes. He meets my eyes and something solid passes between us, a shared understanding that needs no words. “She’s under our roof now.”
“Yeah,” I agree immediately. “That makes her ours to protect.”
Dillon exhales and tries to lighten the mood, his grin crooked but weary. “I guess that means I should bake more cookies.”
13
DILLON
Three and a half weeks.
That’s how long it’s been since Roxie had crash-landed into our lives and turned everything upside down.
The same three voices used to echo around this house on an endless loop, but it’s different now. It’s warmer. Sometimes louder, too. There’s an energy she carries that is chaotic, sharp, and playful, and it has me hooked.
I lean back in my office chair, spinning it slowly while the screens in front of me flash lines of code. My brain isn’t on the firewall I’m supposed to be building, though. It’s on her.
We haven’t touched her since that afternoon three weeks ago. Not once. Not for lack of wanting.
When he isn’t working, Boone is pretending to stay busy with maintenance projects that don’t need doing. Chance has doubled his gym sessions, which means he practically lives down there now. Meanwhile, I’m sitting here, thinking about the way her laugh slides under my skin and the way she bites her lip when she’s concentrating.
We’d tried to talk to her the morning after, but it’d gone about as well as I might’ve expected from a woman who flinched when her phone rang. She’d perched on the edge of the couch, her eyes darting toward the window like she was mapping escape routes.
Just as we’d tried to get down to business, her phone had buzzed. She’d damn near jumped out of her skin, checked the screen, said it was a friend, and took the call. She’d never come back to finish the conversation.
That was the moment I knew that whatever she’s running from isn’t minor. Because of that, we’d all agreed to wait. To give her space, just like Boone and Chance had been going on about in the kitchen afterward.
About a week later, one of our biggest corporate clients had been hacked, which meant Chance and I have been putting in sixteen-hour days. Boone has been fielding calls left, right, and center, and Roxie is helping wherever she can with data sorting, compiling reports, and making sure we don’t starve.
She’s slid right into the rhythm of the house like she’s always belonged here, working alongside us to get to the other side of the crisis. Of course, once we’d sorted that out, we were behind on just about everything else, and we’ve been working day and night to catch up.
Now, I’m tired of waiting, and even more tired of pretending she’s just an employee instead of the woman I think about every damn night.
Memories of that afternoon haunt me in my dreams no matter when I sleep, and they follow me around long after I’ve woken up.
Even now, all I can think about is how her pussy had milked my cock and how perfectly her back had arched when she’d come. Eventually, the monitors lose my interest completely. I swivel toward the window and see the sky is already darkening again, sunset bleeding through the trees in golden streaks.
Fuck it. I’ve had enough.
Another day is gone and westillhaven’t talked. I shake my head, get up, stretch my arms overhead, then march my antsy ass downstairs.
Roxie’s at the kitchen table with her laptop open, tapping away at her keyboard a mile a minute. Her hair is up in that messy bun that makes me crazy. She definitely doesn’t know how sexy she looks with it like that.
“Hey,” I say, leaning against the doorframe and trying to keep a leash on my baser instincts. “How’s it going?”
She looks up, flashing me a quick, tiny smile. “Hey. Are you done for the day?”
“Not even close.” I cross to her and press my hand down on the laptop lid, gently shutting it. “But I’m calling a timeout.”
Her eyebrows lift. “A timeout?”
