Both their eyes lift to me.
“She didn’t hesitate,” I continue, searching for the right way to explain. “Not when we showed up. Or when we touched her. Not when we told her we’d been watching her.”
“That’s not good.” Silas’s voice drops, and he stares into his empty glass. “That’s not good at all.”
“No,” I agree. “It’s worse. It means she already suspected it was us. Who knows? Maybe she wants to give this a chance.”
Jace leans back, arms tucked behind his head, the look in his eyes dark and certain. “Then we protect her. We finish this shit with Daniel.”
“And her questions?” Silas asks. “She’s going to want answers soon.”
“We give her real ones,” I respond, glancing toward my bedroom with a frown. “We stop hiding and lying. Telling the truth isn’t a difficult task. Best to do it now, while she’s here, and not after she figures more out on her own.”
Silas nods once, a slow tip of his head in acknowledgement, though I’m not sure if it’s acceptance or reluctant surrender. It’s hard to tell with him sometimes.
Jace stares down the hallway at the thin strip of light under my door. He’s as drawn to her as I am, neither of us able to keep our eyes from roaming toward her every few minutes. Silas is showing better restraint, though I wonder how long he’ll hold his composure before he breaks.
“She’s in your bed,” Jace mentions, a brow raised as he grins at me.
“Yeah,” I drawl, tapping my fingers on the arm of the computer chair.
“And you’re out here.” He points at the floor. “Why?”
“I wanted her to sleep,” I say, shrugging. “She needs space. You know… That thing people need when they want privacy?”
But the lie burns like fire in my throat.
The truth is... I’m not in that bed because if I were, I wouldn’t be able to leave it.
Not tonight.
Maybe never.
Jace nods as if he can read my mind, though none of us verbalizes what we’re thinking.
We don’t need to.
She’s already ours.
And we won’t let her go.
Idon’t just wake.
I rise.
Warm and rested in a way that feels wrong for someone who slept in a stranger’s—no, Kieran’s—bed after a break-in, a fistfight, and a suspicion coming to life before my eyes.
But the sheets are soft, the room is quiet, and the shirt I’m wearing smells like him.
I stretch, toes curling in the blankets, and for a split second my mind flashes with the briefest clips of scattered memories…
Kieran’s weight pinning me to a hotel bed.
Jace’s breath against my throat.
Silas’s hands all over me, slow and deliberate.
Heat pools low in my stomach, and I shake my head. Drunk actions and sober thoughts are not the way I want to start this morning.
