We spiral through it. A small leak of laughter, clamp down, breathe, try again. Another slip, another near-silent wheeze, another tremor of suppressed hysterics. Damian’s shoulders shake. My own breath keeps hitching.
Another giggle escapes Damian and I sit up and slap a hand over his mouth. “Stop,” I whisper as I lean over him, grinning so hard my face hurts. “Or they’re going to kill us.”
His eyes lock on mine, bright, daring, wicked, and for a heartbeat the intimacy steals the air from my lungs. His lips are warm under my palm, his jaw sharp under my fingers. The laughter drains from him in slow, uneven breaths and heat pools in my stomach.
I want to take my hand away and put my mouth where my hand is, turn all this frantic, fizzy energy into something slower and deeper. But I don’t move.
Jake is inches away, Ryder is in the chair, Wyatt’s asleep in the other room, and I have no idea what the rules are between us.
Damian reads the whole thing in my eyes. He reaches up and curls his fingers around my wrist, gently peeling my hand from his mouth. His eyes glint darkly.
“I’ve got a good idea how you could shut me up,” he murmurs, gaze dropping to my lips before lifting again.
Ryder’s voice slices through the dark, low and threatening. “That’s enough.”
But Damian doesn’t look away. Neither do I. For a suspended second, it feels like we’re standing on the edge of something.
But I break the moment, easing back and rolling onto my side. Damian exhales.
I leave my hand on his chest, just above his heart, and his body settles under my touch, my breathing slowly falling into rhythm with his. Finally, somehow, we all drift into sleep.
A cough wakes me. Low at first, then rattling.
Wyatt.
I blink in the dark. The fire’s gone to embers. The door to the bedroom is still closed, but I can hear him coughing through the wall.
Carefully, I slide my hand off Damian, lift the sheet with two fingers, and inch myself toward the foot of the mattress. Jake is heat along my other side. I shift my hips a fraction, then another, until my calves find open air. The frame gives one tiny groan, but no one stirs. I curl the pillow under my arm and ooze off the edge, my socks whispering against the floorboards as I tiptoe across the room.
I open the bedroom door slowly so it doesn’t creak.
“Hey,” I whisper into the dark. “You okay?”
Wyatt’s sitting half-upright, braced on one arm, coughing into the other. I cross to him and hand him the water glass from his bedside table.
“Small sips.” I steady the glass for him, count his breaths with my fingers resting light on his sternum the way Ryder showed me—four in, six out, again. His face eases. The cough loosens, then fades.
“Didn’t mean to wake you,” he rasps.
“You should have both pillows,” I whisper back, sliding my pillow behind him. “You shouldn’t be sleeping flat.”
“Bossy,” he says with a smile.
“You love it.”
He tips his head back, conceding with a tired sigh, then he lifts the corner of the blanket up, an invitation. I slip in beside him carefully, and lay my palm on his shoulder to feel the steady rise and fall of his breath.
For a while we just lie there. It’s so nice to lie beside him. We slept like this for weeks at the clubhouse, side by side, sharing body heat in the dark, and I’ve missed it, the warmth of him, the way he smells. Just being near him is so calming.
“You all right?” he whispers, and I know there’s more in the question than just tonight.
“Getting there,” I say softly, smoothing my thumb along his arm. “You?”
He nods and exhales slow. I lower my forehead to his shoulder and breathe him in.
“God,” he murmurs, resting his head against mine. “We made it. I can’t lie, there was a moment I didn’t think we would.”
“Yeah.” My throat tightens. “Same. But they came for us.”
