My skin is still hot.
I’m not sure what I’m more afraid of anymore.
That my past will find me.
Or that I might actually be safe enough to want something.
I grab my clothes from the backpack with shaking hands and yank them on like they’re armor.
And when I step back into the hall, the smell of something warm and savory drifts from the kitchen.
Maverick is cooking.
Like this is normal.
Like I didn’t just flash him in his own bedroom.
Like he didn’t look at me like a starving man.
I press my hand to my chest, trying to slow my breathing.
One kind gesture away, Nova,I think, dizzy.
One.
And I don’t know how to stop myself from falling.
Chapter 4
Maverick
Thesteakssizzlelikethey’re trying to distract me.
It almost works.
The cast-iron pan throws heat up into my face, butter foams around the edges, and the smell is the kind that usually settles my nerves. Simple. Familiar. Steak. Potatoes. Something I can control.
Not like the image that keeps flashing behind my eyes.
Nova in my bedroom doorway, wrapped in a towel, looking at me like she’s one wrong breath away from bolting.
Nova with her hair damp and her cheeks pink.
And then Nugget, the little demon, yanking the towel down like he’s conducting a science experiment.
My jaw clenches hard enough to ache.
I flip the steaks, spoon butter over them, and force my thoughts back into something solid.
Food. Dinner. Normal.
I am not going to think about her curves.
I am not going to think about the way she froze when my eyes found her, like she’s used to people looking at her with judgment instead of lust.
I am not going to think about lust.
I’m thirty-eight years old. I’ve seen too much. Done too much. Carried too much.
