The shift in him is sudden. Not louder. Just… colder. Controlled. Like there’s a line inside him and once you cross it, you don’t get to walk back.
I force myself to breathe. “So, what now?”
Seth’s attention flicks to my hand on the cup, then back to my eyes. “Now I find out who.” A beat passes. “And you stop looking like you’re going to bolt every time a man looks at you like he wants you.”
I give a little laugh. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“No,” he agrees easily. “I get to tell you what I’m going to do.” His voice turns soft again, dangerous in a different way.
He reaches across the table then, not grabbing, not trapping. Just a deliberate brush of his knuckles against my fingers, like he’s testing the edge of my restraint.
The touch is brief. But it lights me up like a match. My pulse jumps. My skin tightens. And I hate how badly I crave more.
Seth’s gaze moves to my throat. His mouth curves, satisfied.
My chest tightens, a sharp ache of truth I don’t want to give him.
He watches me, then lets his smile turn slow. “Living with us,” he adds, like he’s testing the words on my reaction, “is going to be… nice.”
My breath catches.
His phone buzzes on the table. Seth glances down, and the shift is subtle but immediate, the heat in his eyes tightening into focus. His brows draw together as he reads whatever popped up on the screen.
He exhales once, then stares back at me. “I gotta go.”
Disappointment flares through me before I can hide it.
He stands, but before he moves away, he leans in just enough that his voice hits my ear like a promise. “See you later.” His gaze holds mine. “At our place.”
I watch him walk away, heart thudding, and all I can think is,Am I really doing this?
9
KAI
Itake the corner into the ranch driveway doing about forty, tires screaming, gravel spraying, and I’m grinning like an idiot the whole time.
My electric-blue Mustang fishtails beautifully before I straighten her out, music still blasting through the speakers of some old rock song about wild hearts and open roads. I kill the engine and sit here for a second, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, trying to contain the energy buzzing through my veins.
June is moving in.
June is moving in.
I’ve been repeating it to myself since I left the café, and it still doesn’t feel real. The woman who’s been driving me crazy since the moment she face-planted into my chest is going to be sleeping down the hall from me. Eating breakfast at the same table. Existing in my space. Our space.
The universe finally decided to cut me a break.
I climb out of the car in the late afternoon just as Carter appears on the wraparound porch of the ranch house, arms crossed, watching me with that knowing smirk he wears so well.
“You’re going to destroy that transmission one of these days,” he calls out.
“She’smycar. And she loves the abuse.”
The ranch house looms behind him, a gorgeous beast with enough land surrounding it that you can’t see another building in any direction. I’ve stayed in a lot of places over the years of traveling with the circuit, but this one feels different. More like home than most.
When we’re not on the road, the three of us have a place out in Colorado, in the middle of nowhere, just us and our horses and the kind of silence that lets you actually hear yourself think. We’ve got a team that takes care of things when we travel, which is more help than I usually want, but it’s necessary when you’re gone as much as we are.
Years of this life. Barely staying anywhere long enough to remember the street names. Never putting down roots because what’s the point when you’re leaving in several weeks anyway?
