I didn’t have one.
Not yet.
And I couldn’t lie to him, not when his scent was all around me, not when my body was still humming with his touch as well as Roan and Rhett’s knots. Their voices, their mouths—everything they’d poured into me like I was something meant to be filled until I overflowed.
They did it, and then some. Filling in gaps inside of me that I hadn’t realized were even there. Maybe they hadn’t been, before the heat shattered my control and broke me open like an egg. The Wren I was before hadn’t ever experienced theneedlike I had this past week. It had been a week—five days almost— since I left to take a couple of days and ride out my heat.
Somehow, if they hadn’t come when they did, I had a feeling, I would still be locked in that hell. That was more than a little unsettling. To be so at the mercy of urges beyond any control. The heats I’d experienced when I was younger hadn’t been nearly this intense.
I didn’t even realize I’d gone silent until Rhett appeared in the doorway, hair damp, shirtless, his jeans unbuttoned and hanging low around his hips. His grin was cocky and devastating.
“Well,” he said, “you two look indecent and exhausted. I’m proud of us.”
I groaned and buried my face in my hands. “You’re the worst.”
“I’m the best,” he corrected. “And,” he added with a flourish, “I made sandwiches.”
Jay kissed the side of my face and murmured, “Told you he was good for something.”
“I heard that!” Rhett called as he disappeared again.
But their laughter didn’t quite cut the tension. It justdancedover it. The air still buzzed faintly—thick with their scents, with mine. With the lingering threads of bondless claim, with all the pressure we’d kept carefully at bay. There was no regret. But therewassomething else.
A quiet knowing.
Like they could feel me differently now. Like I could feelthem. Not just physically, not even chemically—but on a level so deep it didn’t have words.
The heat might have passed, but the burn hadn’t gone out.
I was still curled against Jay’s chest when Roan stepped into the doorway, steam curling around him like smoke.
His skin glowed a deep, sun-warmed gold, ruddy from the punishing heat of the shower, like he’d needed the scalding water to rinse off the last of the frenzy. It hadn’t worked—nothingcould rinse away what we’d done. The proof was still etched on his body with long, raised marks down his arms and shoulders, angry red where I’d clawed him in the thick of it.
My face flushed. The bite he’d made on my neck throbbed. Like my bodyknewthe mark it bore, and recognized the one who left it. Roan’s gaze flicked to it the second he stepped inside. His jaw ticked—just once. But when his eyes met mine, they were softer than they had any right to be.
“You ready to eat?” he asked.
The words were simple. But his tone wasn’t.
There was that quiet thread of command again, woven into his voice like steel wrapped in velvet. He didn’t need to raise hisvoice to be obeyed. Heworeauthority like a second skin, even with his hair still wet and water dripping down his chest.
Still, there was a gentleness there too—beneath the dominant aura cloaking him. It calmed me, loosening something tight in my chest.
I sat up slowly, pressing a hand to Jay’s thigh under the water. “We probably need to talk.”
Roan didn’t even blink. “We can wait.” There was no hesitation. No anxiety about what might come next. Just complete, unshakable calm. “Right now, you need food. Water. Rest. Talk can wait until you’re whole again.”
“He’s right.” Jay nodded behind me, fingers brushing along the inside of my arm. “We’ll still be here when you’re ready.”
Even from the other room, Rhett chimed in—his voice lighter, but his words still firm. “Yeah, no deep thoughts until you eat at least two sandwiches. Non-negotiable.”
I laughed softly, but it caught in my throat. They were giving me space—gentle, deliberate generosity in the wake of everything I’d given them.
But I could feel the clock ticking, even in this snow-wrapped hideaway. Outside, the world hadn’t stopped turning.
The playoffs were coming. The team would need them back for drills. I’d need to return to the city, to the office, to the PR cleanup and the mess I’d left on pause.
Real lifewas waiting.
