Just the low rasp of breathing and the fire in my chest as tears slipped down my cheeks.
This—this—was the exact moment I’d tried to avoid. The reason I’d run. Because if they saw me like this—wrecked, raw, undone in a way that couldn’t be hidden—they’d see what I really was.
And I hated that.
I hatedneeding. I hatedbreaking.
And still... they came.
Theyfoundme.
How?
The word slipped out in a rasp I barely recognized as my own. “How?”
The door creaked a little wider although no one stepped through, but Jay’s voice drifted in, calm and steady.
“We found reservations you didn’t delete all the way. You left some digital breadcrumbs.” The words didn’t make a lot of sense. Then I couldn’t really process anything digital or not.
Then he was moving, slow, careful.
A single hand reached around the corner of the doorframe. A bottle of water, still sealed.
“Here.” His voice was gentle. “You should hydrate.”
I stared at the water, then at the floor. I didn’t trust my hands not to shake when I took it. But I did. I reached for it, and Jay let it go the second my fingers brushed plastic.
No contact.
No push.
I twisted the cap with shaking fingers and took a drink, forcing it down. My throat burned, my stomach clenched, but the coolness helped. I drained half the bottle, and my hands were steadier by the time I set it down.
Still, they didn’t come inside.
They could have. Any of them could’ve crossed the threshold. I was in heat, disoriented, needy and far from rational. I hadn’teven locked the door. I'd cracked it open like an idiot because my body had begged for them and my instincts had won.
And yet...
“You’re not coming in?” I asked, still breathless.
Roan’s voice answered, level and smooth as slate. “Not unless you ask us to. Clearly. And only if you mean it.”
That broke something in me. Not because of the words he used but because of hiscontrol.
I couldfeelwhat it cost him. What it costallof them. The thick weight of their restraint pressing against my skin more than any touch ever had. The fact that they hadn’t stormed in. Hadn’t scooped me up or pinned me down or tried to kiss away the sweat-slick desperation from my skin.
They were white-knuckling it.
All of them.
I peeked up again.
Jay was closest to the door, kneeling now, his forearms resting on his thighs, still calm, still steady, though the cords of muscle in his jaw were tight. Rhett paced behind him, moving in small tight loops, like his skin didn’t fit. And Roan?—
Roan stood like a sentinel.
Arms crossed, braced in the doorway, like a dam holding back a flood. Eyes locked on me. Not my body.Me.
