Cal laughs, the sound golden and rich. “Pretty sure you were an enthusiastic participant, sweetheart. I seem to recall you?—”
“Don’t.” She smiles into my skin. “Too early for your ego.”
“It’s never too early for my ego.” Cal wriggles free of the covers and slides out of bed, gloriously shameless in his nakedness. “But I need coffee. And I’m curious what culinary masterpiece Jace is ruining today.”
“I heard that,” Jace’s dry voice calls from the kitchen. “And I’m not ruining anything. Yet.”
Cal grins, yanking on boxer briefs and a loose T-shirt. He bends to press another kiss to Parker’s hair. “You coming down, or you gonna hide in Silas’s pecs all morning?”
“Hiding,” she mumbles, “sounds good.”
“Suit yourself.” He heads for the door, pausing at the frame. “Just remember: Jace made bacon. Just saying.”
The door clicks shut, leaving Parker and me alone in the golden hush. She’s still pressed into me, slow breaths stirring my chest. For a heartbeat, I think she’s dozed off again. Then she tilts her head up, sea-glass eyes soft and perfectly unguarded. Her hair is a riot of tangles, her skin marked by last night’s ardor—love bites on her neck, faint impressions where our hands gripped too hard.
She looks wholly and beautifully spent. Something inside me cracks open at the sight of her.
“Hi,” she whispers.
“Hi yourself, firefly.” I brush my thumb across her cheek, savoring the tremor beneath her skin.
She studies me, tracing my face like she’s memorizing every fracture. My crooked nose—broken twice, never quite set. The slash through my eyebrow from a brawl when I was seventeen. The long, pale line at my temple from my father’s ring. All the scars that shout I’m dangerous.
But she doesn’t flinch.
Instead, she lifts her hand to my jaw, her fingers ghosting over the temple scar with breathless gentleness. Then she leans forward, placing a feather-light kiss on that knotted line. Soft absolution for sins I never wanted but have worn as armor.
She pulls back just enough to meet my gaze, then kisses the crooked bridge of my nose. My lip scar. Each gentle press of her lips claims those broken pieces, saying they’re worthy of love.
A warmth spreads from my chest, filling the hollow I’ve carried since my father looked at me with fear instead of pride, since my mother slipped silently from the room. Every kiss stitches me a little more whole.
She moves down to map the bullet wound on my shoulder, the jagged scar on my chest. Each press of her lips says,You are mine. You are enough.
“Parker,” I rasp, voice thick with something like awe.
Tears glisten at the corners of her eyes—happy tears, I hope. “I see you,” she breathes. “I’ve always seen you, Silas. Not what everyone else sees.You.”
Her words break something open—maybe heal it. My arms wrap around her, and I kiss her with all the gratitude and devotion I lack words for. She melts into me, her body curving perfectly against mine as if we were sculpted for this moment.
My hands slip beneath the sheet, finding the soft heat of her hips. She sighs, nails grazing my back, fingers tangling in my hair. I could lose myself in this, in her, forget any world beyond this bed?—
“Breakfast is ready!” Jace’s voice floats up the stairs, amused. “If you two start something, you’re eating cold eggs!”
Parker laughs—bright and pure and somehow more beautiful than anything else—and presses one quick, sweet kiss to my lips before rolling away. I watch her slide from the bed, entirely unselfconscious as she searches the floor for clothes.
She grabs my black T-shirt from last night—soft with years of wash and oil-stained from the garage. It swallows her frame, hem grazing mid-thigh, sleeves dragging past her wrists until she rolls them up. She looks like sunlight made flesh.
Mine.
She catches me watching and smiles that knowing curve of lips: the one that says she understands exactly how shattered I thought I was, and still chose me. “Coming?”
I should throw on pants, and present myself as a functioning adult. But I stay where I am, shirt sliding off one shoulder, watching her sway toward the stairs, her hair a riot of copper light.
She pauses at the threshold, those sea-glass eyes steady on me. “Don’t take too long,” she says, voice teasing. “Or I’m eating your bacon.”
Then she’s gone, laughter drifting back as Cal’s voice answers from below.
I lie back into the sunlight, breathing in the scent of Parker—honey and spice and something indefinable—and the lingering proof of what we built last night. She stayed. She chose us. She sees me—the broken, violent, messed-up parts—and she’s still here.
