Tempting, but I knew Nash wouldn’t until he’d debriefed at least Saint, and getting my head down while he was still working felt a million kinds of shitty.
“You don’t have to protect me too.”
Goddamn, he was so wrong about that.
“Hey, sugar.” Long nails skimmed my forearm. “Long night?”
I bathed in Orla’s black-cherry scent. It blew my mind that a woman who perpetually smelled so sweet could be so fuckin’ dangerous. “Sorry we didn’t get him home.”
That earned me a light thump to my bicep. “That’s what you think I’m worried about right now?”
“You’re worried?” I forced myself to look her in the eye. Regretted it in all the best ways.
Nash’s gaze was a chill pill of baby blue. Orla’s was the same molten brown as her brothers, but I never fell head first into Cam or River’s dark stare and resurfaced a different man. I never ached to run my rough hands over their tattooed skin, and it wasn’t because they lacked Orla’s curvy hips and delicate neck. Hell no. The O’Brian gene pool was fine as fuck, but only Orla had me a ball of raging heat with the scrape of her damn fingernails.
“I’m not worried.” Orla answered my question. “Not now you’re home, but I’ll be happier when you both get some sleep.”
“He’s not going to bed until after church now.”
Orla sighed. “What about you?”
I shrugged, and her red lips curved into a wry smile.
She rose up on her toes, stretching that pale, tattooed neck to kiss my cheek. “I hate it when he doesn’t come home, and I missyouwhen you’re not right there missing him with me, but knowing you’re together makes it easier.”
Don’t touch her.
My arms had other ideas, circling her waist before I caught myself in the same moment that Nash reached us.
His hand grazed my hip, and the heat Orla had brought with her sparked a new flame. For a strangled second, my head spun with images of what I’d do if we were alone. If we were at her place—in herbed.
Me and her.
Her and him.
Him and me.
But I pushed it away, all of it, and released her.
They’re not yours.
And they never would be. I’d spent all my lucky stars on staying alive.
Cam called church. I prepared myself to let Nash go and walk Orla across the yard to the sales building. But River stepped up and led her away before I could blink, and Nash shifted his hand from my hip to my elbow. “Need you in the chapel. I meant to tell you last night, but it slipped my mind.”
The chapel.Irrational apprehension swamped me. I found myself searching for Folk, seeking out his innate serenity, but Nash gripped me tighter, forcing my gaze back to him as he blocked out the yard with his broad shoulders. “It’s nothing bad. Just breakfast, a debrief, and some admin.”
“You don’t need me for admin.”
“I need you for lots of things, brother. But more than anything, I need you to trust me.”
I was distantly aware that we were alone now. That the others had already drifted to the chapel, and without the distraction of other people, Nash’s close proximity added a deeper spin to the whirlwind of Orla and her fleeting kiss.
It left me reeling.
Reckless.
And hating the fact that shitty old ghosts made me feel like shoving him off me.
