I love him.
I had not told him. But there was no reality I could imagine that he did not already know.
The sun rose higher, blazing through the window. I got up and shut the blind, leaving a single ray to filter through the gap.It hit the stone in the leather tied around Ranger’s wrist, prisms of light dancing on the pale walls and ceiling. Divine and pretty, but nothing was as beautiful as him, bare to the early morning, only his legs half hidden by the rumpled sheets.
The music we’d fucked to had played out hours ago. I found some more and turned the volume even lower, not that Ranger seemed like he would wake any time soon. And it left me plenty of time to think—something I found easier than I had in a long time.
I lay on my back beside him, watching the prisms scatter on the ceiling, pondering the story behind the rock in his bag. Ranger did not seem like a man who believed in the magic of crystals, but the amethyst stone meant the world to him, I could tell.
He loved his father.
So had Jake, which turned my thoughts to a darker place. To the phone I had abandoned to lose myself in Ranger all night long.
There were no more messages from Ivanov. For me or for Ranger. And only one from my brother.
Jake:This will be it
Four words that could have meant the end or the beginning, and for many years, as long as Katya was safe with her family, I had not cared much which. But as my gaze fell on the woven thread knotted around my wrist, I knew something had changed.
Ranger.
I wanted more than a hot summer with him. A handful of stolen nights. I did not deserve him—no one did. But true to the fear I had carried since I met him, I could not give him up.
As if he had heard me, Ranger stirred, his obsidian eyes wrenching open a split second after he reached for me.
I was in his arms before I could snatch a breath, and the unfettered burn we’d revelled in all night surged to life again.
We did not speak.
We fucked.
Harder this time. Without fear, without caution. Ranger took what I gave, strong and unyielding, and he came with a growl that rattled my bones.
Panting, I pressed my face between his shoulder blades, one foot on the floor, a knee braced on the bed it was a wonder we hadn’t toppled right off. “You are awake.”
Ranger hummed. “Ya fucking reckon?”
I eased out of him.
He rolled onto his back, grinning, and another scar on my soul healed over. Even if I could not keep him forever, these moments made every hurt worth it. “And you thought I didn’t like that shit.”
“You are not going to let that go?”
Ranger waited for me to toss the condom. Then he hauled me down on top of him. “Not today.”
His smile dazzled me a moment longer before he sobered. “You good?”
“You tell me.”
“I meant in here.” He tapped my head. “I tried to be careful at the start... last night, whenever it was. But I lost my mind somewhere along the way.”
“Maybe we both did, and it is how it should be.”
Ranger studied me and pressed the sweetest, softest kiss to my cheek. “Works for me.”
He relaxed.
I rolled off him but did not go far. I left my head on his chest and drowsed while he played with my hair. Unnatural energy still thrummed in me, but it was tempered by his affection.
