“I notice everything about you,” I say.“Including the way you’re waiting for me to close the distance.”
“I am,” he says softly.“I’ll wait as long as you need.I want you—not a version of you that makes this easier for me.”
“My truth isn’t pretty,” I warn.“It’s patched together.It has holes.Sometimes it burns.Sometimes it freezes.But it’s mine, and I’m done sanding it down so no one gets cut.”I hold his gaze.“I love you.”
He lifts our joined hands, his thumb tracing the beat at my wrist like he’s reading something there.I tip my chin.He leans in and stops, close enough that our breaths find each other.The ocean hushes on the other side of the glass.He grazes my nose with his, a question.I answer by rising onto my toes.
His free hand cups my jaw—gentle, patient, not dragging me anywhere.Heat rolls through me; the room narrows to him and the inches left between us.
“Please,” I whisper.
He comes in slow, like a promise.The first brush of his mouth is barely contact, a pass that tests the air.The second lingers.The third steals my breath.He tastes like coffee and relief and something I don’t have a name for yet.He pauses—gives me space to say no—and I give him more instead, parting for him, finding his rhythm, learning it as if it’s a language we invented.
He breaks away just enough to breathe, his forehead resting against mine, our noses still touching.“Cleo,” he murmurs, and my name in his voice loosens something old and knotted.
I slide my hand up his chest and curl my fingers at the base of his throat, feeling the pulse there answer mine.“I’m here,” I say, and then I kiss him back—slow, sure.
His mouth meets mine like a promise kept late.The first pass is soft heat; the second lingers, coaxing more.I open for him and he follows with a low sound that trembles through his chest and into my palm.His hand finds my jaw, thumb sweeping along the hinge; the other settles at my waist and draws me closer until the glass is cool at my shoulder and he’s all I can taste—coffee, salt that isn’t the ocean, something warm that makes my knees threaten to go.
He pauses a breath from me—checking, always—and I answer by chasing him, catching his lower lip, taking a little more.He smiles against my mouth, and the curve of it undoes me.The kiss deepens building in slow waves that keep finding shore.I thread my fingers into his hair.He exhales into me, and the sound makes heat uncurl low in my belly.
“Again,” I whisper, and he does, angling me, learning what I ask for without words.The world tilts to the beat of his pulse under my hand.I taste relief.I taste us.EveryyesI’ve been hoarding slides out between our mouths.
When we finally part, we’re close enough to share the same breath.His eyes are bright, glazed at the edges.Mine sting.I press my forehead to his, unwilling to lose contact even by an inch.
“Love you, princess,” he mumbles into my mouth.
“I love you,” I say into his mouth, and I feel him take the words like air.
ChapterTwenty-Eight
Barret
Cloud-thick afternoon softens the room; rain light turns the windows pewter and the floorboards silver while the Pacific presses pale against the glass.Eddie and Cleo are wrapped around each other—her fingers in his hair, his hands at her waist—looking at each other as if the answer just clicked.
“You left me with the wolves,” I joke.
Which to be honest is a good thing because this might help a lot when they officially find the body of some woman adrift in the last place they saw Cleo.I’m not looking forward to it.I guess it was worth it to be the escape goat that had to deal with the Wilder brothers.Not sure why Eddie left me to do his dirty work, but whatever.
“Her brothers don’t want to leave until everything is out,” I add, cutting straight through the soft-focus moment they’re having because this seems to have precedent.“They’re set on staying.”
Cleo eases back from him, sighs like she just dropped something fragile inside her chest.
“Why?”she asks, voice low.
“Fuck,” Eddie mutters, cutting a glare my way like I invented this problem myself.
I lift both hands in surrender.“Don’t shoot the messenger.”Then I make a show of examining my arms, twisting them around for inspection.“No bite marks.No claw wounds.Miraculous, really, considering the bunch you left me with.”
Neither of them laughs.
“You’re welcome, by the way for taking care of the Wilders,” I add, dry.“You should be grateful that your man came back in one piece.Not that I see either of you giving a shit about my survival.”
Eddie waves it off, smirking like I’m entertainment.“I knew you’d manage.They won’t go full detonation-mode with their little sister in the house.”
“Right,” I deadpan.“That’s the safety net—dating the sister makes me a walking target, but her being present turns their murder setting down to simmer instead of boil.”I glance between them.“Point is, you might not be able to kick them out, boss man.”
Eddie’s jaw ticks.He drags a hand over his face, shoulders taut as he stares at the glass like the upcoming storm outside has the answer he’s looking for.
