"You don't have to—" Sergio starts.
"I do." I slide off the counter, and all three of them take a step back. Giving me space. "I just. I need a minute."
I leave the kitchen, feeling their eyes on my back.
Feeling the weight of everything unsaid hanging in the air.
When I get back to the guest room, I close the door and lean against it, my heart pounding.
This is so much more complicated than I thought it would be.
And I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.
14
SERGIO
Sleep is not happening.
I've been lying in my bed for two hours, staring at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the plaster like they hold the secrets of the universe. Forty-seven cracks. I counted them twice to make sure.
The house is quiet. Nacho went to bed an hour ago. I heard his door close, the lock click. Pedro retreated to his room after the incident in the foyer, probably to brood in that special way he has, staring at medical journals and pretending he's not thinking about her.
Carlos is God knows where, doing God knows what. Probably in his workshop, building something with his hands because that's what he does when he can't process his feelings. He makes things. Creates. While the rest of us just fall apart.
And Jessica is down the hall.
Sleeping in the guest room.
In our house.
Her scent is everywhere.
Peaches and honey, drifting through the ventilation system, seeping under my door, wrapping around my brain like a vine I can't shake loose. Every breath I take is saturated with her.Every time I close my eyes, I see her standing in my foyer, wearing Carlos's henley, looking at me like I'd grown a second head.
Because I growled at my pack brother.
At Pedro.
For touching her.
For catching her when she fell.
I press the heels of my hands against my eyes and groan into the darkness.
What the hell is wrong with me?
I'm the pack leader. The steady one. The one who keeps his head when everyone else is losing theirs. I've spent thirty-two years cultivating control, building walls, making sure my emotions never get the better of me. Hockey taught me discipline. The Marines taught me restraint. Being pack leader taught me how to put everyone else's needs before my own.
And then Jessica Delacroix walks into my house at five in the morning, and I turn into a territorial animal, because I want to claim her so badly, but we need to keep our distance. She’s vulnerable. And needs space.
I throw off the covers and swing my legs over the side of the bed. The hardwood floor is cold under my bare feet, shocking against my skin. Good. I need to shock my system back to sanity.
My room is on the second floor, at the end of the hall. I inherited the antique furniture after my parents died. The king-size bed. The bay window that overlooks the back garden.
I pull on a pair of sweatpants, not bothering with a shirt. It's the middle of the night. No one's going to see me wandering around like some kind of insomniac ghost.
The hallway is dark except for the nightlight Mom insisted we install after Carlos tripped over his own feet, and nearly broke his neck on the stairs. I navigate by memory, passing Pedro's closed door, then Nacho's, then Carlos's.
