Why is she nervous?
“Wren?” I ask quietly.
She looks at me in question, so I remind her, “Remember, you need to try to say more of what you’re thinking out loud, so we can help you.” She nods slowly but doesn’t say anything, so I add, “Is there something you want to ask, but you’re nervous or scared?”
“A little,” she whispers back.
I wiggle a little closer and turn my ear to her and tap it. “You can tell me. Right here. Go on.”
Her warm breath skates over my skin right before she whispers, “Do you like to cuddle?”
It’s as if she just cut me open, reached inside, and stole my heart right out of my chest. I already knew she was mine, but hearing those words on her enticing lips just cemented me as hers.
“Come here.” I help rearrange her, and she snuggles in close, her lower leg hooking over mine as she lets out a small sigh of contentment.
“Better?” I ask, before kissing the top of her head and gently running my fingers through her hair.
The bed shakes as Jagger turns toward us and moves closer, spooning her back, his hand splayed across her hip. A small spike of jealousy hits me until I remind myself that she’s snuggling me, too.
“Much,” she whispers, rubbing her face against my chest like a cat. This woman is way too cute for a man like me—a man who kills without remorse. A man with no family, nofriends, and nothing to offer her but my devotion and protection. I’ve never needed anyone.
Not until I met her.
Now I want my whole life to revolve around her, if she’ll let me.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
WREN
The low whisper of voices brings me out of a deep sleep. The first thing I notice is how comfortable I feel, and it takes me a few seconds to remember where I am. I blink my eyes open and see a tattoo-covered chest.Jagger.
I feel my body heat and my heart skip a beat at being this close to him, touching so much of his bare skin.
My head’s resting on his shoulder, and my leg is wrapped around his like a snake. I must have moved in the night and cuddled up to him. I hope he doesn’t mind.
I tilt my head up until my eyes meet his beautiful blue ones. His arm around me tightens in a small squeeze while his other hand curls over my thigh, a silent confirmation that he’s more than okay with this.
Something behind me moves, and I realize Sly is wrapped around my back, his face pressed to the back of my neck. His large hand is resting against my bare stomach, somehow having worked its way under my long T-shirt, and as I wigglea little to get closer, something hard presses against my lower back.
“Sly,” I whisper before letting out a huge yawn.
“Hmm?” he mumbles into my hair.
“Is that a knife poking me in the back?”
I hear a snort from the other bed, then suddenly, Sly is up and practically sprinting to the bathroom, mumbling, “Need to use the facilities.”
Pete and Dex laugh, and I look up to Jagger in confusion.
“I don’t understand the joke,” I whisper. He just shakes his head and presses mine back down to lay against him, clearly not done with the cuddle.
Now that I’m awake, I start to appreciate all the tattoos he has decorating his skin. It’s the first time I’ve seen him without a shirt on. There’s a compass over his left pec with some swirls of water surrounding it.
“Is this from your time as a marine?” He nods as I trace the design with my fingers.
Jagger often wrote about his time as a Marine in his letters. I knew he enlisted when he was eighteen and stayed for seventeen years. Now he’s thirty-nine, making him the oldest out of all of us. Is a thirteen-year age gap too much? I wasn’t even sure what this was between us, but as I try to memorize his tattoo, my mind flashes back to one of his more memorable letters.
My tiny flame,
