But tonight, with Luke zip-tied in the dirt and Havoc already planning the next move, forever doesn’t feel like a fantasy.
It feels like something defended.
Something earned.
I press my forehead to hers and hold her tighter.
“You have me,” I say.
Chapter 9
Sin
Morningcomesinslowthrough the curtains.
Pale light spills across the bed in thin stripes, catching on Ruby’s hair where it fans across the pillow. She’s on her side facing me, one leg tangled with mine, one hand tucked between us like she fell asleep holding on and never let go. One of my arms is curled around her waist, and for a long second I don’t move.
I just lie there and feel it.
The warmth of her against me.
The slow pull of her breath across the space between us.
A woman in my bed should feel impossible, and somehow she doesn’t.
This feels too right.
That’s what makes it dangerous.
I’ve spent too many years waking up hard and fast, body ready before my brain catches up. Too many years sleeping light, one hand close to a weapon, half my head still listening for the sound of things going bad in the dark.
But Ruby is here.
Warm and soft and trusting enough to sleep this deep with her face turned toward mine, wearing one of my shirts and nothing else.
And somehow that rattles me more than danger ever did.
My hand tightens slightly at her waist before I can stop it, feeling the rise and fall of her breathing under my palm through the thin cotton.
She makes the smallest sound and shifts closer, her body finding me like it knows where it wants to be even half asleep.
My jaw tightens.
Fuck.
I close my eyes for half a second, trying to get control of myself. Trying to remember I’m a grown man, not some half-starved idiot getting wrecked by the sight of a woman in my shirt in morning light.
It doesn’t help.
Because this isn’t just a woman.
It’s Ruby.
Ruby, who looks at me like I’m the only steady thing left in her world.
Ruby, who trusted me enough to sleep here after everything.
Ruby, who belongs nowhere near the kind of life I’ve built and somehow fits into it anyway.
