"Shrapnel. An IED that didn't quite finish the job."
"You're a map of violence."
"It's the life." I catch her hand, press a kiss to the center of her palm, tasting salt. "It leaves marks."
"I have marks too." Her voice drops, losing its strength. "They just don't show on the outside."
"Tell me."
She looks away, toward the jagged horizon where the mountains meet the sky. "My parents died when I was seven. Car accident. I spent ten years in the system before my grandmother found me." A muscle twitches in her jaw. "You learn pretty quickly that the only person coming to save you is you. That's why I went into tech. Code makes sense. It follows rules. If you build the firewall high enough, nothing gets in."
"And yet." I tilt her chin back, forcing her to meet my eyes. "When a man with a gun broke into your house, you didn't freeze. You packed a bag. You got on the bike."
"I was terrified."
"Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision." I run my thumb over her lower lip, watching it part. "You have steel in you. I saw it the moment you let me blindfold you. That takes strength—surrendering control like that."
"I trust you."
The words land harder than a physical blow. Trust. In my world, it's a currency spent sparingly, only on men I've bled beside.
I think about Amara. Diplomat's daughter, twenty-six years old, with dark eyes and a laugh that filled a room. I followedprotocol when my gut was screaming at me to move. I was going to do it right, keep everything clean, and she died for it.
When I walked into that bar two nights ago and saw the situation—a woman alone, a man who wouldn't stop—I saw that moment replaying. The one where I trusted the rulebook over my instincts. I told myself I stepped in because it was the professional thing to do. Lying on this rock, I know better. I wasn't going to walk past that again.
Not for anything.
"I suppose we should get back." She reaches for her jeans, which lie in a heap on the stone. "Before the wildlife gets traumatized."
She grabs the denim.
My hand shoots out, wrapping around her wrist.
She freezes. Her pulse flutters against my thumb—frantic and alive. "Kade?"
"Not yet."
Low. Rough with a hunger I haven't bothered to hide.
Wren's pupils blow wide, swallowing the blue. The frantic, life-affirming desperation of minutes ago settles into something heavier.
Slower.
Thicker.
"We need to get back," she breathes—but she doesn't pull her wrist away. That same focused curiosity she turns on a puzzle she can't quite solve.
"We have time." I stroke the sensitive skin of her inner wrist, tracking the heat rising under my fingers. "And I'm nowhere near done with you."
"We just..."
"Took the edge off." I tug her arm gently, pulling her back between my spread legs. "That was for the adrenaline. Now I want something for us."
Her fingers slacken. The jeans hit the rock with a soft thud.
"What do you want?"
"To see you." I guide her back until she's standing in front of me, my face level with her stomach. "Properly. In the light. No hiding."
