Sol moves closer to the desk, the low light catching the silver in his hair. “You’re letting the pretty thing get under your skin.”
“Careful.”
“There it is again. The growl. The warning. The performance.” Sol’s voice stays almost bored, which makes every word worse. “I’m not impressed by it. I built half of it.”
Saint’s hand flexes once on the armrest, and Sol notices.
“You think because you put a ring on him and scared the club off touching him, you’ve solved the problem,” Sol says. “That’s ownership. Ownership has rules. It can be enforced. Need is uglier. Need makes a man stupid before he admits he’s hungry.”
Saint says nothing.
Sol leans one hand on the desk. “Your mother confused the two as well. She thought needing someone meant there was something noble in being needed back. She thought wanting me to come home earlier made her honest instead of weak. In the end, all it did was give her something to leave when she decided she couldn’t get what she wanted.”
“Don’t talk about her.”
“She left.”
Saint stands so quickly the chair shifts back an inch. “I said don’t.”
Sol finally smiles, like he has touched the exact nerve he came to find. “Owning someone and needing someone look identical from the outside. Only one survives loss.”
I step back before either of them can turn toward the door, my pulse loud enough that I’m sure the hallway can hear it. I move quickly and silently toward the bedroom with Sol’s wordsfollowing me like smoke under a closed door. By the time I reach Saint’s room, my hands are shaking.
I stand there for a few moments before twisting around to close the door only to find Saint there. I jerk back so hard my shoulders hit the dresser nearby. He’s standing in the doorway a few feet away, his expression still unreadable.
His eyes move over my face. “You heard all of that.”
My mouth goes dry. “Saint—”
He crosses the room before I can finish, his lips immediately on mine. His hands catch my face, then my waist, then my jaw again as if he can’t decide where to hold me and has no patience left to choose. He kisses me like something in him is drowning and my mouth is the first air he’s found.
I know I should stop him. We’re not fine. He’s not fine. Sol’s voice is still in my head, and Saint’s eyes had looked too empty when he came home. But then his hand slides into my hair and his mouth opens mine, and every lonely, furious part of me that has been starving for him rises at once. I wanted to be wanted. I wanted him to reach for me without turning it into punishment or proof. Now he is, and the wanting in him is so raw it almost hurts to be touched by it.
I melt against him before I can build the strength to do anything else.
Saint groans into my mouth, the sound breaking something loose in my chest. He pulls me away from the dresser, walking me backward without lifting his mouth from mine. I stumble as his arm locks around my waist, steadying me with the same hand that shoves me closer.
“Saint,” I breathe against his mouth.
His hands go to my shirt, dragging it up over my head before I can decide whether to help or stop him. Cool air hits my skin, and the sound I make disappears under his mouth when he kisses me again. He throws the fabric aside and follows themovement with his hands, palms pressing over my shoulders, my ribs, my waist, touching places he already knows as if he has to relearn them to believe I’m still here.
The rest of my clothes come off with the same desperate impatience. Sweatpants shoved down, his fingers at my hips, his body crowding mine until I have to hold onto him to stay balanced. He strips me quickly, but the roughness lacks the distance he usually keeps between his want and whatever else lives underneath it.
He pushes me toward the bed, and I let him, even as some small, frightened part of me understands he’s not fully here. His eyes are on me, but something behind them is still trapped in that office with Sol’s voice and a lesson taught too young.
The backs of my knees hit the mattress, and he follows me down before I can catch my breath, one hand braced beside my shoulder while the other burns a path along my ribs. My body arches into the heat of his touch because I’ve spent days missing the proof of his want and now it’s everywhere at once.
Saint kisses me again, his mouth moving like he can force the noise in his head quiet if he takes enough from mine. His touch lands like fire along my ribs, my waist, my thigh, every pass of his hand leaving heat behind. My body responds as I tremble under him, needing more and knowing need is exactly the word Sol had just turned into a warning.
His mouth moves to my throat, and I turn my head instinctively, giving him the space. His breath shudders against my skin before he kisses the pulse there, then bites lightly enough to make me arch and hard enough to remind me who he is. My hands slide over his shoulders and into the back of his cut, trying to pull him closer and hold him still at the same time.
“What’s wrong?” I whisper.
His mouth drags lower to my collarbone, then to the center of my chest, and the silence hurts worse because I can feel how badly he needs me without being willing to tell me why.
“Saint.” My voice shakes as his hand slides down my side, and I force myself to keep talking before sensation takes the words away from me. “Talk to me.”
His mouth pauses against my chest, but only for a second.
