“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” He pulled me closer against him beneath the blankets, his big body warm and solid and still completely unfairly shirtless. “You’re obsessed with me.”
I stared at him flatly. “You literally wanted nothing to do with me for the last four days.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“I looked hot stressing out over you.”
I burst out laughing.
Just true laughter where I wasn’t trying to survive the edges of a panic attack while pretending to be normal. Real laughter bubbled out of me while Cade watched me with that same look he always got now whenever he made me genuinely happy, like he was quietly collecting the sound for later.
His expression softened just slightly. That look, the one that made my chest ache because I knew exactly what it meant now.
I was his.
And somehow, after last night, after my freakout had given me more truth than any other tantrum I had ever thrown, I was happy.
Cade brushed his knuckles gently over my cheek. “You okay?”
The question settled over us softer than the morning light. I nodded immediately. Not because everything was magically fixed. It wasn’t. Luke still existed. The investigation process was in full swing. My family was still reeling. My dadwanted to commit homicide every few hours. My brothers were one group chat away from becoming a true crime documentary.
But me and Cade?
We were more than okay.
“I’m good,” I admitted quietly.
His eyes searched mine like he still couldn’t quite trust hearing those words from me after weeks of watching me flinch away from happiness like it might bite me.
Then his mouth curved slowly. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
A smug look immediately replaced the softness. “That’s because I’m incredible in bed.”
I gasped dramatically. “You are so cocky.”
“You weren’t complaining at”—he reached for his phone on the nightstand, squinting at the screen—“2:14 a.m., give or take my estimate.”
“Oh my goodness.”
“Or 3:26.”
“Cade.”
“Or when you almost murdered me in the shower because I laughed when you slipped.”
“I did not slip.”
“You absolutely slipped.”
“You distracted me!”
His grin turned outright lethal. “Pip, all I did was lick your—”
