“Maybe,” I allow. “But I don’t think so.”
Reaching up, I place my hands on her bare hips lightly, testing the waters first as I hold her gaze. With a slight tilt of my head, I study her closely. It takes incredible restraint not to focus on how warm and perfect her skin feels against mine.
“Tell me you don’t feel it.”
Immediately, her breathing shifts slightly. Anyone else wouldn’t notice, but it’s enough for me.
Now I’m tuned into it in a way I wasn’t before. Every shift, every reaction, and every quick flutter of her heart rate only reinforces what I already know.
This is real, and it changes everything.
Naia swallows hard as she grounds herself and stays perfectly still, forcing a non-reaction out of herself. “I’m not playing your games.”
I can see the struggle in her eyes, and I can feel it moving between us. Regardless of how much I want to prove myself right here, that new instinct to keep her safe and as emotionally balanced wins out.
So I gently move her to her side and stand, forcing myself to put space back between us while I grab a pair of boxers.
If I don’t, then this will get even more complicated than it already is.
“This doesn’t have to mean what you think it means,” Naia murmurs after a moment, her voice quieter now but still guarded.
Covered enough now, I look at her again. “It means something whether you want it to or not.”
“That doesn’t mean we act on it.”
“I didn’t say we had to.”
“Then what are you saying?” she asks, looking more desperate for answers than she wants to admit to either of us.
Considering my words, I already know this is the part I don’t have a clean answer for. One part of me wants to maintain the same respect and decency I always showed her, and the other wants me to jump straight in. To claim her completely and openly, consequences be damned.
“I’m saying it exists,” I murmur, hating how dissatisfied that greedy part of me feels. “Ignoring it isn’t going to make it go away.”
Her jaw tightens, and she mutters, “Then I’ll ignore it harder.”
Regardless of the predicament we’re in, I almost smirk at that. Almost…but the weight of everything else presses in too quickly. Between the bond, the rogue group, and both our packs, everything is colliding at once, and I need to be careful about how I move forward.
I exhale slowly, and the decision settles in. “This changes things for both of us.”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “It doesn’t.”
“It does,” I repeat. “Because now I definitely can’t let you go back there alone.”
Her eyes widen slightly as if she were struck, and the reflexive anger wants to slide back into place so badly. “Don’t start, Zane.”
“I’m not starting anything. We both did something, and now we have to face what that means together.”
“You don’t get to make that decision.”
“I do if it keeps you alive,” I state calmly, even if she looks prepared to fight me all over again.
Naia glares at me like it might do something, but I let her even though it doesn’t shake me. I feel used to it by now.
“We’re leaving,” I say after a beat, arms crossed now.
Her expression shifts slightly. “Leaving where?”
“To my real place in Delmont.”
