Something that felt dangerously close to love. And maybe that scared me, too. But I didn’t pull away.
Because love from someone like Beau, a man who carried scars like armor and still chose gentleness, that wasn’t something I was going to run from.
BEAU
I’d expected Sean to flinch. Maybe even pull away when he saw my scars but he didn’t. He’d accepted them, along with my past.
The knot that had lived in my chest for years loosened just a bit more. I wasn’t sure if Sean even realized what that moment had done to me. How much it meant. How much he meant.
“I was gonna surprise you with breakfast,” he said.
I raised one eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
“Well, you ruined the surprise, so now you have to help,” he teased.
He tossed on a shirt and padded to the kitchen, bare feet soft against the floorboards. I did a few stretches before following him to the kitchen.
Sean was standing on tiptoe, rummaging for cinnamon on the highest shelf. His shirt had ridden up, exposing a sliver of skin I definitely noticed.
“Need help?” I asked, silently admiring how gorgeous he was.
He jumped, glanced over his shoulder, and narrowed his eyes. “You’re a bear. You’re supposed to be quiet in the morning.”
I stepped in behind him, close enough to brush against his back. “I’m only quiet when I’m hunting.”
He rolled his eyes and shoved the spice jar into my hand, but his smile didn’t leave.
We made cinnamon toast together. And maybe it shouldn’t have felt intimate, but it did.
The way our hips bumped in the small kitchen, the way he handed me butter without asking, how we laughed over his ridiculous skillet-toast method that somehow made it crispy and perfect.
He kept licking sugar off his fingers and I had to turn away more than once just to keep my thoughts PG.
And maybe it was domestic, or maybe I was just lovesick, but watching him there, barefoot and humming, golden light catching in his hair, I found myself imagining this kitchen as ours.
Waking up to Sean every morning. Making toast. Arguing about butter. Laughing about nothing.
It hit me like a freight train. I wanted a life with him. Not someday, now, but first, we needed to deal with Orin.
When we finally sat down at his tiny table, plates full of golden, sugared toast, I leaned back and let myself bask in the moment.
“This is nice,” I said around a mouthful. “Could get used to this.”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” he teased, but his eyes were soft.
I hesitated, my plate half-eaten. “I’ve been thinking... about Orin.”
His smile dimmed just a little. He put his toast down.
“I know it’s not what you want to talk about right now,” I continued gently, “but we need to figure out our next step. If he’s posting in forums, offering rewards, hiring private investigators?—”
My phone buzzed against the table.
I sighed. “Of course.”
Sean gestured for me to take it. “Go ahead. It might be important.”
It was Rafael.
