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I cut her off with my mouth, my hand sliding up to cup her breast through the thin fabric of her bra, and the argument dies in her throat, replaced by a gasp that goes straight to my cock. I roll my thumb over her nipple, feeling it harden. The sensation causes her to arch into my touch.

“Not what?” I murmur against her ear, nipping the lobe. “Not beautiful? Not mine?” I slide my hand lower, over her stomach, pausing at the waistband of her jeans. “Not wet for me right now?”

She makes a sound that’s half protest, half plea, and her hips instinctively lift.

I pop the button on her jeans. “That’s what I thought.”

My fingers slide inside, finding her pussy hot, slick, and ready. Her whole body goes rigid as her hand clamps down on my wrist. For a second, I think I’ve moved too fast.

Then she squeezes my hand harder and rocks her hips. The sound she makes is the most honest thing I’ve ever heard from her.

“Please,” she whispers, and the word breaks something in me that I’ve been holding together with the sheer refusal to want anything this badly.

“Yeah,” I say, and I stroke her, slow and deliberate, watching her face as she falls apart under my hand. “I got you. I got you, Fawn. Let go, baby.”

She does.

She comes apart with my name on her lips, and I watch every second of it. Memorizing the way she looks when she’s not carrying the world on her shoulders. When she’s mine, and I’m the one making her feel good.

She rides out her orgasm, falling limp against the pillows, her breathing ragged, eyes half-closed and dazed. I pull my hand free and settle beside her, pulling her close against my chest, and rest my chin on top of her head. She’s completely relaxed now, her body loose in a way it wasn’t before.

“You’re still shaking,” she mumbles into my shirt.

“Yeah, but it’s for a different reason now.”

She laughs, and the sound wraps around something in my chest, squeezing. “You’re not what I expected.”

“No one ever is.” I kiss her hair. “Get some sleep, sweetheart. I’m not going anywhere.”

She doesn’t say anything for a long moment, letting her hand trace patterns on my chest. “Noah?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. For... for not making me think.”

I close my eyes and hold her tighter. I want to tell her that I’m the one who should be thanking her. That for the first time in my life, I touched something I wanted without breaking it. That feeling is so foreign I’m not sure what to do with it.

“Shh. Go to sleep,” I say instead. “We’ve got a long day of me being an asshole ahead of us. You’ll need your rest.”

She snorts, the sound muffled against my chest, and her body relaxes little by little until her breathing evens out, and I know she’s really asleep.

I stay awake listening to the building settle around us. My phone buzzes again, Ryker’s name lighting up the screen where I left it on the couch, but I don’t dare move to get it.

He can wait. They can all wait.

Right now, Fawn’s safe, warm, and in my arms.

I’m exactly where I want to be.

10

RYKER

Istand on the sidewalk with Kipton at my side, both of us staring up at the second-floor window where Fawn sleeps behind thin curtains and even thinner walls.

“She shouldn’t be here,” Kipton says, his voice low and rough, the same thought that’s been circling my head since Noah called us in.

“She won’t be. Not after today.”