Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
I’m vaguely aware of the microwave running, then my plate of food from dinner appears beside my left hand.
“Eat,” Wren says.
She’s beside me in sleep shorts and an oversized sweater that slips off one shoulder. Her legs are bare, and her damp hair falls in waves around her face. There’s a faint crease between her brows.
“I ate.”
She frowns, and I’m expecting an argument. Instead, she says, “Share it with me.”
She picks up a forkful of potatoes and eats it, then hands the fork to me. Her eyes stay on mine as I put food in my mouth and chew.
She slides into the chair beside me. “You can’t protect anyone if you run yourself into the ground.”
I’ve heard similar things before, from my brothers and even my mother. Hearing it from Wren hits differently. She’s stepped fully inside our circle and isn’t afraid to push back.
She takes another bite, and I do, too. Then she insists I take two bites before she takes another. We sit side by side as Cade’s radio check crackles low from the counter, and Boone shifts in his sleep.
Before I know it, the plate is empty. I swipe gently at a small crumb at the side of Wren’s lips, then lick it from my finger. “You got me to eat. Are you happy?”
Instead of answering, she rests her head against my shoulder. The smell of her shampoo and clean skin tugs at a spot deep inside me.
Mine. Ours.
“You should go to bed,” I say.
She swivels her head so her lips press against my arm. “So should you.”
“I still have work.”
She glances down at the papers, then back at me. “You have fear dressed up like work.”
I give her a look, but she doesn’t flinch. She slides her hand around my arm.
“I’m scared, too,” she says. “But spending another hour over these maps won’t make that go away.”
I push back from the chair and stand, and her hand slides away. She has to tilt her head back to keep looking at me, but she doesn’t retreat. Her shoulder is still bare, and her pulse beats at the base of her throat.
I touch it with two fingers, and her breath catches. “Rhett.”
I slide my hand to the side of her neck, where her skin is warm under my palm and her hair damp against my knuckles. For all my control, my plans, and my restraint, I have no defense against the way she looks at me like she sees the man under the command and wants him, too.
“You know what happens if I kiss you right now?” I ask.
Her lips part. “I’m hoping to find out.”
CHAPTER 32
RHETT
I bend and take her mouth, and though I aim to go slow, with Boone sleeping ten feet away and Cade outside on watch, it’s not a gentle kiss.
It starts that way, until Wren makes a small sound and grips the front of my shirt, and all my careful intentions go up in flames.
I turn us, putting my body between her and the room, and back her up against the wall, cupping her head so she never feels the wood. Her fingers slide into my hair, her nails lightly scraping my scalp, and a groan climbs out of me.
She kisses like she argues, direct and brave enough to ask for what she wants.
I drag my mouth away from hers, down to her jaw, then to the exposed line of her throat. Her head falls back against my hand.
“Tell me to stop,” I say against her skin.
“No.”
“Wren.”
She pulls my mouth back to hers, and I’m gone.
I lift her, and her legs wrap around my waist like she belongs there. Like she’s always belonged there. The heat of her presses against me through too many layers, and my hands close too hard on her thighs before I tell myself to loosen my grip.
She can take it, but I’m too close to forgetting the difference between wanting and taking.
“I’m not breakable,” she says, like this woman’s reading my mind, and my control fractures.
I carry her down the hall into my room, kick the door mostly shut behind us, and set her on her feet beside the bed.
For a second, we stare at each other. The urgency is still there, clawing under my skin, but there’s something deeper moving with it.
Wren grabs the bottom of her sweater and pulls it over her head, and my breath hitches. She stands there in front of me, soft and bare and beautiful, the low light of the lamp in the corner tracing her body’s curves. She’s trembling, but her spine is straight.
“Do you know what you are to us?” I ask. I drink her in, but don’t touch her yet.
“Tell me.”
“Everything.” I cup her face in both hands. “The woman we protect, the woman who challenges us, the woman who walked into our cabin and made it feel like a home before we had the sense to realize what that would mean.”