“And now?”
His gaze comes back to me as he takes another step closer. He towers over me, his hair rippling in the warm summer breeze, his gaze burning through every wall I had up to protect myself.
“Now, I can’t look at you without wanting to kiss you.” He takes my face in his big hands and claims my mouth fiercely.
I’d like to say I fight him, but I don’t. It’s the rough gravel in his voice, the need in his tone, the warm touch of his hands on me as he kisses me like he’s dying, and I am his elixir.
For some reason, a rush of vulnerability surges through me, and I break off the kiss. “Please don’t regret me, Jack.”
His thumb brushes my cheek. “I regret a lot of things in my life, wildflower, but what I’m about to do to you won’t ever be one of them.”
Jack doesn’t give me a chance to reply. Instead, he lifts and throws me over his left shoulder, then carries me inside the house. Kicking the door closed behind him, he takes me to his bedroom and throws me on the bed where he makes love to me slowly. Every touch is purposeful. Every kiss is deep and meaningful. His strong body chasing away the demons in my mind until I’m walking in sunshine again.
When I come, he growls my name and presses his pelvis deeper into me, drawing out the pleasure until I’m a moaning, writhing mess beneath him.
He’s determined to make me forget any of my reservations.
He wants to kiss every morsel of hurt from my body and show me that this is right. This is who we are now.
When he’s sure I’m done, he lets his own climax consume him, and he comes hard, his moans primal and raw as he pumps his release into me and falls heavy onto the bed when he’s done.
Afterward, we lay entwined, our bodies slick with sweat, our breathing slow to even out. He kisses me, and it’s tender and anointing, his lips a rough contrast to the fierce kissing when he’d been inside me.
I lay my head against his warm chest and feel the strong beat of his heart. Right here I am safe, happy, and for the first time in months, I feel the unfamiliar spark of hope.
“Where did you go?”
“For a long ride.” I feel him swallow. “I ended up at Coop’s grave.”
Outside, through the open window, I see a hawk soar in the warm summer afternoon sun.
“Do you go there often?” I ask.
“Not often enough. But when I do, I always leave with a clear head.”
I listen to the sound of his heartbeat, content and happy in his arms.
“I saw the bracelet you left.”
I frown. “What bracelet?”
“The bracelet you left on his grave.”
I sit up. “I didn’t leave him a bracelet. I mean, I was going to, but I haven’t gotten around to it.”
He presses his brows together. “It was the one you were wearing the other day. The one with the little bluestone.”
A cold trickle shivers down my spine. The last time I saw that bracelet, I was taking it off before my shower the morning Jack was shot. I had completely forgotten about it until now.
I fly off the bed and hurry to the bathroom, frantically looking for the bracelet on the basin, but it’s gone, so I run back to the bedroom. “Are you sure?”
“A hundred percent.”
I start to panic.
Alarmed by my reaction, Jack sits up. “Bronte?”
Feeling the color drain from my face, I struggle to swallow the lump of fear in my throat as I think back to this afternoon when I’d walked through the house with the knife in my hand.
Had I been fucking right.
“The Poet doesn’t just know where I am, Jack. He’s been inside the fucking house.”
JACK
“Let him come, I say,” Ares growls.
Ares is always ready to fight. It makes him a perfect sergeant-at-arms.
After establishing The Poet had been inside my home, I called Wyatt, Shooter, Paw, and Ares to meet us at the house.
“Can’t see where he got in. There are no broken windows, no jimmied locks,” Wyatt relays, walking back into the living room. Everyone looks at Bronte. “You sure about the bracelet?”
“If she says she’s sure, then she’s sure,” I say. “How else did the bracelet end up in the cemetery?”
“Perhaps he got a key somehow?” Shooter suggests.
“Possibility…” Wyatt rubs his jaw.
“But how?” I ask. “Only two people have a key… me and Bronte. And our keys are always on us?” I shake my head. “It’s impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible,” Ares says darkly.
“There had to be an opportunity, somewhere, sometime for him to make a copy,” Wyatt says, thinking out loud.
“The only place that could happen is the clubhouse, and you guys have that place locked down tight,” Bronte says.
“We’ll figure this out,” I assure her. “Until then, we’ll stay at the clubhouse where it’s safer.”