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“Come sleep with me,” Jack told me quietly.
“She can sleep in my room,” Carter disagreed.
“Youcan sleep in my room,” Jack told him. “I have dibs.”
Jack’s voice was warm, as if he was already letting go of the chaos of the night, despite how he held himself with his ribs guarded.
“You can’t argue with dibs,” I told Carter lightly, feeling warmed by the thought of sleeping between the two of them.
Carter let out a grunt. It wasn’t exactly an enthused sound, but it certainly wasn’t a no.
I glanced down the hall at Sebastian, who was closing the door to his room slowly. Knowing Sebastian, he needed time and space to process the night. But it still bothered me.
And then, Sebastian and I hadn’t exactly made up yet, either.
Soon enough, I found myself falling into a deep, comfortable sleep. I felt safe between the two broad-shouldered men who slept on either side of me.
In the middle of the night, I woke to find Jack had pulled me against his body, wrapping himself around me as if I were the little spoon. Then I woke again to find Carter’s leg thrown over mine, his arm around my waist as if he were trying to pull me away from Jack in his sleep.
The three of us so close together was so warm—too warm, but their competitiveness even in sleep made me smile drowsily before I succumbed to sleep again.
But during the night, as I overheated, I found myself lost in dark dreams. I was in my old apartment again, with flames crackling along the ceiling. I was frozen, open eyed, unable to move no matter how much I screamed internally.
And no one came.
There was no Sebastian in this dream.
Or maybe in this dream, there was only the Sebastian who set the fire, and not the version of him who rescued me.
I sat up, heart pounding, and felt the weight of their muscular arms and legs roll off me abruptly. Carter reached forme again, but I slipped out of bed. I was so tense that it felt like I couldn’t catch my breath after that nightmare.
I stumbled out into the hall. The lights were on low in the living room, and I could feel someone's presence there even before Sebastian lifted his head up from the sofa. His gaze met mine.
My eyes must have been wild, because he was on his feet and to me in the hall in seconds. I would’ve darted back into the bedroom to avoid a deeper conversation with him, but it was too late.
“Kennedy, are you alright?” he asked quietly.
I shook my head. “Nightmare.”
My voice was tight. I walked away from him.
He followed me through the living room and into the sprawling kitchen. “About the fire?” His voice was tense. Of course he’d seen right through me.
“Yes.” There was no point in lying.
He might as well know what he had done.
I put on the kettle, my back still toward him. The silence stretched so long that I thought he was gone.
“I’m sorry.”
I turned, my lips parting. Not because of the apology, but because he sounded destroyed.
“I just wanted to protect you, Kennedy. You are the best thing that ever happened to me, and losing you was the worst. But sometimes, those impulses lead me to do…the wrong thing. I’m…” He trailed off.
I helpfully provided, “A psychopathic alphahole?”
His brows knit, but then he shrugged. Without any rancor, he admitted, “I suppose so.”
