He was about to tell her Brody was just leaving when she walked into the room and both men froze.
“Oh shit,”Brody mouthed.
Oh shit, indeed. Because before either of them could move, Mackenzie padded in with her hair hanging loose down her back, hisT-shirt flirting with her thighs, and a very pink, very lacy, and very small pair of panties playing a game of peekaboo every time she stepped.
“Go,”Hunter mouthed back, waving his hand at Brody to get out.
To which Brody gave aHow the fuck do you expect me to do that?look, because between him and the door was a half-naked woman who would be mortified if she knew he was there.
Hunter held a finger to his lips, and Brody gave him a no-shit roll of the eyes.
“At least look away, man”was followed by the universal hand gesture for “cover your damn eyes.”
“Hunter?” she said again, and both men looked back at her. Because this time the uncertainty was creeping in. Not to mention Muttley had taken one look at Brody and was going in for a doggy high five.
“Right here, Trouble.”
She smiled at his voice and changed direction. Muttley was by her side, pressing against her leg, navigating her away from Brody and toward the couch.
“Did I wake you?” And, damn, that Georgian accent was even thicker when she was half-asleep.
“Nope, I was just finishing up and was going to come check on you.”
“Funny, I was doing the same thing.” She paused and wrinkled her nose. “Did you let Muttley out earlier?”
“No. Why?”
“I don’t know, it smells like wet dog”—she sniffed again—“or wet hair or something.”
Brody glared at Hunter. Hunter grinned.
“Nope, he was with you the whole time. But it looks like someone forgot their pants again?”
“Again?”mouthed the third wheel in flannel bottoms.“What happened to taking it slow?”
“What happened to leaving?”Hunter punctuated this with the finger, and Brody quietly headed down the stairs and to the door, presumably to let himself out.
“I didn’t bring any.” She reached her hand out, and he met her halfway. Taking her by the hand, he wove her around the coffee table and into his arms.
“Isn’t that a damn shame,” he said, brushing her hair behind her ear, noticing that her eyelids were still heavy with exhaustion. Her vulnerability hit him like a hard punch to the chest, powered by the guilt and the memories from a night he could never erase. “You didn’t sleep very long.”
“Too much going on in my head to sleep.” She stepped into him and held his face in both hands. Her gentle touch, combined with the raw vulnerability in her voice, was his undoing. “I couldn’t sleep until I told you how sorry I am for the other night. I was scared, and instead of facing it, I pushed you away.”
“You’re not the one who needs to apologize. That’s all on me. You pushed because I didn’t give you much of an option.” He wanted to haul her in and kiss her breathless. But that would lead to touching and eventually amazing sex—and right now she needed support. So he pressed her hands to his lips. “But seeing you tonight, sitting there in that dog bed, knowing what you went through and how brave you were. How brave you had to be ...” He swallowed hard. “I am so damn proud of you.”
“I’m not.”
“Nothing about the past few weeks has been on your terms. Nothing.” A situation, sadly, that he’d played a huge role in. “But you never gave up. Not even tonight, when most people would have crumbled.”
She lifted one slim shoulder and let it fall. “Sure, I figured it out by myself, but when the storm had passed, I wasall by myself. I didn’t have anyone to share the victory with.”
“And that’s my fault,” he said, curling his hands even further around hers, loving the way she tightened her clasp. “I was so stuck on proving to you that we could work, I never slowed down enough to ask you what you needed to move forward. And what you pictureduslooking like in the future.”
“I would never want you to slow down,” she said apologetically, and her words made him still. “Just like I would never want to be the person to hold you back. I’m not sure how to keep up, or if I even can, but I want to.”
“That’s where you got it wrong,” he whispered against her fingers. “You don’t slow me down, you remind me to live full in every moment. Experience things as if it was the first time. You are my reason, Mackenzie.” His head listed forward, resting against hers. “I love you, Trouble. All of you.”
Tears flooded her eyes and spilled over her lashes. “I loved you the first time I saw you. You were my best friend, and then my lover, and now you’re my everything. I want all of you.” Which worked for him, since every single cell in his body was overflowing with love for her.
