“I can’t believe you’re here,” I breathe into the side of his neck.
His arms tighten with his deep inhale. His fingers fist in my hair. The prickle sends tingles down my spine that tightens my nipples and makes me too aware of my soaked panties.
The surge is so out of pocket. A reaction I’m not used to feeling that I almost struggle to tug free, but I do before I do something really embarrassing, and offer him my best smile.
He’s still so rugged. So masculine in that way cowboys are with their sun kissed skin, five o’clock shadow and hands that can fix just about anything ... including a woman’s leaky faucet. It almost makes me want to hate his wife. Whoever she is.
But I pretend like I’m not itching to run my fingers through all that thick, dark hair falling around that chiseled face to his broad shoulders. A reaction I haven’t had ... in years.
Next to him, hair shorter, frame slightly smaller, Roan meets my eye. He gives me a lopsided smirk that flashes me the single dimple in his cheek. His hands stay in the pockets of his black jacket but he cocks his head to the side as if in a challenge.
It’s so painfully familiar I have to bite back the hot well of tears as I hurry to him.
I’m caught up in his embrace. In the tangle of cedar and sandalwood. Both his arms go around my middle and I have to resist the urge to swing my legs around his hips.
“Roan,” I breathe into his shoulder.
“Fuck, baby,” he growls into my neck, the gruff rumble shooting down my spine, eliciting a shiver. “Missed you.”
I sniffle into the stitch of skin between his neck and shoulder. Arms tight enough that I’m sure I’m suffocating him.
“Missed you, too.”
He pulls back to peer into my face. His eyes, a tone lighter than his older brother’s, search mine. The corner of his mouth quirks in that impish smirk that coaxes out my own.
“Prove it.”
I snort at his teasing, but plant a kiss to his cheek out of sheer impulse.
“I better get one of those.”
“I didn’t get one at all,” Kellen grumbles.
Roan continues to hold me, but shoots his brothers a raised eyebrow screaming of smug arrogance. “Told you she likes me best.”
That earns him a playful smack on the chest from me. A harder punch in the shoulder from Lukan.
“It’s pity, because you’re so ugly. She feels bad,” Lukan retorts with no heat.
Both men ignore my gasp of outrage even while I stifle my laugh.
“I think I need a do-over while you two fight it out in the snow,” Kellen decides, capturing my wrist and tugging me back towards him.
Lukan grabs my other elbow the same moment Roan snatches me around the waist. Both men shout their outrage simultaneously.
“I’m not done!” Roan snaps.
“You can’t have her twice,” Lukan huffs.
All three stand so close I’m in the middle of their triangle. The feel and weight of them wedging me between them has my stomach doing flips. My cheeks warm to match the giddy flutter in my chest. I’m so happy to see them, I can’t stop smiling.
Lukan catches my eyes and their bickering halts as I’m forcibly detached from Roan and folded in the warm scent of campfire smoke that clings to him. I’m locked around the middle with both arms and lifted so my feet dangle.
“Been waiting to do this for so long,” he groans into the arch of my throat.
His breath is so hot, so thick across my skin. His teeth. His hands across my back, bowing me into him. His lips on my pulse. It’s all so intimate. So familiar I want to cry.
It makes no sense because they have never held me like this. And the few hugs we’ve shared were quick and friendly. Never like this. Never so tight all my broken pieces start to fuse together.
