Maybe it didn’t have to end when she healed. Maybe he wasn’t just a weapon anymore.
With Jen, he could be more than what they made him.
He’d wanted before. Craved distraction, release, someone to take the edge off.
But this wasn’t that.
This was unfamiliar.
He wanted to care for her. Stay—not just step in. To be someone she could lean on. And for the first time in a long time, he felt something close to hope.
Maybe this could work.
He swallowed against the tightness rising in his throat and kept driving.
When they arrived home, he took her hand. She replied with a small squeeze of his fingers as they entered his house.
“I’ve got just the thing for after a long ride.”
Her lips parted, but he held up a hand. “Wine and a hot bath. Sound good?”
“Sounds amazing.” A smile tipped her lips.
He dropped his hand and stepped away before he forgot himself. “Come on.”
He led her into the main bathroom. Azure tiles wrapped the room, deep and cool, the blue that always made him think of water—depth and quiet.
“Sit.”
He guided her down into the chair with light pressure on her shoulders, then turned to the tub. He set the water hot enough to ease sore muscles but not scalding and poured in the salts he saved for days when his body reminded him he wasn’t twenty-five anymore.
The tub filled slowly, steam rising in pine-scented white clouds. In the under-sink cabinet he found candles and lit them above the bath. He straightened and caught himself. Candles. Hewas lighting candles. The man who’d killed people with his bare hands was lighting candles beside a bathtub.
Fuck it.
She deserved candles. Soft light flickered across the tiles as he checked the temperature of the water once more.
Perfect.
“I’ll grab you a robe while you soak. White wine?”
“Oh. That would be lovely.” Her cheeks were flushed—warmth, exhaustion, something else he didn’t touch.
“I’ll be back in five.”
He poured the wine, gathered a fresh robe, then knocked softly before re-entering.
“Come in.”
Jen was in the bath. He set the glass on the wide edge of the tub and hung the robe within reach.
Don’t look. Look away. Fuck, I’m looking.
Just long enough to register the curve of her spine, the bruises blooming dark across her ribs. Evidence of what she’d survived.
He cleared his throat. “I’ll let you?—”
Her hand closed around his wrist. “Wyatt.”
