“Nothing.”
“That is never true.”
She smiles.
I clean her gently, then slide into bed beside her.
She turns toward me almost immediately, settling her head against my chest while I wrap one arm around her.
The cabin is quiet again.
This time, it does not feel empty.
Kaia’s breathing evens out against me, and I stare into the dark with one hand resting against her back.
She thinks she is here because the fire left her nowhere else to go.
She does not know that somewhere between carrying her through my front door and holding her in my bed, I stopped thinking of this cabin as mine alone.
Chapter 7
Kaia
IwakealoneinZain’s bed with a pleasant ache between my thighs and the immediate memory of exactly how it got there.
For several seconds, I stay beneath the sheets and stare at the ceiling before a smile slowly spreads across my face.
This feels dangerous.
Not the soreness. That is manageable. The dangerous part is the warm, ridiculous happiness spreading through me because last night happened, and this morning I am still here.
I find one of Zain’s shirts and pull it over my head. My underwear is on the floor near the bed.
I look at it, then leave it there.
That is not seduction. It is efficiency.
Mostly.
The smell of coffee leads me into the kitchen.
Zain stands at the counter in gray shorts and nothing else, his back to me as he reaches for a mug. Morning light catches the scars across one shoulder, and the memory of kissing them softens something inside me.
Then he turns.
His eyes find mine and travel down my body. The shirt reaches mid-thigh.
Nothing beneath it, but he does not know that.
His gaze returns to my face.
“Morning.”
His voice is rough enough to make my pulse jump.
“Morning.”
He picks up my mug and holds it out.
