Page 45 of Ash Fall

"Very deeply and thoughtfully, I might add."

"Want a sticker?"

I smack his arm. He laughs, and Penny's head pops up between us, because someone made a happy noise and therefore she needs to participate.

"You're a dick."

He glances over at me with a raised brow. "The no swearing thing is over?"

I shrug, "Apocalypse rules says it is."

He sends me an exaggerated pout. Penny puts one paw on my leg.

"No, don't support him."

Her tail thumps against the floor.

"Traitor."

Gage's laugh gets deeper, and the sound moves through me in a way I don't want to examine too closely right now. He's wearing a plain dark T shirt with the sleeves pulled tight around his biceps. His forearms flex with ropes of muscle as he guides the huge vehicle around a turn. Big, rough hands grip that wheel, and heat slides up my chest onto my neck when my brain supplies exactly how those hands would feel lifting me up against him.

I look away before he catches me staring. These thoughts are coming more often since they’ve been home, and I have no idea what to do with them. Every one of those men has been part of my life for years, and whatever is happening inside me now could tear all of it apart.

Gage stays quiet for another minute before speaking again. "I fought hard to get back to you."

My head turns, but he's looking straight ahead.

"From the second I crawled out of that plane, there wasn't one point where I thought about giving up."

The muscles in my throat tighten. "Gage..."

"I don't mean that in some dramatic way. I mean I had one job and it was to get home. I didn't know what was happening here. Didn't know if you were safe. Didn't know if the house was still standing or if the rest of them had made it back." His fingers flex once around the wheel. "Every time something happened out there, every time I got knocked down or something tried to stop me, I got back up because I needed to get to you."

My chest feels too tight.

He finally looks over at me. "All of you," he adds.

The correction comes a fraction too late. We both hear it, and neither of us says anything for several seconds. Penny's head rests against my shin again while I stare at Gage's profile until I can't stand it anymore, because I need to hear him say it.

"You came back to me," I whisper.

He pulls in a slow breath and nods, and then his eyes come to mine. "I always will."

It sounds like a promise much bigger than the words holding it.

My body reacts before my mind can sort out any of it. Heat gathers low in my stomach, and I shift in the passenger seat, suddenly very aware of how close he is. This is exactly the problem.

Mars loved me. Reid has held pieces of me together more times than I can count. Jules kissed me years ago, and my body still remembers exactly how that felt every time he calls me Cin in that particular voice. Torrin held my hand all morning, teased me about sleeping with him that sounded a lot like flirting, and I liked it far too much. Now Gage is sitting beside me, telling me he fought his way home because he needed to get back to me. Every part of me wants to lean across the space between us.

What the hell is wrong with me? One man would be a complication. Five is a psychiatric referral, even if Gigi would probably call it efficient. Life isn't like the smutty romance books I read. None of this would work in the real world, would it?

The worst part is that I don't want any of these feelings to stop. That realization makes me sit very still.

Gage glances at me. "You okay?"

"Yep."

"That sounded convincing."