Page 99 of Devil in Her Details

She could stare all blazing night.

Instead, she took another sip of wine. Some lines were simply too deep, too wide, too tall to cross. Some were impossible. Had she not sensed that impossibility from him from the start? Was it not one of the things that had drawn her to him?

They were opposites in exactly the right ways and the worst ways.

She understood the reason he’d attached himself to her was because of giving his word and that his brothers had wanted him to break their deal. But she’d also come to another observation. This one about herself. This one gained when he’d knelt before her and ever so carefully accounted for her wounds. She’d attached himself to him.

Irrevocably, she suspected.

Calliope and Violet had at some point turned their attention to her, and Lilly noticed the twin looks of knowing directed at her.

She blinked at them. “What?”

“You’re doomed,” Violet said with a note of pity.

Lilly blinked again.

Calliope nodded her agreement. “So doomed.”

Doomed?

Her heart ordered her gaze back to Dagger.

A sequence of memories containing moments with this man flashed before her eyes. Being carried to the pianoforte and kissed like that second had been their last. Sleeping beside each other with a row of pillows between them. Her bruises being tended to with gentle hands. The pleasure of pleasuring such a dangerous panther. All his scowls. The half-smiles. The shirt dangling from his finger . . .

Dear God.

Quite right.

Doomed covered it rather well.

*

“We good?”

Dagger wrenched his gaze from Lilly to glance at Saint, who took a seat beside Reaper. He gave a curt nod. “Yes, we’re good.” Grudges were for enemies. Not family. Whatever Saint had said or not said that day, his brother had more than made up for it. Plus, he owed him for keeping a vigilant eye on the women after those carriages showed up. He had never been more relieved to have his brothers.

Saint inclined his head.

“Glad you got that all sorted, frère,” Reaper said, grinning. “Almost no words necessary.”

“We don’t need words when we have an understanding. Something I hope you’ll learn in your lifetime.”

“Well, you know me, I don’t plan on living that long.”

Dagger scowled at his brother. This arse had the devil’s tongue at times. “Don’t say such bloody things.”

“In any case,” Reaper added, devil-may-care, “I’ve always got your back.” His grin was cocky. “So long as you name your firstborn after me.”

“Shut your damn mouth before I shut it for you,” Dagger growled, shooting a quick glance at Lilly before glaring at his brother again.

Saint wore a scowl, too. “If you name your firstborn after him, I’m not your brother anymore.”

“Reaper is a perfectly fine name, frère. Strong. Purposeful.”

Saint scoffed. “It’s just a name.”

“And a noble one at that.”