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Through the glass, Ryder saluted me with two fingers, then casually walked off.

Sterling rounded the hood, his eyes locked on mine through the windshield.

Bastard.

The worst part wasn’t that he’d taken me, though. The worst part was something I wouldn’t dare admit.

That some buried part of me actually felt safer that he did.

CHAPTER 25

STERLING

Sienna hadn’t spoken since I’d buckled her into the truck like she was precious cargo I refused to lose. She sat curled against the passenger door, her arms crossed and her chin tipped up in a pout that should’ve been harmless.

But nothing about her was harmless to me.

The road unwound ahead in long, dark stretches, the truck humming steadily beneath us. Every few seconds, I found my gaze sliding off the asphalt and toward her.

Sienna stared out the window with gritted teeth, her breath fogging the glass in soft bursts. She was clearly mad at me and probably scared and tired. All of it swirled around her like a storm she was trying to stand upright in.

I reached for the gearshift, my fingers flexing once. It was strange. I’d dragged bodies, buried secrets, and driven these roads with blood cooling on my skin without so much as a second thought.

But bringing her home?

That made my pulse stutter in a way nothing else ever had.

Because this wasn’t just me showing her the ranch. It was me showing her the place I wanted her to live. I wanted her to see it and like it, to breathe in that wide Montana quiet and feel it settle in her bones. I wanted her to think of my place as hers.

Fuck. This was what I wanted…and now that it was here, it was terrifying.

I wasn’t nervous about anything waiting for us on the ranch.

I was nervous about her walking into it and about her boots on my floors, her presence at my table…her things slipping into my world until I couldn’t tell where mine ended and hers began.

I glanced over at her again. Her forehead was resting against the window, and the moonlight was sliding over her cheekbone, turning her pout into something that went straight to my dick.

Had it just been this afternoon when my face was buried in her sweet pussy? It felt like a lifetime.

“Can you stop staring at me?” she growled.

“Not a chance.”

She let out a long-suffering sigh and slumped deeper into the seat. “Why are you even doing this? I mean, yes, we…hooked up this afternoon—” Her voice tightened. “But I’m still leaving. And it’s not like I’m your girlfriend. You don’t even know me. I could be an axe murderer, and you’re just letting me loose in your home.”

That made me grin.

Because if she had any idea, any idea at all, how backward that fear was? How the danger in the truck was sitting firmly on my side and not hers? She’d have launched herself straight out the window.

“An axe murderer, huh?” I drawled.

She shot me a glare. “It was an example.”

“Okay,” I said, still smiling. “Just checking the accuracy.”

She groaned and thunked her head against the window. “I’m going to start screaming soon, and I won’t stop.”

“I can think of more pleasurable reasons you could scream,” I offered.