Page 144

The kind of afterglow that softens every edge.

I rest my head on his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat and letting the silence stretch. It’s the kind of silence that doesn’t ask anything of you. The kind that’s earned.

And then⁠—

Knock knock knock.

Fletch doesn’t move.

I freeze.

Then we both hear it. The front door creaks open, followed by a cheerful, familiar voice that makes my blood run cold.

“Hey! I hope you’re decent!” Reese calls out like she didn’t just commit the number one offense in the best friend handbook: entering unannounced while your best friend is probably having post-traumatic mind-blowing sex with her rockstar baby daddy.

“Shit.” I scramble, launching out of bed in a tangle of limbs and sheets, heart pounding.

Fletch bursts out laughing, actually laughing, like this is the best part of his whole day.

“Do you not care that she’s about to walk in here and see more of me than she ever asked for?”

He stretches, arms over his head, not even bothering to hide the smug grin on his face. “She should’ve knocked harder.”

“She did knock!” I hiss, nearly falling over while trying to pull on his t-shirt—which hits me mid-thigh and still smells like sweat and sex and him.

He doesn’t budge. Just props himself up on an elbow, hair a mess, skin flushed, still gloriously naked.

“You’re ridiculous,” I mutter, diving for a pair of his boxers.

“And you’re glowing,” he says, grin widening. “Reese is gonna know exactly what we were doing.”

“Which is why you should get dressed, you Neanderthal!”

Reese’s voice rings out again from down the hall. “Guys? Do I need to bring snacks, or are we still in the awkward, naked recovery phase?”

Fletch groans, finally moving. “She’s too damn comfortable in this house.”

“You think?”

I pull my hair into a haphazard ponytail, cheeks still flushed as I open the bedroom door just enough to peek down the hallway.

Reese stands there with a diaper bag slung over one shoulder, holding a container of cookies like an offering.

“Oh good,” she says sweetly. “You’re alive.”

Barely.

Fletch emerges from the bedroom behind me, shirtless, his hair a tousled mess and a very self-satisfied smirk tugging at his flushed mouth.

He’s wearing nothing but a pair of gray sweatpants that ride low. Unreasonably low. The kind of low that should come with a warning label. He doesn’t even glance at Reese, just pads past us like he didn’t just take me apart with his hands, his mouth, and what I’m now convinced is an unfair advantage gifted to him by the gods of stamina and sin.

“Where are they?” he asks, rubbing the back of his neck like he’s still catching his breath. “The boys?”

Reese doesn’t miss a beat. “Main house. Thorin’s with them.”

Fletch gives a lazy nod. “I’m gonna go see them.”

And just like that, he disappears out the front door, shirtless and barefoot, strutting across the porch like the town’s most casual sex god on a baby mission.