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Leo’s expression was guarded. “Do you want me to get in there with you?”
My heart picked up. My cheeks heated as I bit my lip shyly and…said nothing. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Why I was speechless every time these guys put me on the spot. Why couldn’t I tell him yes? Why couldn’t I admit that I wanted him—wanted both of them?
Smirking now, he said, “I’ll be waiting my turn, sweetness. Take your time.”
Disappointment flashed through me as he dropped his hand and wandered out of the bathroom, but he didn’t close the door behind him. He stood before the windows, staring out, waiting for me to rinse and get out.
Shakily, I stepped into the shower stall, painfully aware he wasn’t lingering far off, and I should have closed the door on him, should have washed myself in complete privacy, but…
I didn’t.
I kept it wide open, every inch of me aware that at any point he could have wandered back in, could have turned his head and watched me rinse.
Leo, ever the gentleman, did not.
Hunter
He glanced behind him, eyes scanning the upper-level windows, catching Leo’s figure standing there. His arms were crossed, he was staring straight ahead, but Hunter could see the stiffness in his shoulders, the way his head shifted to the side where she must have been.
He hadn’t gone into the shower with her.
Hunter’s chest sank slowly, his lips dancing around the unlit smoke as he continued to stare, waiting for a sign of her.
Why didn’t she invite Leo in? Why hadn’t she used her body to urge Hunter to keep touching her in that canoe?
What was it going to take for Skye to crumble?
She’s still scared.
When Skye finally appeared, wrapped in just a towel, he noticed the distance Leo maintained as he smiled at her, moving his lips. Saying whatever charming shit he had up his sleeve to make her laugh.
He always made Skye laugh.
Because that was Leo. A ray of fucking sunshine despite the life he led at home—a life he had divulged so often, Hunter felt like he was shouldering it, too.
Hunter and Leo…
The same, but utterly different, too.
Paths forged in different directions, yet constantly criss-crossing because…they understood one another. Their pain was similar; after all, the tip of a knife when plunged deep always felt the same no matter the circumstance.
He disappeared into the bathroom and Skye took her turn to look out, her gaze roaming quickly. He knew she was searching for him—he could feel her need from afar, and, fuck, that did things to him. Made his insides quiver, made his hands fist with raging desire.
Their eyes connected, and she raised a hand to wave at him, her smile wide and bright.
“She’s a star,” he whispered to himself just then, a raw ache in his tone.
She was his star in the fucking night. A beacon of light. She’d never turned him away, never pushed him far enough he couldn’t reach her. Skye held him close, whispered words in his ear at his lowest moments. She was there by his side through it all.
Despite her shitty upbringing—a shared experience for them both—she never let its ugliness taint her. Instead, she clung to him, clung to Leo, showering them with attention, with raw affection.
Just…a fucking star.
Hunter swallowed, pulling away, returning his gaze to the water as he tried to stamp out the fire burning from within. He used to be able to extinguish every flame when it shot out, quick to put an end to it, quick to see it ash and smoke, to scatter like dust in the wind.
But how does one put out a flame that kept roaring? A flame that burst from one side, and then burst from another? He was swamped in them now; hundreds of burning flames within him, roaring too high to put out.
He burned to touch her.
He burned to make her his.
But he was not ready for this, he reasoned.
Too dumb, young and broke. He had nothing to offer her. She deserved the world—deserved the pretty things that glinted like the diamond studs in her ears.
And all he could offer at the end of the day were tattered books in a torn shirt because that was all he was good for.
