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Hands down, last night was the best night I’ve had in a long damn time.
Unable to help myself, I caress her cheek, and she wakes.
Her long lashes flutter open. Sleepy blue eyes stare back at me. “Hi,” she says.
“Mornin’.” After a brief second of hesitation, I sweep a kiss to her brow. “How are you feeling?”
After Ruby fainted and her reluctance to stay over, I spent a good hour lying awake next to her, making sure she was okay. She scared the fuck out of me last night. Had ratcheted up the unease in my veins, that slow snap of fear that threatened to choke me.
“I feel great,” she says, stretching in the sheets, making a squeak of joy. Then she gasps and sits up. The sheet falls away, giving me a glimpse of her beautiful body. “Charlie, we missed the sunrise.”
“Guess that means we’ll just have to try again.”
A happy glow lights up her face, like I’ve promised her the moon, and I’m hit with the strange sensation to make her look like that all the time.
A door slams downstairs. The smell of coffee.
“Shit.” I shove up in bed and shrug on a pair of jeans. I need to take my own advice and start locking my door. Not like it matters to my brothers. Chimney, underground tunnel, parachute, one way or another, they’d find their way in.
“I need to go deal with my brothers,” I tell her.
Ruby sits up, her bare legs drawn up to her chest. With messy hair and flushed cheeks, she looks like a wild forest nymph.
It hits me sudden and sharp.
I want to keep her.
Biting her plump bottom lip, she pulls the sheet up around her. “I should go.”
The words are on the tip of my tongue to tell her to stay, ask what she has planned for her day, but I clamp my mouth shut.
It’s better this way.
We have lines, we keep them.
Even if after last night, it feels like we redrew every line between us.
I exhale, turning away from her to get my bearings, to find my fucking mind before I lose it.
Sex, good sex.
That’s all it is.
I can’t go down this road.
Easy to throw caution to the wind last night, but in the bright light of morning, it’s dangerous.
I stiffen when Ruby’s small hand runs up the curve of my back, her touch like a flame.
“Charlie?” she asks, worry in her voice.
I give a nod and look at her. “Take your time. Use the shower if you want. Make yourself at home.”
“Okay.” She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and stretches out her arms.
I allow myself one last eyeful of her pert breasts, then I shrug on a T-shirt and hustle downstairs. Davis is in the kitchen pouring coffee while Keena noses her way around the room for fresh scents. There’s a brown paper bag on the counter from Zeke’s Hardware telling me he’s been into town.
“Mornin’.” I reach into the cupboard for a mug, keeping myself angled toward the cabinets, hoping it hides the fact I’m still sporting wood.
