Page 6

“Gether in the guest room, I’m going to find something for her to wear after her shower,” Enzo said, his fingertips brushing over my lower back in a barely-there touch before he disappeared up the stairs.

Goldyn gave me a lopsided smile and then fell back against the sofa, the mason jar slipping from her grasp in slow motion.

Before I could react, Romeo caught it and placed it on the end table next to the couch. He swore under his breath.

“A shower might be ambitious,” I mumbled as I looked at the half-asleep woman. How she woke up long enough to talk to us was a mystery. But I was just happy she wasn’t on the run from something or someone.

I leaned down and hooked my arms under her knees and around her back, grunting from the dead weight her half-conscious body created. It was like lifting a heavy log full of wet sand.

“Careful,” Romeo warned when I had her nestled safely against me.

I narrowed my eyes at him and offered in a dry tone, “Youwanna carry her?”

He muttered something slick under his breath, narrowed his eyes, and sidestepped me as if I’d just offered him poison.

Exactly.

Instead of hitting him with a smart ass retort, I focused on the woman in my arms and walked across the house to the guest suite.

“Can you come turn on the light and get some fresh towels?” I called over my shoulder, knowing he would already be in action doing what I asked. He passed me walking swiftly and disappeared down the hall leading to her suite.

Her suite? I shook my head, telling myself I was way too gone in the head to be thinking clearly and that was why I slipped up.

Goldyn nuzzled against my chest in her sleep, making me readjust my hold on her. It’d been too long since I’d been around a beautiful woman and it was showing, even if she wasn’t awake to notice.

My heart had been thumping since I laid eyes on her. And when she woke up and spoke to me with that sweet, lyrical voice? I thought I’d entered another realm and still didn’t know how to process it.

I snuck another glance down at her and my gut tightened.

Calling Goldyn ‘beautiful’ felt reductive, but I was too tired to try to find a new word. I’d gone from tipsy and ready to lay up with my husband all night to surprised, and then intrigued when our guest finally woke up.

There was nothing more sobering than finding a strange woman on your couch when you lived in the middle of the woods.

I still couldn’t believe Rome pulled a fucking gun on her. Then he wanted to act protective when he saw me carrying her.

Walking into the guest room, I sat her on the bench at the foot of the bed and hovered to make sure she didn’t topple over. Whatever Rome had put in that elixir was giving her hell.

With a soft smile on my lips, I waited for her to steady her bobbing head and brushed my knuckles over her cheek.

“Hey, love,” I called softly. “You think you can manage a shower?”

Slowly, her eyes eased open and confusion was quickly chased away by more fatigue. “S-shower?” she stammered.

“Yea, seems like you were outside all day.” The scent of outside clung to her coupled with her natural scent. She didn’t smell bad, per se, but I knew I would appreciate a shower after being lost in the woods all day.

“I don’t have a change of clothes,” she said, her voice clearer now, but I could tell it was taking everything in her to remain lucid.

“Enzo is getting you clothes. You just focus on the shower and I’ll have some clothes waiting at the foot of your bed when you get out.”

Rome chose that moment to enter with fresh towels and walked right past us without a word. I heard a faintbeepand then a lid closing. The towel warmer.

“And you’ll have warm towels when you get out,” I added with a reassuring smile, hoping the gesture was more comforting than creepy.

Still ignoring us, Rome exited as quietly as he arrived and I smirked when Goldyn’s eyes lazily tracked his journey out of the room.

When Goldyn finally stood up to go to the bathroom, I slipped out of the room and smiled with my back against the door when I saw Enzo rounding the corner.

“All I could find was your old student gov t-shirts and a pair of boxers and briefs. Any of our shorts woulda fell off of her.”