Page 18

I check on her once, just to make sure she’s still focused, still anchored. She is—eyes locked on the screen, brows furrowed. She doesn’t even notice me, and I don’t interrupt. I just watch her, feel something stirs under my ribs. Like tectonic plates grinding in slow, seismic movement—nothing visible on the surface, but the fault lines are cracking open inside me. It’s not just attraction. It’s a pull, raw and magnetic, unsettling in its intensity. I don’t just want her. I’m starting to need her. A tightening, a low throb of awareness that’s not entirely professional. Watching her work, watching her focus—it's magnetic in a way I hadn’t expected. Like the part of me that understands violence is learning what it means to want peace. Or maybe just her.

Later, I check again. The second time, she’s still upright, laptop on her thighs, eyes scanning something too fast for me to follow. I don’t speak. She doesn’t look up. But I watch the way she chews her bottom lip when she’s thinking and the way her tank top slides off one shoulder, exposing soft, bare skin and a constellation of freckles.

The third time, she’s out cold. Her laptop’s still open, screen dimmed. She’s curled slightly to the side, sheets tangled around her knees, one hand tucked beneath her cheek. That same bare shoulder is exposed, and something hot coils low in my gut. I ease to the edge of the bed, set her laptop on the nightstand, and gently pull the covers up over her, each motion slow and deliberate. She doesn’t stir.

I stand there longer than I should, hands fisted at my sides, the air between us thick with something heavy and raw. I tell myself it’s about keeping her safe. That if I lie down beside her, it’s just to make sure I hear the first sign of danger. But that’s bullshit, and I know it. If I crawl into that bed, I won’t just lie there. I won’t just watch over her. I’ll touch. I’ll taste. I’ll claim. And I don’t trust myself to stop. Not with her scent in my lungs and her name burning a path across my tongue.

So I force myself to step back, to cross the room and leave without laying a hand on her. My whole body aches with restraint, muscles coiled so tight I could snap steel. I close the door until it rests open a few inches, every part of me screaming to go back, to slide into that bed and bury myself in her scent and heat. Not locked. Not sealed. Just... guarded. Like her. Like me. And God help me, if I ever let myself cross that threshold, I won’t stop until there’s no part of her I haven’t claimed.

Downstairs, I step onto the back patio and dial in to the team—Rush, Gage, and Dalton. Generally these days, Gideon is here in Galveston as his mate has a bakery. The team is running point on this op. They’ve got eyes in places I can’t be, ears tunedto whispers most people never hear. If anyone knows when the Reaper moves, it’s them.

"You’re late checking in," Rush says by way of greeting.

"Yeah. Got eyes on the house. Set up surveillance. She’s good," I say, keeping my voice low.

Rush doesn’t miss a beat. "Reaper?"

I fill them in quickly—about the break-in, the trashed drawers, and the fact that whoever did it was looking for something. Maybe the sketch. Maybe something more.

"Gone to ground. Again," I answer. "But Gideon’s running point here in town. He’s somewhere outside now."

"You think the woman really saw him?" Gage chimes in.

"I know she saw someone well enough to draw a sketch, but I also think she may have seen something suspicious," I reply.

Rush grunts. "What’s your read on her?"

I glance up at the second floor, imagining Sutton curled beneath the covers, the image punching through me with a force I don’t expect. There’s a protective edge to it, sure—but underneath, something sharper coils. Possession. Hunger. The line between guardian and something darker blurs, and I don’t bother pretending I don’t feel it still smoldering under that sass and logic. "Smart. Stubborn. She doesn’t scare easy. And she doesn’t know how much danger she’s in."

"That sketch was a clean match," Gage mutters.

"Yeah," Rush agrees, after a beat. "And someone ransacked her place looking for it. You think it’s connected?"

"Or something she doesn’t know she has," Dalton adds, voice clipped.

I nod, jaw tight. "I’m not leaving her side."

Rush exhales. "Didn’t figure you would."

We hang up. I lean against the edge of the stone planter on the patio, watching the shadows stretch across her backyard. The moonlight spills over the patio chairs, over the flowerbedsedging the patio, catching in the branches of the crepe myrtle trees, and silvering the fence line in the distance and a tall, weird vase with dried plants. It suits her. Pretty but grounded. Like she doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks.

The kiss replays in my head, unbidden, hitting me like a live wire to the spine. My jaw clenches, a low snarl coiling in my throat as I relive it—mouths colliding, her breath hitching against mine, the sharp scrape of her nails against my chest before she fisted the front of my shirt and dragged me closer. That moment—raw, unfiltered—felt like a detonation. Like something deep and ancient tearing loose inside me.

The taste of her is scorched into me—heat, defiance, the soft tremor of want she couldn’t quite hide. She kissed me like she was trying to take control and surrender all at once. And I let her. Hell, I reveled in it.

Then she pulled back. Cool. Composed. Like she’d flipped a switch and shoved all that heat behind a steel wall. Turned to ice before I could drag in another breath. One second, we were fire and teeth and need, the next she was gone. Withdrawn behind a look so guarded it punched harder than any blow I ever took in combat. It wasn’t just rejection—it was precision. A tactical retreat, and I felt every inch of distance like a bruise on bone.

I should respect that line. Should let her breathe. But the animal in me? It’s prowling just beneath the surface, restless and wild. Every time I close my eyes, I see her—lips parted, cheeks flushed, hands grabbing at me like she wanted to be burned. It isn’t just lust clawing through me—it’s something deeper. A need that doesn’t care about boundaries or rules. It wants her beneath me, around me, filled with me. And it won’t stop until it’s claimed her fully. Until she knows whose she is.

It shouldn’t bother me, but it does. More than it should. Like an itch I can’t scratch, buried too deep under the skin. The memory of her kiss, the way she shut me out after—it gratesagainst something primal in me, a challenge I can’t ignore and a retreat I don’t understand.

I’ve kissed a lot of women. I know what lust tastes like—the quick burn, the shallow pull. But that wasn’t it. That kiss carried weight, possession, a silent vow. It wasn’t just heat. It was fire staked with purpose. The kind of contact that doesn’t just linger—it brands. That wasn’t lust. That was ownership, pure and primal, down to the bone.

She doesn’t know it yet. But she’s already mine—claimed in the way my body recognizes hers, even if her mind hasn’t caught up. Every breath she takes under this roof is under my watch. And every damn one lands like a brand against my skin. The pull is physical—tight in my chest, low in my gut, a raw tension that crackles every time I’m near her.

My senses stay locked on her presence, my body tuned to the rhythm of hers like we’ve already synced without speaking a word. Every heartbeat, every twitch of muscle in her sleep—it all registers. My wolf knows it. My instincts scream it. She might think she’s calling the shots, keeping her distance. But deep down, beneath all that stubborn logic and razor wit, she’s already started to yield. She just doesn’t know who she’s yielding to yet.

My phone buzzes. It’s Gideon. "Cartel activity near the shipping yards. Quiet, but organized. Our guy might be with them."