Page 49 of Unbroken

And it doesn’t take long for me to get turned on. I can’t help it—it’s just life. I pull back a little, just to give her space, but I keep my arm around her. My eyes feel so heavy.

I wakeup the next morning, my arm still draped over Ruthie. It’s the first night I’ve slept through since Mariah died.

I tell myself it’s because we’re in the safe house, my brothers are here, and there’s no fucking way anybody’s getting to the people I love—not while we’re here. But I know, deep down, it’s due in some part to the beautiful woman beside me.

She’s snoring, and there’s a line of drool stretching from herlip to the pillow. I can’t help it—I laugh out loud, which jolts her.

“What?” she says, blinking, startled. “Rude.”

She sees me grinning. “Whatever. That’s what happens when people sleep. Forgive me if I was fucking exhausted.”

“Not judging,” I tell her. I roll over and stretch my arms above my head, adjusting the sheets around me so she doesn’t see the raging fucking wood I woke up with. Natural biological thing, sure—but something tells me it would complicate things. I’m a big guy, and I’m pretty sure she notices.

She stretches, too, arms over her head, and yawns like a cat. “Did you sleep?”

“Like a fucking baby. You?”

“Yeah. You know, it’s so strange that people say, ‘slept like a baby.’ Babies sleep like shit,” she says, shaking her head.

I laugh. “Luka did. You remember that?”

“Do I remember that? I thought we were gonna have to commit my sister.” She shakes her head again. “I’ve never seen a human being so sleep-deprived in my life.”

I smile, staring up at the flat white ceiling, one arm above my head, the other folded across my chest. “She was so insistent on breastfeeding him. She’d barely let me touch him. All night, I swear to fuck, she was up every hour with that kid.”

“But she pulled through, didn’t she?” Ruthie says.

“She did,” I agree. “It’s the one thing you can say about you girls. You don’t give up easily.”

“Youdefinitely didn’t,” she says, shaking her head.

The smell of coffee and bacon wafts through the air. My stomach rumbles.

“I’m gonna go see if Luka is up.”

“I’ll see too,” she says, pushing out of bed.

The loose T-shirt she’s wearing has ridden up during the night, exposing her back—and I realize for the first time, it’s covered in ink.

“Wait a minute,” I say, voice going stern. “When the fuck did you get a back tattoo?”

She starts tugging her shirt down.

“Ruthie!”

“What?”

“Did Mariah know about this?”

“She did not. Why would she have to know about my tattoos? I’m an adult.”

I lower my voice dangerously. “Were you an adult when yougotthem?”

“Does that matter?” she snaps back, answering her own question.

“It fucking does. Your sister would’ve killed you. Let me see.”

It’s not the tats, but we would’ve wanted to make sure her tattoo artist was legit.