Page 86 of Held-

“You think you’re the only one falling?” he asks quietly. “I don’t let people this close. Not to my life. Not to my space. Not to me.”

I blink, trying to process his words. “You're not...freaked out?”

A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “I'm fucking terrified,” he admits. “But not because I don't feel the same way.”

Hope blooms in my chest, fragile but insistent. “How do you feel?”

He exhales slowly, his fingers tracing the curve of my jaw. “It feels as though you've turned my whole fucking world upside down,” he says finally. “Nothing made sense until you crashed into my life.”

My heart stutters in my chest. “That doesn't sound like a bad thing.”

“It's not, but it's not simple either. I'm not good at this shit, Cece. Relationships. Feelings. I've spent most of my life avoiding both.”

“I'm not exactly an expert either,” I remind him. “My only serious relationship ended in divorce and public humiliation.”

His thumb traces my lower lip, sending tiny shivers down my spine. “We're a fucking mess, aren't we?”

I can't help but laugh at that. “Complete disaster.”

“But we’re a disaster together,” he says, his tone dropping to that gravelly register that makes my insides melt. “And I wouldn’t change a damn thing about how we got here.”

I reach up to touch his face, tracing the stubble along his jaw. “Even the part where I showed up at your door unannounced with all my baggage?”

“Especially that part.” He turns his head and presses a kiss to my palm. “Best fucking surprise I’ve ever gotten.”

The tenderness in his touch clashes so sharply with his rough exterior that it makes my throat tighten. This man—who can silence half the town with a single glance—handles me as though I’m something precious to him.

A sharp knock at the door shatters the moment between us.

“What the—” Brayden sits up, every muscle tightening. It’s barely six in the morning. No one should be at our door.

“Expecting someone?” I murmur, pulling the sheet up to cover myself.

Brayden shakes his head, already sliding out of bed. “Stay here.” His tone shifts completely—tenderness gone, replaced by a hard, cautious edge.

I watch as he pulls on his boxers, muscles rippling across his back with each movement. The raven tattoo seems to come alive as he rolls his shoulders, preparing for whatever—or whoever—is on the other side of that door.

The knock comes again, more insistent this time—three sharp raps that echo through the small guesthouse like gunshots.

“Coming,” Brayden calls. He glances back at me, his expression unreadable. “Stay in bed.”

I nod, though every instinct tells me to follow him. Something feels wrong. The timing, the early hour. It can’t be good news.

Brayden disappears down the hallway, and I strain to catch what happens next. The front door creaks open, and then—silence. A heavy, terrible silence that stretches for one heartbeat, then two.

“Where is my daughter?”

My blood turns to ice. That sound—deep, commanding, edged with fire and brimstone.

Shit. My dad.

CECE

Nothing—andI meannothing—sends a person into instant cardiac arrest quite like their father showing up at their biker boyfriend’s door at 6 AM on a Sunday. Every life choice I’ve ever made flashes before my eyes in rapid-fire montage, and none of them look good.

I launch myself out of Brayden’s bed so fast I nearly face-plant. I grab the nearest clothing—which happens to be his T-shirt—and yank it over my head while hopping around trying to find my underwear. My heart is doing its best impression of atrapped bird inside my chest, and honestly? Same. I, too, would like to fling myself out a window right now.

“I know she’s here.” My father’s voice booms through the apartment, that sermon-projecting thunder he uses to scare teenagers straight. “Her car is outside.”