He ends the call. Stands in the parking lot with the phone in his hand, looking at me. The heat is still in his eyes—he hasn’t switched that off, can’t, probably—but there’s something else underneath it now. Weight. The heaviness of a man who’s just been given a job he doesn’t want.
“I have to go,” he says. “Compound. Early morning.”
“What is it?”
He shakes his head. “Territory stuff. Dawes found something on the south boundary.” He pauses. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
He steps closer. Lifts his hand to my face. His thumb traces my cheekbone—slow, deliberate—and the tenderness of it after the urgency of thirty seconds ago chokes me up.
“I’ll find you tomorrow,” he says.
“Conner—”
“I’ll find you.”
He walks back to his truck. Gets in. The engine turns over. He backs out of the space, and the headlights sweep across the motel front, catching my face for a second before he turns toward the road.
I stand in the parking lot. Breathing hard. My shirt is untucked, my jeans open, my lips swollen. The night air cools the places where his hands were, and the absence is physical.
Dawes found something on the south boundary.
The operative in me notes it. South boundary. Dawes—one of the Forrester men. Something found. Urgent enough for an early-morning call. Urgent enough to pull Conner away from a woman he had pinned against his truck thirty seconds ago.
I go inside. Close the door. The ward hums against the frame as I cross the threshold—strong, steady, a barrier he would have felt if he’d walked through it.
My body is still humming, the unfinished heat coiled tight and unsatisfied. My wolf is restless, straining toward the road where his truck disappeared.
And underneath the want, the operative is running through the details. Something is happening in Forrester territory. Something the enforcer has to handle.
I call Briar. I need to tell her about the south boundary. Let her factor it into her tracking. But the call goes unanswered. I send her a text, but the app shows she hasn’t been online since she left here.
Dammit, Briar.
I lie back on the bed and press my hands to my face and breathe.
The taste of him is still on my lips. The echo of his thumb on my cheek. The way he said,“I’ll find you,”like it was a fact about the world and not a promise.
And the sound of the enforcer’s voice as he spoke—flat, focused, already somewhere else—askinghow manyabout something on the south boundary that I don’t yet understand.
But I will.
Chapter 15
Conner
Garrett calls at five in the morning. I’m already awake. Haven’t closed my eyes. Every time I try, my body reminds me where my hands were four hours ago—under her shirt, her back arching against the side of my truck, her breath ragged against my ear. And then the phone. Garrett’s name on the screen. And the enforcer stepped in where the man wanted to stay.
I chose the job. I always choose the job. But I’ve never hated the choice before.
I’m mid-coffee when his call buzzes.
“Need you at the compound. Now.” Garrett’s voice is clipped. Business.
“What are the details?”
“We’ll go over it when you get here.”