His boots hit the gravel behind me, and then a hand catches my elbow, and I’m being spun around.
“Don’t.” His voice is low. Not a request. But it’s different from Reese. It’s not in a way that makes me feel small.
Hunter's touch empowers me.
“Let go of me.” I try to yank my arm free, but his grip doesn’t budge.
He walks me backward. Not breaking the intense eye contact. Until my shoulder blades hit the cold metal of his truck door and he cages me in, one hand braced on the roof above my head, the other still wrapped around my arm.
He’s close. Too close. I can smell him—leather and cedar and something warm underneath, something that makes mytraitorous brain replay every second of the last time I was pressed against this truck.
“Hunter—”
“No.” He cuts me off, jaw tight, a muscle feathering beneath the stubble. “You don’t get to run from me again.”
I press myself harder against the door, like I can melt through the metal if I try hard enough. Guilt is clawing at the inside of my chest, turning my lungs to concrete. “I can explain?—”
“Not here.” His eyes flick toward the party, then back to mine. The command in them makes my breath catch. “Get in the truck.”
“What?”
“Get in the truck, Lola. I’m taking you home.” His voice doesn’t waver. Doesn’t soften. “We need to talk.”
I stare up at him. My lips part, but nothing comes out. Every excuse, every deflection, every sharp-tongued comeback I’ve ever used as armor—gone. Dissolved. Useless against a man who looks at me like I’ve cracked something open inside him.
“You can’t leave your son's party over this,” I whisper.
He sucks in a breath. “Wyatt is playing with his friends and has his uncles watching him. I need…” He pauses. As if whatever he was about to admit breaks him.
“I didn’t—” My voice breaks. I swallow hard and try again. “Reese and I aren’t?—”
“I said not here.” He leans in, and for a breath, I think he’s going to kiss me. His forehead almost touches mine. His exhale is warm against my lips. But he doesn’t close the gap. He just holds the distance there, and I feel every inch of space between us like a live wire.
Then he pulls back. Reaches past me. Opens the passenger door.
The leather seat stares back at me like a dare.
“Please get in the truck, firefly.” The words are quiet. Rougher than anything he’s said all day. And it undoes me more than the commands ever could, because underneath the authority and the clenched jaw and the don’t fucking test me energy, I hear it.
He’s hurt.
I climb into the truck.
He shuts the door behind me without another word, rounds the hood, and slides into the driver’s seat. The engine turns over with a low rumble that vibrates through the bench seat and into my bones.
Neither of us speaks.
He pulls out of the ranch, gravel crunching beneath the tires, dust kicking up behind us in a pale cloud. The party shrinks in the side mirror until it’s nothing but noise and string lights and a life I don’t belong to.
I press my forehead against the cool glass of the window and close my eyes.
His hand finds the gear shift. His knuckles are white.
And the silence between us says everything neither of us is ready to.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
HUNTER