He’smine. And nothing on his body says so, aside from the scars I left on his arms, and those serve a different purpose entirely.
My wolf rises at the thought. A fierce, sudden surge. Territorial. Possessive. The intensity of it surprises me. I’ve never been possessive about anything except my weapons and my solitude. Now my wolf is baring her teeth at the idea of Garrett Forrester walking through the world without her mark on his skin.
I stand up. The rock is warm. The morning is bright. My body feels different: lighter, clearer.
I know what I need to do. Not because Willow told me or Greta pushed me or the bond demands it. Because I want to. Because the woman and the wolf agree for the first time since we were scouting around the Forrester compound.
What they agree on is that the man in the barn belongs to them, and it’s time he knew it in his skin.
Chapter 36
Garrett
I’m in the cabin when she comes. The guest quarters at the edge of the compound that have become something more than guest quarters over the past week, because my clothes are on the chair, Mia’s rubber ball is on the nightstand, the cot that should have broken is still holding through sheer determination.
It’s evening. The compound is settling into dusk. I’ve showered. I’m sitting on the cot with my back against the wall, turning the ball in my fingers the way I do when I’m thinking. I’m thinking about Briar on the ridge this morning, the way she looked when she came back, something different in her walk, something resolved.
She didn’t come to the barn. Didn’t come to the kitchen. I felt her moving through the compound all day with a purposefulness that my wolf tracked without understanding.
He understands now.
Because she’s at the door.
I hear her before I see her. Not her footsteps, her breathing. Faster than normal. Not exertion. Decision. She’s made up her mind about something and is walking toward it before she can unmake it.
She opens the door without knocking.
I look up. She’s standing in the doorway with the last of the daylight behind her, and the expression on her face stops the ball mid-turn in my fingers.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey,” I say back. Then wait… because something has changed.
I’ve seen Briar angry. I’ve seen her cold, controlled, clinical — the woman with the knife in the cabin. I’ve seen her wrecked with pleasure and rigid with fury and soft with sleep. I’ve never seen her look like this. Open. Decided. The gray eyes holding mine with an intensity that tells me something has shifted… and it’s aimed at me.
“Put the ball down,” she says.
I put the ball down.
She closes the door and slides the bolt. The sound of the lock is loud in the small room.
She walks to me and stops at the edge of the cot. I’m sitting. She’s standing. The height difference puts her eyes above mine for the first time. I’m always looking down at her, the alpha’s physical advantage, and right now she’s the one looking down. The reversal does something to my pulse that I feel in my palms.
“Don’t talk,” she says. “I’m going to do something, and I need you to let me do it.”
“Briar—”
“What did I say about talking?”
I shut up.
She takes the hem of her shirt and pulls it over her head. No hesitation. No performance. Just the practical motion of awoman removing an obstacle. She’s standing in front of me in the dusk light, and my mouth goes dry.
I’ve seen her body. I’ve had her body under mine, over mine, against mine in every configuration two wolves can manage. But I’ve never seen her like this — standing still, letting me look, choosing to be seen. The scars from a history I have yet to learn about. The lean muscle of her arms and shoulders. Her breasts, fuller now than the clearing, the pregnancy changing her body in ways I notice every time and never comment on. The slight swell of her belly that I monitor constantly.
She’s beautiful. She’s always been beautiful, in the sharp, dangerous way that a blade is beautiful. The pregnancy has added something I don’t have a word for. Not softness. Briar will never be soft. Depth, maybe. The additional dimension of a body doing two things at once: being a weapon and being a home.
“Shirt off,” she says.