Because I know what we did isn’t exactly normal. I might live out in the woods, but I’m not that disconnected from the world. I know how things are supposed to work. One man, one woman. Clean lines. Simple rules.
I’ve done this before, sure. Threesomes, shared nights, women who were all in when the moment was hot and easy.
But morning always changed things.
They’d wake up and remember what it meant. What it looked like from the outside. They’d leave before they had to sit in it too long.
Before it became real. Before it became complicated and messy.
Sierra doesn’t look like she’s about to run.
If anything, she looks… settled.
Her fingers drift again through my hair, slower this time, and the sensation sends a low ripple down my spine. My body reactsbefore my mind does, tightening, waking back up in a way that has nothing to do with comfort anymore.
She doesn’t pull her hand away.
Doesn’t hesitate.
That simple, absent touch tells me more than anything she could say out loud.
She’s still here.
She’s choosing to be.
I didn’t realize how much I needed that until right now.
Reid shifts slightly beside her, and I glance up just enough to take in the way his hand moves over her side, slow, almost absent, like he’s grounding himself the same way I am. He looks different. Softer around the edges, even if there’s still something sharp underneath it all.
I’ve never seen him like he was tonight.
Never even imagined it.
The Reid I know barely looks at women. Keeps himself locked down so tight it’s like he doesn’t even feel it. I always figured if he ever let himself go, it would be controlled. Careful.
Not that.
Not the way his hand closed around her throat. Not the way he pushed her right to the edge and held her there, denying her until she broke for him. Not the way he watched her unravel like it was something he needed to see.
And not the way he tasted her tears after.
There’s something darker in him than I ever gave him credit for.
Something that lines up a little too well with the things in me I don’t usually let people see.
And fuck… watching it did something to me. Even after I’d already come, even after I should’ve been spent, it still hit hard enough to pull me right back under.
But that version of him is gone now.
Or buried again, at least.
Now he just looks… content. Resting back, arguing with Luke like it’s any other night, his hand still moving over her side like he doesn’t want to lose contact with her for even a second.
Luke’s not as uncomfortable as he’s pretending either. His grip on her legs hasn’t loosened, and the way he’s shifted puts him just a little too close to where he clearly wants to be again. His complaints are more habit than anything else.
I follow his line of sight without meaning to.
Her skin is still flushed. Damp.