Chapter 5 Mira
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Mira
I woke up and my instinct was to immediately catalog the exits.
Two windows, both large enough to climb through. One door lock engaged. Drop from the second floor to the ground, survivable if I rolled right. My shoes sat beside the bed, laces untied, ready to slip on.
Percy’s shirt hung to my knees, soft cotton that smelled of brown sugar and autumn leaves. I’d been wearing it after I changed last night and when I opened the door at dawn to find them still there.
“You stayed,” I blurted out without thinking.
“You asked,” he answered without second thoughts.
Just those two words. Then I’d closed the door and gone back to sleep, because looking at Solomon in the half-light of dawn, seeing the hunger he couldn’t quite hide, had been too much.
It was too intense. Too real.
Solomon’s jacket lay draped over the chair now, the leather still holding his scent. I’d taken it off before climbing back into bed, but I’d kept it close. Couldn’t bring myself to put it in the closet or fold it away.
That probably has a deeper meaning. I chose not to examine what.
Morning light streamed through the windows softer than what I was used to. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and caught my reflection in the window glass.
God. I looked like a disaster.
The dark dye I’d reapplied religiously every three weeks had faded more, copper-red roots bleeding through in a way that screamed “woman on the run who can’t afford a salon.” My heterochromia is very evident too.
It was what made me easy to spot. Memorable, the opposite of invisible.
I hate it.
I shoved that thought down and grabbed the sweatpants Percy had also lent me, rolling them at the waist three times before they’d stay up. His scent clung to the fabric and my stomach did a little flip that I aggressively ignored.
The lock clicked open smoothly when I tested it. The hallway was empty now, but two coffee cups still sat on the floor where I’d seen them hours ago. Evidence of how long they’d stayed, how long they’d waited.
My chest felt conflicted at the sight.
I stepped over the cups and crept toward the stairs, moving quietly out of habit. The smell hit me before I reached the kitchen.
Pancakes. Butter. Coffee.
Percy stood at the stove with a spatula in one hand, humming off-key. He wore a faded band t-shirt that stretched across his shoulders and sweatpants that hung low on his hips, his chestnut hair sticking up in approximately seventeen directions.
The t-shirt had ridden up while he reached for a plate, exposing a strip of tanned skin above his waistband and the edge of a tattoo that disappeared beneath the fabric.
Ink curled up his forearms too, intricate designs I couldn’t quite make out from here, dark lines wrapping around muscle that flexed as he flipped a pancake.
My mouth went dry.
Which was ridiculous. I’d seen men’s arms before and I’d seen tattoos before. There was absolutely no reason for heat to bloom low in my stomach, or for my mind to start wondering how far down those tattoos went, what patterns they’d make across his chest, his ribs, his…
Nope. Absolutely not going there.
And he was dancing. A little hip wiggle as he flipped a pancake with entirely too much enthusiasm. The movement made his sweatpants slip another half inch lower, and I caught myself tracking the motion before I could stop.
The V of muscle at his hips was visible now, angling down toward…
Oh my god, Mira. Get it together! You’re staring at a man’s happy trail as if it holds the secrets of the universe!
I pressed my thighs together and tried to remember the last time I’d had this kind of reaction to anyone. Before Hudson. Before I’d learned to associate male bodies with pain instead of pleasure. It had been so long that I’d almost forgotten what wanting felt like.
Apparently, my body remembered just fine.
“Morning!” He spotted me in the doorway and his whole face lit up. “Coffee’s fresh. Pancakes in two minutes. Hm, you look like you actually slept. That’s nice.”
“No. I look like I got hit by a truck.”
“A very well-rested truck.” He pointed the spatula at a mug already sitting on the counter. “Two sugars.”
I picked up the mug and took a sip. Exactly how I make mine.
“That’s the second time you’ve guessed correctly.” I leaned against the counter and watched him work. “Should I be concerned?”
“Concerned about my psychic pancake abilities? Absolutely.” He slid a golden circle onto a plate and held it out to me. “Eat. Doctor’s orders.”
“You’re not a doctor.”
“I’m a firefighter. Close enough. We do the same amount of running into dangerous situations, except doctors get better parking.”
I took the plate because refusing seemed more effort than accepting. The pancake was the best I’d seen in months. My appetite had been nonexistent since the fire, but my stomach growled anyway.
Traitor.
Percy watched me take the first bite. When I chewed and swallowed and didn’t immediately spit it out, he pumped his fist.
“Yes. Nailed it!” He flipped another pancake, caught it midair, and slid it onto his own plate. “I’ve been practicing. My cooking used to be limited to things that came in cans. Solomon staged an intervention.”
“An intervention? For canned food?”
“There was a PowerPoint. Fourteen slides. He included nutritional data and a graph showing my projected lifespan if I continued eating sodium-preserved vegetables for every meal.” Percy shook his head, grinning. “The man is unhinged in the most boring way possible.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
The sound surprised me. It came out rusty, unused, and Percy’s whole expression changed when he heard it. His grin shifted into a warmer, more real emotion, and he looked at me for a long moment before turning back to the stove.
“There she is,” he said quietly.
“There who is?”
“Nothing. Just glad you’re eating.”
He grabbed his plate and dropped onto the stool beside me.
Close. I could feel the warmth radiating off his body, could smell the brown sugar scent more strongly now. His knee bumped mine under the counter.
Neither of us moved away.
The heat of his thigh against mine sent a jolt straight through my core. I shifted on the stool, keeping my legs together, suddenly very aware of how thin these borrowed sweatpants were, how little fabric separated his skin from mine.
A pulse started between my legs.
Shit. This was not happening.
I was not getting turned on by a knee bump.
I had more self-respect than this. I had trauma and trust issues and approximately zero business thinking about what other parts of him might feel warm pressed against me.
What his hands would feel like sliding up my thighs and what that tattooed body would look like without the shirt.
And yet…
My nipples tightened under his borrowed shirt.
Stupid traitors. Both of them.
His gaze traveled over me, lingering on the shirt I was still wearing. His shirt.
“You know,” he said, voice dropping lower, “that shirt’s never going to smell the same again.”
Heat flooded my face. And between my legs. Definitely between my legs. “I can wash it.”
“Don’t you dare.” His grin turned slightly wicked.
His eyes dropped to where the collar hung loose on my shoulder, exposing my collarbone. The grin faded to reveal his raw emotions. Hunger. Want. His nostrils flared slightly as his hand gripped the counter edge, and I wondered wildly if he could smell what he was doing to me.
If he could sense the heat pooling in my core, the way my body was responding to him against every instruction my brain was giving it.
“I like it better this way.”
My thighs clenched hard under the counter. I was definitely wet now, and if he didn’t stop looking at me that way, I was going to do something very, very, stupid.
I shoved another bite of pancake in my mouth to avoid responding. Also to avoid climbing into his lap and finding out exactly how that wicked grin tasted.
Where the hell had that thought come from?
“So.” He spoke around a mouthful of his own breakfast. “Questions. You’ve gotta have them. About all this.” He gestured vaguely at the cabin.
“About a thousand.”
“Hit me. I’m an open book.”
“Where are the other two?”
“Lucian’s on the phone with work stuff. Solomon’s doing his boring morning routine.” Percy jerked his thumb toward the back of the cabin. “He stands on the porch and stares at the trees. Just Solomon being dramatic as always.”
“And you’re making pancakes?”
“Somebody has to maintain morale around here.” His grin widened. “Those two are allergic to joy. It’s a medical condition. Terminal, I think.”
I snorted, and he looked at me with such naked delight that I had to look away.
“What?” I stared at my pancake. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because you laughed. Twice now. In one morning.” His voice dropped lower. “When you got here last night, you looked like a ghost. And now you’re laughing at my terrible jokes and eating my pancakes.” He shook his head slowly. “It’s a good look on you. The laughing thing.”
“I’ll try to do it more often.”
“Please do. I have a whole arsenal of bad jokes. The guys hate them. You’d be doing me a favor.”
“Lucian, I believe, is expressive but does Solomon talk enough to say all that?”
“Only when he’s insulting me.” Percy leaned back on his stool. “He sat outside your door for six hours last night, you know. Didn’t move or sleep, listening to make sure you were okay.”
My throat tightened. “I didn’t ask him to do that.”
“You asked him to stay.” Percy’s voice gentled. “That’s really all it takes.”
The weight of his words settled between us. I didn’t know what to say or how to process the fact that a man I’d known for less than forty-eight hours had spent the entire night guarding my sleep.
“Why?” The question came out smaller than I intended. “Why do you all keep acting like I matter?”
Percy’s expression shifted. The joking warmth faded, replaced by something serious.
“Because you do matter.”