8. Reva
CHAPTER EIGHT
REVA
Ever sleeps like he is still on duty.
That should not surprise me. The man probably monitors exits in his dreams. Still, there is something strange about waking under the weight of him, pinned in place by an arm across my ribs and one heavy leg hooked over mine.
I am a sprawler. I learned that about myself after sharing beds with men who made comments about knees, elbows, and my talent for colonizing every available inch of mattress.
Left alone, I turn sideways, steal blankets, and somehow end up with one foot hanging off the edge like I’m perpetually prepared to flee into the night.
Ever has solved this by turning himself into a human lock.
My face is tucked into the hollow of his throat. His heartbeat moves slow and steady against my cheek. His arm is firm around me, palm spread over my stomach. The heat of him wraps me from behind and over and under, leaving no loose edge for the world to grab.
I should feel trapped, but I don’t. That might be the most confusing part of what’s admittedly a super-disorienting morning.
The bedroom is dim, the wall of windows still covered by the blinds Ever lowered…yesterday? I think it was yesterday. From the fuzzy feeling of my mouth and the stiffness of my limbs, I think I’ve been asleep a long time.
Gray light pushes around the edges, soft and wet from the marsh outside. Homer sleeps on the foot of the bed now, his paws tucked under him and his tail over his nose, pretending he did not spend part of the night knocking something off a counter.
The cabin is quiet.
No hospital monitors. No sirens. No gunshots. No ballroom music bleeding into screams.
Just Ever’s breathing.
In sleep, his face loses some of its severity.
The hard line between his brows is still there, because peace does not know what to do with him either, but the rest of him is softer by degrees.
His lashes lie dark against his cheeks. A faint scar cuts through one brow.
There is a shadow of stubble along his jaw and a small mole near his mouth—a Marilyn mark, I think they’re called.
I want to touch it, but I don’t move.
Growing attached feels too mild for the thing happening inside me. Attached is a note on a refrigerator. Attached is a button, a receipt, a leash clipped to Homer’s tiny harness.
This feels like roots finding places in me I didn’t grant access to.
Nash. Shiloh. Ever. Deacon.
The thought of any one of them gone makes the room tilt.
I lie there in Ever’s arms and understand, with a deep and inconvenient certainty, that my heart is no longer dividing itself into safe pieces. It is giving itself away with both hands, messy and uneven and reckless.
That scares me.
The thought of losing them scares me more.
Ever’s breathing changes.
His arm tightens before his eyes open, body waking before the mind. His hand flexes over my stomach. His lashes lift, and for a second he only looks at me.
No words. I do not have any to give him.
His gaze drops to my mouth. Mine drops to his.
The night comes back in pieces. Steam. Tile. His hands. His body behind mine. His voice telling me that I am furious and untrained, not fragile.
His thigh shifts between mine. My pulse answers.
Ever watches my face as he slides one hand down my hip and hitches my leg over his. I move with him, helping, opening. His palm skims the outside of my thigh, then grips behind my knee. His eyes stay on mine, dark and heavy with the quiet question he does not need to speak.
I answer by rolling my hips into him.
His breath leaves on a low sound as his fingers touch me, find me wet and waiting.
He utters a quiet curse under his breath when I kiss the side of his neck and make his hand fumble. Then he’s warm and solid, drawing me closer until there is no space between us.
He pushes into me slowly.
My mouth opens against his throat.
He goes still when he is fully inside, forehead pressing to mine, breath caught between us. The stretch is tender after last night, deep enough to make my fingers curl into his shoulder. The ache is good. Grounding. Proof I am inside my body and my body still belongs to me.
Ever moves.
Slow.
No rush, no sharp edges. His hand braces my thigh high on his hip while the other slides beneath my neck, cradling the back of my head. His mouth brushes mine without taking over. I feel each thrust in my ribs, my spine, the places grief has been sitting too heavily.
I touch his face, and he turns his mouth into my palm. That small thing nearly undoes me.
The sex from last night was fire and fear and a door kicked open.
This is different. This is morning light barely touching the room.
This is his body wrapped around mine like a vow he knows better than to say out loud.
This is me letting him be close enough to hurt me and finding no desire to pull away.
My eyes burn.
Ever sees. He always sees.
He kisses me then, swallowing whatever sound I might have made, and his rhythm deepens. I cling to him, leg locked around his hip, breath breaking into his mouth. The pleasure builds slowly, then all at once, a low pull tightening until my whole body shakes.
He slides a hand between us.
I break quietly.
He follows with his face buried against my neck, body going rigid around mine, breath hot and rough against my skin.
Afterward, we stay tangled together until the room settles back into shape. Neither of us speak. Words would make me think too hard.
Eventually, Ever presses a kiss to my shoulder and gets out of bed. The air cools around me when he leaves. I watch him dress, because I have eyes and because the world is awful enough without denying myself little pleasures. He notices. His mouth moves, barely.
“Breakfast,” he says.
That one word feels like him. Practical. Gruff. A whole emotional landscape smashed flat into a noun.
I sit up and reach for the clothes someone packed for me.
Black leggings. Soft long-sleeved shirt.
Clean socks. My own bra, thank God. I dress while he goes to the bathroom, then braid my hair in front of the mirror with fingers that still feel half-asleep.
The rubber bands are back on my wrist. I snap one once, more habit than need.
Homer wakes when I pick up his harness.
He turns his head away from me and closes his eyes.
“Coward,” I tell him.
His tail flicks.
I leave him on the bed with a bowl of water on the floor and his litter tucked in the bathroom corner.
Downstairs, coffee smells sharp and heavenly. Deacon stands in the kitchen.
For one second, I stop on the bottom step.
He looks like he has not slept. Black shirt, dark jeans, damp hair pushed back from his face, gray eyes shadowed at the edges. He holds a mug in one hand and a phone in the other. His gaze lifts to me, and something in my chest squeezes despite my better judgment.
“You’re here,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Nash?”
“With Cal.”
The answer lands before the rest of me can brace.
I step fully into the kitchen. “How is he?”
“Sleeping peacefully.”
My throat tightens. “That’s what nurses say when they don’t want to promise anything.”
“It is what Nash said after standing beside his bed for forty minutes and terrifying two residents into improving their bedside manner.”
The image cracks something open in me.
Nash at Cal’s bedside, making doctors explain themselves, turning his terrifying focus toward keeping my father alive. Nash staying where I cannot. Nash watching a man who raised me because he swore Cal would not be alone.
I breathe through it.
Deacon sets his mug down and crosses to me. Ever goes still at my back, but he does not interfere.
Deacon stops close enough that I have to tip my chin to meet his eyes. “He’s okay, Reva. There’s no decline. His vitals are guarded but stable. They’re continuing the sedation. Nash is there. Cal is not alone.”
The words are neat and precise because he knows I need them that way.
“Delia?” I ask.
His face gives me the answer before his mouth does. “Nothing confirmed.”
My stomach drops. “Then she’s still with Isabel.”
“For now.” His gaze falls to my mouth, then returns to my eyes. “Good morning, Little Ghost.”
“That’s a weird thing to say after telling me my sister is still missing.”
“Yes.”
Then he kisses me.
It is not long. It is not soft enough to be comfort or hard enough to be distraction. His mouth touches mine like a vow. When he pulls back, his thumb brushes once along my jaw.
“I brought coffee,” he says.
I swallow past the knot in my throat.
“Well. I guess since the news was meh, the coffee better be good.”
A little smile dances on his lips. “Brat.”
Shiloh appears from the pantry carrying a skillet with one hand and a loaf of bread tucked under his arm. His hair is a mess, his eyes tired, and his smile absent. That absence pulls my attention more than any grin would have.
“Morning,” he says.
“Morning.”
He sets the skillet on the stove harder than necessary. Metal rings against the burner.
Ever glances at him. Shiloh ignores it.
Breakfast happens around me. Eggs, toast, fruit, coffee.
I eat because Ever gives me a plate and watches until I pick up the fork.
Deacon drinks coffee like it is punishment.
Shiloh moves too fast, reaching for things before anyone asks, his shoulders tight beneath the old T-shirt he found somewhere in the cabin.
Nash is a hole in the room. Cal is a bigger one.
No one talks about the hospital at first. That silence lasts until I ruin it.
“We have to go after her.”
Ever sets his fork down. Shiloh stops at the sink. Deacon looks at me over the rim of his mug.
I grip my coffee with both hands. “Delia. We have to get her out.”
Ever’s voice stays even. “We talked about this. We will.”
“When?”
“When we know where she is and how to extract her without getting everyone killed.”