Chapter 10 #3
He stepped over the threshold before she could stop him, crowding her space, not in challenge but in claim.
Her body betrayed her completely. Her knees wanted to buckle.
Her spine wanted to melt. She’d been so strong, so stubborn, so unwilling to ask for help, and now the very sound of his voice was undoing her.
She felt it the moment his hand landed on her back, broad and warm through the threadbare fabric of her shirt. A simple touch. Nothing more. But it detonated something deep.
The center of her chest went tight, her eyes burned. Her body remembered him as sanctuary. Her soul remembered him as home.
He turned toward the kitchen and froze.
“Christ,” he muttered under his breath. His face tightened in a way that had nothing to do with judgment and everything to do with fury, fury at her pain, at her pride, at the goddamn state of things. “I’m not leaving you like this. So get used to it.”
She was too stunned to fight. Too raw to protest. In three strides, he had her moving toward the sofa, careful not to jostle her, like she was something both precious and fragile.
Then she heard it.
Footsteps.
Voices.
The creak of the porch.
Bailee jerked her head toward the door and saw them, three figures standing just outside, framed by dusk and uncertainty. Teenaged boys. Well, not boys, not really. Young men. Big enough to make her wince at the idea of whatever came next.
She blinked. Once. Twice. “Oh, for the love of the Ancestors, you brought back up?” she hissed.
Two handsome-as-sin redheads, one with a mop of unruly hair, the other shaved down to tufts of silk. The third kid, holy hell. Tall, Native, and stunning. She looked at Bear, then back to the boy. They had to be related. His brother?
The first redhead stepped forward with an easy grin that made him look pure rogue. “Flynn Gallagher. ‘Fly,’ ma’am,” he offered. “This is Cormac Kavanaugh. We call him Shamrock.” The buzzed guy gave her a little salute, like she was some queen and he was the court jester.
Then came the third.
Tall. Native. Unapologetically beautiful.
Long, lean muscle under a gray T-shirt, black braid falling over one shoulder, face carved in bone and legend. Her heart stuttered.
He looked like Bear. Same eyes. Same gravity. She flicked her gaze to Bear, then back to the young man. Her mouth parted, words failing.
She had so many damn questions, she couldn’t even form the first one. Her skin was burning with embarrassment. Her home was wrecked. She was wrecked. Now she had witnesses?
Her dignity screamed. Her pride reared. “Out,” she managed, low and furious. “All of you. This is an invasion of my privacy.”
“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bear growled.
The sound of it slithered through her, dark and sure, like the ancient voice of something older than anger and deeper than protection. She had never heard him speak like that. Not to her. Not to anyone. It wasn't just defiance.
It was a vow.
A line drawn in sacred earth.
He wouldn’t leave her again.
Despite every rational reason to push him out, to shield herself, to maintain the illusion of independence…she couldn’t stop the way her body leaned into his shadow.
Like maybe, just maybe, she didn’t have to do this alone anymore.
Her voice cracked again, sharper this time. “I said, out. You don’t get to just show up and take over my life. I didn’t ask for this.”
Bear’s gaze cut to hers, hard, unyielding, as if her words had struck something deep inside him.
“No,” he said, his voice low. Steady. Deadly calm, like a man who had found the voice inside him, let it free, and had no intentions of stifling it again.
Then, for the first time since she’d met him, Bear raised his voice.
“Sit. Down.”
The command cracked like thunder through the living room, not cruel but immovable. Her eyes went to the three young men. They took a couple of steps back, looking at each other.
Bailee flinched, sharing their sheer disbelief. That voice wasn’t a request. It wasn’t a suggestion. It was the voice of a man who had led men through fire and dragged them home bleeding, a voice trained to be obeyed because lives depended on it.
She stared at him, lips parted, too stunned to argue.
“No more orders from you,” he continued, his tone fierce, eyes locked on hers. “No CIA liaison. No bossy words. No distance. You’re not giving me instructions, Bailee. Not this time.”
He stepped closer, and the heat from his body chased away the cold that had settled in her bones since the night she’d kissed that stubborn mouth.
“I am not leaving you alone in this state, in this damn house, because you’re too proud to ask for help.” His voice was rough with something that sounded almost like grief. “You fought like hell out there. You held the line. Now it’s my turn.”
Bailee’s mouth opened, a protest already forming, but then his tone changed.
Just like that, he dropped the steel. His voice softened, deepened.
“Don’t fight me.” It wasn’t a command this time.
It was something closer. A man unraveling.
“I just need…to be here for you. Let me, Bailee.” His hand hovered near her arm but didn’t touch.
“You don’t fight alone in the field. You don’t fight alone here. Ever.”
The final word settled over her like a prayer. Or a promise.
Something inside her trembled. She wanted to tell him no. She wanted to cling to her pride. But she didn’t really want him to leave. She had called out to him in delirium in the rescue chopper, needing him. Maybe that was what scared her the most. How much she needed him.
She looked into his face and saw nothing but his determination to follow through. “Freaking Navy SEALs. You never know when to quit.”
“Never,” four voices responded in unison.
Fly said, “Than, yard and lawn. Shamrock, kitchen. Let’s move.”
She turned her face away, tears forming behind her eyes, welling up against her will. For the first time in weeks, she gave in to her pain, her trauma, her healing, and him. She gave in to him.
Her knees gave out a little as she sat.
Bear caught her elbow gently to help her ease into the cushions, then crouched in front of her like she was sacred, like she wasn’t the mess she felt like.
“I’ve got you,” he said softly.
She made a soft cry and bolted for the bedroom, the sobs caught in her throat. She didn’t close the door behind her, only sought the shadows to hide all that she couldn’t keep from him.
She stood in the bedroom shadows, listening.
The soundscape of her life, once silent and stifled, now stirred to life.
The low whir of the vacuum. The rhythmic clink of dishes.
Somewhere outside, the sharp hum of a lawnmower cut through overgrown stubbornness.
It was chaos. It was comfort. It was them, those boys, that newly formed team, her people, carving order from wreckage.
Then Bear’s voice came, quiet and certain.
“Here’s a list and my card. Only get what’s on there.” She heard the jingle of keys. “Fly, you drive. No off-roading in my truck. I’ll kick your ass. Pick up something easy for dinner.”
A cocky response, muffled by distance. “You got it, boss.”
Footsteps retreated. Doors opened. Closed.
Silence reclaimed the house.
Bailee wiped at her face with the edge of her sleeve, no longer sure whether the wetness was sweat, tears, or something older.
She didn’t hear him approach, his training was too precise for that, but she felt him. Every instinct she’d honed in the field came online in a breath. The shift in air pressure, the heat, the scent. Bear. He didn’t just fill the room, he settled inside her like something she’d been hollow without.
“What are you going to do now?” she muttered, still facing the window. “Bathe me like an invalid?”
“Yeah,” he said simply. “You’re going to cooperate.”
His hands settled on her shoulders, broad, warm, steady, and the weight of them sent a quiet collapse through her body. She exhaled. Sagged. The tension she’d been gripping like a weapon slipped from her spine, and she let it fall.
She turned slowly. Moved toward him. “You are way pushier than I even imagined.”
His mouth twitched. “Oh, Bailee…was that snark?” His voice gentled. “Are you feeling better?”
She snorted. “Smartass.” Her chin lifted, eyes narrowing on him even as her lips betrayed her with a curve. “Do I have a choice?”
“Yeah,” he said, brushing a stray strand of hair from her cheek with the backs of his fingers.
“You have a choice.” He stepped closer, close enough that she could feel the echo of his heartbeat against her own.
“But I’d rather you be clean, comfortable, and ready for those three whirlwinds when they get back with hot food and enough groceries to resupply a forward operating base. ”
She let out a soft breath. Almost a laugh. The corners of her mouth twitched again. Then, very softly, she whispered, “Okay.” Not surrender. Not defeat. Trust.
She moved slowly, deliberately.
With a wince, she eased her arm from the sling, the one that had been shoved just barely out of the socket. Pain flared, sharp and immediate, but she welcomed it. It was worth it.
Her fingers lifted, trembling just slightly, and found his face.
She laid her palm along the curve of his cheek. The heat of him soaked into her skin like sunlight after cold shadow. Her heart fluttered at the rough scrape of stubble beneath her fingertips. She cupped that strong, impossibly stubborn jaw and felt the pulse of him beat against her skin.
For a long moment, she just held him there.
The man who wouldn’t leave.
“Can you get me some clean clothes first?” she asked, her voice low, threadbare.
He let out a long, heated breath. Something between a sigh and a prayer.
“Point me in the right direction.”
She let her hand slide from his face, down the corded column of his neck, brushing lightly through the hair at his nape. She couldn’t stop herself. Her hand settled briefly on his chest, wide and warm, grounding her with that steady weight she’d once known so well.
“Over here,” she murmured.
She slipped past him, close enough for the air to crackle between their skin, and padded to the dresser along the far wall.
“Underthings are in the top two drawers,” she said, casting him a quick look over her shoulder. “I like to match.”
The word landed like a dropped pin in silence.
Underthings.
She hadn’t meant it to sound suggestive. Hadn’t meant anything by it, really. It was just a word. Calm. Matter-of-fact. But the second it left her mouth, something in the air shifted.
She felt it more than saw it.
Bear didn’t say a word. Didn’t make a sound.
But his body reacted.
Subtly. Sharply.
His breath caught, just for a fraction of a second, and his shoulders tensed like he’d taken a hit he wasn’t braced for.
The T-shirt stretched across those rippling abs went taut, the fabric shifting as his hips moved forward, subtle, involuntary, hungry.
His jaw ticked once. A small muscle flared near the hinge, then smoothed.
His eyes, Earth-loving Ancestors, those eyes, darkened in a way that made her toes curl in the carpet.
Undeniably, sensually, male.
Her body screamed for him in a dozen desperate languages. Every nerve lit. Every boundary blurred.
“I have comfy tops and pants in the larger drawers underneath.” The words barely made it out, just air now, breath laced with ache.
She reached for the drawer handle.
But he was already there.
His hand slid along her forearm, slow and reverent. “Let me,” he whispered, the words crushed with restraint but louder in her soul than when he’d told her to sit down.
She stilled.
Then he moved closer.
That big, controlled body came up behind her, not harsh, just close enough to cage her against the dresser and drive her wild.
His heat poured into her back, his chest fitting to her spine, the breadth of him an unmistakable promise.
The shiver started in her chest, swept over her breasts—nipples tightening into aching peaks craving his hot, possessive mouth—and dropped low, blooming into a molten throb that pulsed around her clit in slow, dangerous waves.
She reached for the drawer. His hand closed over hers from behind, firm and steady. “Let me,” he murmured, voice rough at her ear.
He kept his body against hers as he shifted just enough to reach past her.
One arm braced at her hip, anchoring her.
The other slid in front of her to pull open the top drawer.
His chest brushed her shoulder with every breath, the intimate angle making it impossible not to feel the strength of him everywhere she touched.
A soft, guttural groan broke out of him. “Bailee… are you sure—”
She gestured, taking in his carved face full of heat and want, those gorgeous lips that she needed to take over and over again. “The bathroom’s through here.”
She stepped toward the carved wooden doors, their edges dark with age, the grain swirling like smoke.
Inside, her bare feet padded across soft rug and cold tile toward the gleaming porcelain basin of the enormous soaking tub set into its marble surround, built wide and deep, a retreat meant for long nights, long limbs, and the slow surrender of heat, her pulse fluttering as the silence stretched between them.
“Wait for me, firecracker,” he called after her, his voice rough but edged with a smile. “I have… underthings to sort out. Gotta make sure they match.” Then, almost gruff. “No twisting that water faucet, Bailee. You hear me?”
Oh, Ancestors help her.
She was melting
Dying.
Wait for him? Forever.