Chapter 6
Reina
I wake up to warmth.
His heavy arm is locked around my waist.
His big body is behind mine.
His steady breath brushes the back of my neck.
My cheeks heat before my eyes even open.
I’m wearing a clean shirt of his. Nothing underneath. The fabric is soft from a hundred washes, big enough to cover me to mid-thigh, and it smells like him. Cedar. Leather. Something warm and male that makes my stomach flutter before I even move.
Ace shifts behind me.
His arm tightens.
I go still.
So does he.
For one suspended breath, neither of us says anything.
Then his voice rumbles against my skin. “Morning, sweetheart.”
My whole body answers him.
Traitor.
“Morning,” I whisper.
His hand flexes at my stomach. Big and warm through the shirt.
Last night, that hand held mine while I fell apart.
Last night, that hand touched me like I was precious.
Last night, I stopped being untouched in his bed and somehow felt more like myself after.
I turn carefully.
Ace is already watching me.
He is on his side, dark hair messy from sleep, jaw rough with stubble, green eyes softer than they have any right to be. He is wearing only black briefs, and my brain tries to process that like a normal woman with a normal pulse.
It fails immediately.
His chest is bare. His stomach is hard. One tattooed arm is bent under his head. The other is still around me, like he reached for me in sleep and never let go.
Then I see his shoulder.
The white bandage is stained red.
My sleepy softness vanishes.
“You’re bleeding.”
His gaze flicks to his shoulder. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“Ace.”
That gets him. His mouth twitches, but he eases onto his back. “It pulled while I slept.”
“It pulled because you got shot and then decided to act like a maniac afterward.”
His brows lift.
Heat floods my face because yes, I am absolutely including what we did.
Especially what we did.
He knows it too. His eyes darken for half a second, and the air between us changes.
Then I sit up fast, because if I stay in bed with him looking at me like that, he is going to bleed through another bandage for much better reasons.
“Kitchen,” I say.
His gaze drops to where the shirt rides high on my thighs.
“Reina.”
“Don’t Reina me. Up.”
His smile is lazy and dangerous. “Bossy this early?”
“Nurse this early.”
“Careful, sweetheart. I might start liking it.”
I point toward the kitchen. “Chair. Now.”
He stands up with a soft grunt, and my chest pinches at the sound. He tries to hide it, but I see the tightness around his mouth. I see the careful way he moves his injured shoulder.
I also see far too much of the rest of him.
The briefs do nothing to make him less distracting.
Nothing.
He’s tall and rugged and half naked in the morning light, and my mouth goes dry.
Ace catches me looking.
His smile turns knowing.
“Eyes up, sweetheart.”
I glare at him because it is either that or combust. “Chair.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
That should not do things to me.
It does.
He sits at the small kitchen table while I gather the kit from the counter. The cabin looks different in daylight. Warmer. Less like a shelter from the night and more like a secret place tucked away from the world. Pine trees crowd the window. Sunlight falls across the floorboards.
I wash my hands, pull on gloves, and stand between Ace’s knees.
His legs spread to make room for me.
I try not to notice.
I fail.
“Bandage off,” I say, mostly to keep myself breathing.
He watches my face while I peel the tape back.
The wound is angry but clean. A few stitches strained, but none torn. Blood has seeped from one edge, probably from the way he held me last night.
My heart gives a funny little twist.
“You should have slept on your other side.”
“I did.”
I glance at him.
His expression is shameless. “Then you moved closer.”
My cheeks burn. “That is not a medical excuse.”
“No. It’s just the truth.”
I clean the blood gently. His skin is warm under my gloved fingers. Too warm. Too alive. The memory of touching him without gloves flashes through me, and suddenly the room feels smaller.
“Does it hurt?” I ask.
“Some.”
“Some means?”
“Hurts.”
I look up. “Thank you for that stunning display of honesty.”
His mouth curves. “Trying to impress my nurse.”
My hands pause.
My nurse.
He says it casually. Like the claim slips out before he thinks to stop it.
I should correct him.
I don’t.
I finish cleaning the wound and cover it with a fresh sterile pad. “You need to be careful today.”
“I’m always careful.”
I stare at him.
He stares back.
We both know that is a lie.
I tape the bandage down. “No fighting. No lifting. No pretending being stubborn counts as medical care.”
His hands settle on my hips.
My breath catches.
“Ace.”
“What?”
“I’m trying to work.”
“You’re done.”
“I am not.”
“You are.” His thumbs move once, gentle through the hem of his shirt. “Bandage is clean. Nurse face is gone.”
My pulse jumps. “I have a nurse face?”
“You do.”
“What does it look like?”
“Like you want to boss me and touch me at the same time.”
My mouth opens.
Nothing comes out.
His smile deepens, but his eyes stay hot and focused.
“You’re thinking hard again,” he says.
“I’m thinking you’re impossible.”
“Liar.”
His hands slide around my waist, and before I can decide whether I should protest, he pulls me onto his lap.
I gasp, catching his shoulders, careful of the wound.
“Ace, your shoulder.”
“My shoulder is fine.”
“You bled through the bandage.”
“And you fixed it.”
“That does not make you invincible.”
“No.” His gaze drops to my mouth. “But it puts you right where I want you.”
I should move.
I do not move.
His shirt rides up around my thighs, and there is nothing beneath it. The moment I remember that, his body does too. He goes still under me.
His hands tighten on my hips.
“Reina.”
My name sounds different now.
Rougher.
Hungrier.
I swallow. “Yes?”
“You wearing anything under my shirt?”
Heat floods every inch of me.
I shake my head.
His jaw flexes.
“Say it.”
My breath shivers. “No.”
His eyes close for one second.
When they open, they are dark enough to steal mine.
“Then I need you to decide something.”
“What?”
“Do you want breakfast first, or do you want me?”
A laugh almost escapes me, shocked and breathless.
Then he shifts beneath me, and I feel exactly how much he means it.
The laugh dies.
“I want you.”
His mouth is on mine before the last word fades.
There is nothing careful about this kiss.
It is hot. Deep. Hungry. His tongue strokes mine, and I feel the groan he holds back in the hard grip of his hands on my waist. Last night, he kissed me like he was asking permission. This morning, he kisses me like he already knows I’m his to please.
He keeps one hand at my waist and slides the other up my back, under the shirt, warm palm over bare skin.
“You sore?” he asks against my mouth.
“A little.”
His hand stills.
I kiss him before he can pull away. “Not too sore.”
“Need truth.”
“That is the truth.”
His gaze searches mine.
Whatever he sees makes his grip turn firmer.
“Then you tell me if that changes.”
“I will.”
He lifts the shirt slowly, giving me time, giving me choice. I raise my arms, and he pulls it over my head, dropping it somewhere behind him. Morning light touches my skin, and every insecurity wakes at once. My belly. My thighs. My softness on display in his lap.
Ace sees the flinch.
His hands stop.
“No hiding.”
My throat tightens.
He bends and kisses the top of one breast. Then the other. “Beautiful.”
I close my eyes.
“Look at me when I tell you.”
I do.
“Beautiful,” he says again. “Mine to touch.”
My body melts around the words.
His hand slips between us. He touches me gently at first, checking, coaxing, making sure the ache from last night softens into heat. It does. Too fast. My fingers dig into his good shoulder, and he smiles against my throat.
“There she is.”
“Ace.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
He frees himself from his briefs with one hand, his eyes never leaving mine. Then he grips my hips and lifts me just enough to position me over him.
“Easy,” he murmurs. “Take what you can.”
I sink down inch by inch.
The stretch makes me gasp. He goes still beneath me, every muscle in him locked.
“Too much?”
I shake my head, breathing hard. “Just... still big.”
A strained laugh leaves him. “Yeah. Still me.”
That pulls a breathless smile from me.
His expression changes at the sight of it.
Then I take the last of him, and the smile leaves both of us.
Full.
So full my fingers curl against his chest.
Ace’s forehead drops to mine. “Good?”
“Yes.”
He does not move until my body settles.
Until the sharp edge fades.
Until I shift first.
The sound he makes is low and rough enough to turn my bones soft.
“That’s it,” he says. “Use me.”
My face burns, but my hips move again.
Small at first. Testing. Learning.
Ace’s hands stay on my hips, guiding without taking over. The chair creaks under us. Morning light spills across his shoulders. His bandage is bright white, my hands are on his chest, and I am bare in his lap while I move on him like I have known this man longer than a single impossible night.
It should feel reckless.
It feels inevitable.
He kisses me between breaths, dirty and tender at once. His thumb finds the place that makes me shiver, and the rhythm inside me breaks.
“Oh.”
“There,” he rasps. “That’s what I want.”
My body tightens around him.
He groans, his good arm wrapping around my waist, pulling me closer without jarring his shoulder.
I ride him slowly, clumsily, until clumsy turns into need. Until every little lift and sink drags pleasure through me. Until I stop thinking about how I look and start thinking only about how he feels.
Inside me.
Around me.
Under my hands.
“Ace,” I whisper.
“Give it to me.”
The words tip me over.
Pleasure rolls through me, softer than last night but deeper somehow, wrapped around the quiet morning and the heat of him beneath me. I bury my face in his neck and shake through it.
Ace follows with my name against my hair, his hands locked on my hips, his body going rigid under mine before he shudders hard.
For a while, neither of us moves.
His heartbeat pounds against my chest.
Mine answers it.
Then his phone rings.
Ace’s head lifts. His jaw tightens.
I go still in his lap.
He looks toward it, then back at me, and the heat in his eyes cools into something dangerous.
“Ghost,” he says.
The phone keeps ringing.