Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
WREN
Icouldn’t think. My head spun, the world shifting beneath my feet, but I heard them. I felt them, and that, more than anything, was what made my hand move.
My fingers twitched against the cool handle of the door. I pressed my palm against it, steadying myself, even as the world seemed to tilt. No.
No. No.
They couldn’t be here. Couldn’t be.
I turned the knob. My vision swam—blurred. My pulse felt like it was thundering in my throat, thick and heavy, as I pulled the door open just a crack.
The shadows outside looked like them—like them—but they were ghosts, vague shapes.
It was too much.
Rhett’s warmth washed over me, a low simmering storm, thick and spicy.
I didn’t know whether to fight or collapse into it, because every inch of my skin ached for it.
And Jay—God, Jay was cold, so cold, like ice and earth, sharp enough to freeze the air around him, while Roan—Roan was steady, pulling gravity in on itself until all I could feel was the space between us and how much I craved it.
Everything was too much.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Wren,” Jay said, his voice strained, but it was like the words were coming from miles away.
I wanted to lean into him. I wanted to feel his quiet strength wrap around me.
But I couldn’t.
“Are you real?” I whispered, my throat raw, even though it was the stupidest question I could have asked.
A low chuckle from Rhett, and his voice rumbled in that damn way that made my insides twist.
“Yeah, baby. We’re real.” He took a step forward, but Roan was faster, his arm snapping out to shove Rhett back before his fingers could even graze my skin.
Rhett’s growl was low, but Roan didn’t even flinch. He just locked eyes with him, something like a warning flashing between them.
“No,” Roan said, voice low and steady. “Not yet. Not without her permission.”
Rhett sneered, but I saw the tension between them, the way Roan’s words landed on Rhett. It made my stomach turn in knots, a whole mess of hunger and need.
I wanted them. I wanted to feel them. All of them.
But I couldn’t even focus. The fog in my mind was too thick.
Roan’s gaze moved to me. And as if the world had shifted, he came into sharper focus, his shoulders, the set of his jaw, the dark intensity of his eyes. He didn’t move closer, though. Not yet. Just stood there, towering, calm, in a way I didn’t understand.
I was burning from the inside out. And it hurt.
“Wren.”
His voice broke through the haze, steady and controlled, everything about him like ice in the fire.
The scent of them—of all three—was everywhere, seeping into my lungs, flooding me. It didn’t feel real, it felt like too much, too fast.
I reached for the doorframe. My fingers ached, my legs weak beneath me.
“I don’t… I don’t know…” I was whispering, barely able to even form words.
But Roan was there in an instant, his body filling the space between us, blocking out the rest of the world. He wasn’t touching me, but he was close enough to make my whole body pulse with that illusion of contact.
“You don’t need to know yet,” he murmured, low and reassuring, like he was trying to anchor me. “You’re okay.”
But the closer he got, the more I needed—needed to be touched, needed them to prove they were real. But I didn’t know how to ask for it.
I couldn’t.
Jay took a half-step forward, watching me like he was waiting for something. For a cue. For permission.
But Roan stopped him. “Not yet.”
Jay blinked, but nodded slowly, his breath coming in quiet pulls. He was calm, calm in a way I wanted, and I hated the way it made my chest ache.
“Wren,” he said, quieter now, the edge gone from his voice. “You’re not alone.”
It was too much.
I couldn’t take it. Not yet.
The flood of emotion, the hunger twisting in my gut, the ache between my legs—it was all too much.
“I can’t…” I broke off, tears I didn’t know I was holding back slipping down my face.
“I can’t do this.”
Rhett leaned against the doorframe, his eyes softening as he watched me, and something shifted in his expression—understanding. He didn’t push this time. Neither did Roan.
But I could feel it. The want. The need.
All of them, waiting. Watching me.
And I wanted to scream.
But what would I scream for?
I was burning, and they were here. And yet, I couldn’t have them. Not like this. Not without breaking something inside me.
Roan spoke again, his voice soft but insistent.
“Wren,” he murmured, “we’ll wait. When you're ready, we’re here. But only when you're ready.”
I closed my eyes, and it felt like everything in me unraveled at once.
I stumbled back.
Away from the door. Away from them.
My legs didn’t want to work right. My knees were soft, my spine a weak reed of heat and panic and too much need. My shoulder hit the wall and I followed it down until I was crouched on the hardwood floor, my cheek pressed to the cool paneling near the baseboard.
It helped.
Not enough.
They didn’t come after me.
Some part of me noticed that. Registered it.
They stayed outside. Even with the door cracked. Even with the scent of my heat pouring into the air between us like a siren’s call. Every breath I took filled my lungs with the three of them, and it was so potent, so thick I could taste them.
Yet they still. Didn’t. Move.
No footsteps. No door creaking open farther.
Just the low rasp of breathing and the fire in my chest as tears slipped down my cheeks.
This—this—was the exact moment I’d tried to avoid. The reason I’d run. Because if they saw me like this—wrecked, raw, undone in a way that couldn’t be hidden—they’d see what I really was.
And I hated that.
I hated needing. I hated breaking.
And still... they came.
They found me.
How?
The word slipped out in a rasp I barely recognized as my own. “How?”
The door creaked a little wider although no one stepped through, but Jay’s voice drifted in, calm and steady.
“We found reservations you didn’t delete all the way. You left some digital breadcrumbs.” The words didn’t make a lot of sense. Then I couldn’t really process anything digital or not.
Then he was moving, slow, careful.
A single hand reached around the corner of the doorframe. A bottle of water, still sealed.
“Here.” His voice was gentle. “You should hydrate.”
I stared at the water, then at the floor. I didn’t trust my hands not to shake when I took it. But I did. I reached for it, and Jay let it go the second my fingers brushed plastic.
No contact.
No push.
I twisted the cap with shaking fingers and took a drink, forcing it down. My throat burned, my stomach clenched, but the coolness helped. I drained half the bottle, and my hands were steadier by the time I set it down.
Still, they didn’t come inside.
They could have. Any of them could’ve crossed the threshold. I was in heat, disoriented, needy and far from rational. I hadn’t even locked the door. I'd cracked it open like an idiot because my body had begged for them and my instincts had won.
And yet...
“You’re not coming in?” I asked, still breathless.
Roan’s voice answered, level and smooth as slate. “Not unless you ask us to. Clearly. And only if you mean it.”
That broke something in me. Not because of the words he used but because of his control.
I could feel what it cost him. What it cost all of them. The thick weight of their restraint pressing against my skin more than any touch ever had. The fact that they hadn’t stormed in. Hadn’t scooped me up or pinned me down or tried to kiss away the sweat-slick desperation from my skin.
They were white-knuckling it.
All of them.
I peeked up again.
Jay was closest to the door, kneeling now, his forearms resting on his thighs, still calm, still steady, though the cords of muscle in his jaw were tight. Rhett paced behind him, moving in small tight loops, like his skin didn’t fit. And Roan—
Roan stood like a sentinel.
Arms crossed, braced in the doorway, like a dam holding back a flood. Eyes locked on me. Not my body. Me.
That look slowed everything down. The snow fluttering down behind them like an animated background, the golden glow of the porch light shining on them, crowning his dark hair with shimmering effect.
The more I stared, the more I saw. Like his control bled into the space between us, pressing back the fever inch by inch.
Giving me room.
Giving me air.
I didn’t know how he was doing it, but with every second I stayed in that place, grounded by his presence, the fog receded just a little more.
I could breathe.
I drew in a shaky breath. “I didn’t want this.”
Jay nodded, solemn. “We know.”
“I didn’t want to hurt anyone. Or… put you in this position.”
“No one’s hurt,” Roan said, quiet but firm. “We’re here because we chose to come.”
“Because we care,” Rhett added, voice rough and hoarse. “Not because we’re trying to take advantage.”
God, the effort it must have cost him to say that.
My chest caved a little as another wave of something close to grief, but far closer to hope, washed through me.
Roan didn’t take his eyes off me. “But we won’t touch you, Wren. Not unless you ask us. Not unless it’s what you want. Not heat-driven. Not instinct.”
Just… me.
They would wait for me.
And the brutal honesty of that undid me more than anything else.
Tears welled up again—but this time they didn’t feel sharp. They just were.
Real.
Because this was real.
They were real.
For the first time since the heat started, I felt like I wasn’t completely alone.
I kept breathing. In. Out. In again.
Each pull of air scraped my throat raw, but it helped. It gave me something to count, something to hold on to.
They stayed where they were. Still. Steady.
That steadiness helped me push up from where I lay against the floor. Supported me as I took another long drink from the water, draining it. Lifted me when I put a hand on the wall and climbed to my feet. Gave me the strength to string words together.
“Can you…” I swallowed. “Can you handle being inside?”
The question came out half-directed at them, half at myself. Could I handle them being inside? The answer pulsed somewhere deep in my chest, hot and aching—no, but also God, yes.
I looked at the doorway, at the edges of their silhouettes blurred by the light snow that had started to drift past them. Tiny flakes clung to Roan’s shoulders, melting as they touched his skin. Jay had a faint dusting of white in his hair, and Rhett… Rhett looked like a furnace barely leashed.
The cold felt good on my overheated skin, but they were standing out there in it, and it was stupid. I forced another breath through my nose. “You’ll freeze,” I murmured. “It’s—stupid. I should let you in.”
Roan’s mouth curved, a small, almost tender smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “We’re not likely to freeze to death, Wren. We’ve played in worse.”
That flicker of humor caught me off guard, and I almost laughed, almost, but it died before it left my throat.
“We can stay in the car if we need to,” he continued, voice quiet and even, the way he always sounded right before a puck drop. “You don’t have to worry about us.”
But that landed wrong in my chest. I was worried. Not just about them standing in the snow.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s not fair to you.”
The words tumbled out before I could stop them. I was talking to them, but also to myself, as I began pacing unevenly in the tiny front room as if I could think my way through the heat burning beneath my skin. “It’s just—the cabin’s small, there’s only one main room and the bedroom’s—”
I broke off, realizing how insane I sounded, how fractured.
I wanted them close, but I didn’t trust myself. I wanted control, but the longer they stood there, the more my body begged for things I’d spent a lifetime denying.
Roan’s presence was still my anchor—steady, heavy, a solid weight in the storm—but the heat pulsed underneath all of it, a molten thread that made my skin prickle and my breathing stutter.
Every time I inhaled, their scents tangled through mine—sharper now, more distinct—and it made it impossible to stay detached.
Jay’s voice was the one that broke the silence next, soft and careful. “We can go,” he said. “We’ll stay close. Just to watch out for you. But if you’d rather we—”
“Don’t.” The word came out a whisper, but it cut through everything as I faced them, locking my legs so I didn’t sway or fall.
I met his eyes. Then Roan’s. Then Rhett’s.
“Don’t leave.”
The plea escaped before I could smother it. No command, no mask, no control, just raw, honest need that trembled through every syllable. I would lose it if they left. That knowledge poured through me as fiercely as the violent craving roiling inside.
For a heartbeat, none of them moved. The air between us went thick and quiet, full of things I couldn’t name.
Roan’s jaw flexed once, his gaze flicking to Jay, then Rhett. Then back to me.
“Okay,” he said simply. “We won’t.”
Somehow, those two words steadied me more than anything else could have. Taking a deeper breath, deeper than any since the neediness took me over, I said, “Then come inside?”