Chapter 5 Mira #2
He reached out slowly, giving me time to pull away, and tucked a strand of copper-streaked hair behind my ear. His fingers grazed my cheek. The touch was featherlight, barely there, and my whole body lit up in response. Nerve endings sent sparks down my neck.
I stopped breathing.
“You matter more than you know.”
His thumb traced along my jaw, and I had to lock my knees to keep from swaying toward him. My skin felt too hot.
Each cell in my body was suddenly, acutely aware of how close he was, how easy it would be to close the distance, how good his mouth might feel against mine. I could see the individual flecks of gold in his hazel eyes, if I wanted, I could lean forward and press my lips to that infuriating smile.
I wanted to. God, I wanted to.
My breath caught.
His touch lingered for a moment, eyes dropping to my lips and stayed there for a beat too long. His thumb shifted, brushing the corner of my mouth, and the sound that almost escaped me was embarrassing. Then he pulled back, and the easy grin slid back into place.
I exhaled shakily. My heart was pounding as if I’d just sprinted a mile, and I was fairly certain my underwear was ruined.
This was fine. Everything was fine.
I was just incredibly attracted to my temporary housemate’s tattooed body and ridiculous smile. Besides, he is attractive so it would be crazy not to be attracted. No big deal.
“But that’s a heavy conversation for seven in the morning. More pancakes?”
Footsteps in the hallway made us both turn.
Lucian appeared first, dressed in dark jeans and a henley stretched across his chest. Even at seven in the morning, even scowling, he looked like something from a magazine. Storm gray eyes swept the room and landed on me.
Oh, great. Another one.
Solomon materialized behind him, all six and a half feet filling the doorway. His pale silver eyes found mine immediately, and I remembered the hunger I’d seen at dawn. My core clenched involuntarily.
I’d just spent twenty minutes getting inappropriately wet over Percy’s tattoos, and now my body was reacting to the other two, couldn’t decide which one it wanted more.
All of them, apparently. My body wanted all of them.
That wasn’t normal. Maybe I inhaled too much smoke.
“We need to head in.” Lucian’s voice was clipped. Commanding, that I wonder how he’d sound giving commands in a different context. “People ask questions when we don’t show up to work.”
Percy’s jaw tightened. “I’m staying. Tell them I’m sick.”
“Percy-”
“I left last time.” His voice had lost all its warmth. “And it was when the bastard got through.” He didn’t look at me, but I felt the guilt radiating off him. “I’m not leaving her alone again.”
The two of them exchanged a look I couldn’t read.
“Fine.” Lucian moved toward me, and my pulse kicked up without permission. He paused beside my stool, close enough that I caught his scent. His hand came up and gripped my shoulder. His thumb brushed bare skin where Percy’s shirt had slipped.
Electricity crackled through my entire body.
“We’ll be back by noon.” His voice dropped lower, meant only for me. “Stay inside.”
Then he was past me, grabbing keys from the counter, and I was left with my shoulder burning where he’d touched me.
Solomon caught my eye from the doorway. “Lock up behind us.”
His voice was rough, intimate. The sound traveled straight down my spine.
Then they were gone.
Percy exhaled beside me. “Sorry about that. They’re not great at... people skills.”
“And you are?”
His grin returned, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m the charming one. It’s my whole thing.”
I studied him. The tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers drummed against the counter.
“You really blame yourself… For Hudson getting to me at the inn.”
“There was a gap between us looking after you. Minutes.” His jaw worked. “Twelve minutes, and he almost…” He stopped. “It won’t happen again.”
My chest hammered. This ridiculous, tattooed, pancake-making man was beating himself up over twelve minutes.
“Percy. I’ve been running from Hudson for months. He tracked me across three states. You couldn’t have-”
“I could have stayed.” His intense hazel eyes met mine. “I should have. So now I am.”
I couldn’t find an answer to that.
The easy grin slid back into place. “Anyway. Do you want to have a movie marathon? You pick. I have opinions about everything, but I’ll keep them to myself for at least twenty minutes.”
“Generous, I see.”
“I am.” He stood, stretching, and his shirt rode up again. I looked away before I could get distracted by more tattooed skin. “I’ll set up in the living room. Take your time.”
A few moments later, I finished my breakfast. Then I heard Percy curse at what sounded like a complicated remote control situation in the other room.
The domesticity of it was surreal. Twenty-four hours ago, I’d been fighting off my ex. Now I was doing dishes while a man I barely knew set up a movie marathon.
“I’m just going to look around while you fix that,” I called out. “If that’s okay.”
“Mi casa es su casa. Just don’t open the basement door. That’s where we keep the bodies.”
I snorted despite myself.
The living room was bigger than my entire apartment. Percy was sprawled on the couch, fiddling with remotes, and he waved vaguely as I passed.
But it was the books that stopped me.
Shelves lined three walls, floor to ceiling. My fingers itched to touch them.
I pulled one at random. The title was in a language I didn’t recognize. Inside, illustrations of creatures that are some sort of wolves. I put it back but a crest caught my eye above the fireplace. A wolf with three stars above its head, carved into a wooden plaque.
I crossed the room without deciding to.
“What’s this?” I asked, but Percy had his back to me, still wrestling with the entertainment system.
“Hmm? Family thing. Old.”
My fingers traced the carved lines. The wolf’s muzzle, the curve of its ears. A tug pulled in my chest, visceral and unfamiliar, and then my vision went white.
String lights. Hundreds of them, strung across the town square. Warm cider in my hand, my third or maybe fourth, the taste of cinnamon on my tongue and a pleasant buzz softening the edges of everything. A crowd moved around me, laughing, dancing, and at the edge of it all…
Three men. Watching me.
I knew those faces. I didn’t know how, but I knew them.
I recognized Percy right away.
“Dance with me?” He held out his hand, that easy grin already in place.
I took it before I could stop myself. His fingers closed around mine and my chest clicked in place, a key turning in a lock I hadn’t known existed.
“Do I know you?”
“Not yet.” He spun me into his arms, one hand finding my waist as if it belonged there. “But you will.”
The music carried us through the crowd, his scent wrapping around me, and everywhere we touched sparked with something I couldn’t name.
The song shifted, faster now. He released me with a twist, and the room blurred.
Someone else caught me.
This time, it was Solomon.
His grip was steady, fingers closing just above my pulse as if he’d measured the distance beforehand.
“Sorry,” I said automatically.
His hand caught mine mid-turn. Colder than the others. Calloused.
“You don’t have to-” I started.
“I know.”
He drew me in anyway.
For a heartbeat, his control slipped. I felt it in the way his fingers tightened at my waist, the way those pale eyes dropped to my mouth before snapping back up. He saw too much. I should have looked away. But I didn’t.
Another spin and another exchange.
Lucian.
His hand closed around mine before I could step away.
“This is a mistake,” I said, low.
He didn’t loosen his grip. “Then why are you dancing with me?”
I searched for the answer and came up empty. “I don’t know.”
His gaze held mine with new intensity, and I realized my answer mattered more to him than the truth.
“Neither do I,” he said.
He pulled me closer.
We barely moved. Just swayed, his breath warm against my lips, his fingers pressing into my hip, afraid I’d vanish. My heart slammed against my ribs. This was insane. I didn’t know him, didn’t know any of them, and yet my body leaned into his, recognizing what my mind couldn’t grasp.
Dances with strangers who didn’t feel like strangers.
I watched myself rise on my toes. Watched my fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt. His breath caught, and just before our lips touched, he whispered-
“Mira?”
Percy’s voice yanked me back.
I was on the floor. My knees had given out at some point and tears streamed down my face, though I couldn’t remember starting to cry. He crouched in front of me, hands hovering. He wanted to touch me but wasn’t sure he should.
“Hey, it’s okay. What happened? Do you need the hospital, should I-”
“I saw it.” My voice came out a whisper. “When I touched the crest.”
His whole body went still. “What did you see?”
“A festival. String lights everywhere. Dancing.” I looked up at him, and my chest ached with a grief I couldn’t name. “I saw you. All three of you. And I wanted-”
I couldn’t finish. Couldn’t say it out loud.
Silence stretched between us. His hazel eyes searched my face, emotions across his features too fast to catalog. Then he pulled me against his chest without asking.
I let him.
My fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt, face pressed against his collarbone. His hand rubbed slow circles on my back while the thing I’d been holding together with sheer stubbornness since the fire finally slipped.
“It’s okay,” he murmured against my hair. “You’re not losing your mind. You’re remembering.”
“Remembering what?” I pulled back just enough to see his face. “That never happened. I’ve never been to a festival. I’ve never danced with any of you. I’ve never-”
“It did happen.” His voice was gentle but certain. “A week ago. Before the fire. Before whatever in your tea stole it from you.”
“That’s impossible.”
“You knew us, Mira.” He cupped my face, tilting it up, his thumbs stroking away tears I hadn’t realized were still falling. The tenderness of it made my throat tight. “You were starting to let us in. And then someone took that from you, and we’ve been going out of our minds ever since.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will.” He pressed his forehead against mine, and our breath mingled. If I tilted my chin up half an inch, we’d be kissing. My pulse jumped at the thought, and from the way his fingers tightened on my jaw, he knew it too. “When you’re ready. When you trust us enough to hear it.”
“Okay,” I whispered. I didn’t know what I was agreeing to. “O-okay...”
I was too exhausted to fight anymore.
At some point, he moved us to the couch. Put on some terrible action movie I couldn’t follow. I fell asleep against his shoulder. His arm around me, his hand warm on my hip. My body curled into him naturally.
The front door opening woke me.
Lucian and Solomon filled the doorway, still in their work clothes. Their eyes found Percy’s arm around me. My head on his shoulder. The way my body had molded itself against his while I slept.
I should have moved. Should have sat up and put distance between us before this got awkward.
But I didn’t. Some instinct kept me still, kept my breath even and my eyes barely cracked as I watched them through my lashes.
Neither of them looked angry.
That was the part that didn’t make sense.
Solomon’s pale eyes went darker, heated, his gaze traveling down my body with blatant appreciation. And Lucian’s jaw was tight, his hands fisted at his sides, but the emotion burning in his expression wasn’t jealousy.
It was hunger.
My thighs clenched involuntarily.
They wanted me all at once.
And they knew.
I had to be imagining this. My brain was inventing things that weren’t there, seeing desire where there was probably just concern, reading hunger into expressions that were probably just tired.
Three men didn’t share.
But Percy’s arm tightened around me, possessive and sure. Solomon’s tongue dragged across his lower lip as his eyes traced the curve of my waist. And Lucian held my gaze making heat pool low in my belly, his chest rising and falling as he fought for control.
They looked starving.
And somehow, despite this, I didn’t feel hunted.
I felt found.