Chapter 20
Lucky
I wake up warm.
That’s my first clue something’s wrong — or right — or whatever category last night falls into.
The second is heat. Skin. A whole male body curved around mine, hard in all the ways that make my pulse trip over itself.
His chest is flush to my back, solid and unyielding, and under the tangle of blankets, I can feel every line of him.
The thick, unmistakable press of morning arousal nudged against my hip.
My breath stutters.
We’re naked.
Outside.
On my patio.
In the damn sunshine.
And Ethan Maddox is wrapped around me like a furnace with a heartbeat.
The lake is quiet, glowing soft gold, and the air smells like pine and leftover sex. It should be too much — too intimate, too exposed, too everything — but his arm is slung over my waist, anchoring me, palm spread low on my stomach like he’s unconsciously claiming territory.
I don’t move at first. I’m scared to. His grip tightens in his sleep when I twitch, pulling me back into him.
And of course, he wakes then, breath stirring against my neck. And the memory of last night’s chaos still smeared all over me — his hands, my hands, the way he took me apart like he’d been waiting to touch me for years.
I blink up at the sky. Pale blue. Too calm. Like the universe hasn’t figured out we completely broke each other open on a lounge chair meant for polite summer naps.
The blanket slides when I shift. He tightens around me instinctively, like his body made the decision before his brain caught up. His nose brushes the back of my neck. A delayed shiver rolls down my spine.
“Morning,” he murmurs, voice gravel-deep, sleep-rough, edged with the kind of satisfaction a man only gets from ruining a woman the night before.
“Morning,” I breathe back, not trusting any other word to come out right.
He doesn’t move away. Doesn’t hide. Just stays there, holding me, while the lake glows gold under the rising sun like it’s trying to show off.
Water ripples. A breeze lifts the edge of the blanket.
It should be too quiet — silence is usually punishment — but right now it’s…
not. It’s soft. Safe. Dangerous in an entirely different way.
I risk turning my head slightly. His eyes are open, watching me with that steady focus that always ruins me. Like he sees every version of me — the chaos, the masks, the desperation — and he’s still here.
“You okay?” he asks.
Stupid question. Terrifying question. Sweet question.
“Yeah,” I lie, because telling him the truth this early in the morning feels like stripping twice.
He studies me for one unbearable heartbeat, then nods like he’s letting me keep the lie. His thumb brushes a lazy arc over my hipbone. My brain shorts out.
I want to say something clever, but clever left my body sometime around orgasm number… whatever. All I manage is an awkward little huff as I pull the blanket up higher, cocooning myself. He watches the movement, amused, like last night didn’t permanently rearrange the oxygen in my lungs.
“Didn’t expect to wake up out here,” I mumble.
“You fell asleep on me.”
His tone is neutral, but the corner of his mouth lifts.
I hate that I notice.
I love that I notice.
“Figured moving would wake you,” he adds quietly. “And you… looked peaceful.”
Peaceful. Me. That’s almost funny.
Before I can make a joke out of it, something cold and bright flickers across his face — the protective part of him slipping back into place.
His gaze slides toward the house, scanning, assessing something invisible.
He’s always half in the real world and half in the threat map his mind refuses to retire.
I open my mouth to say you can relax, there’s no danger here, but the words die.
Because right then, my phone starts ringing.
From inside the house.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Rapid-fire, insistent, like someone’s trying to drill a hole into my skull with sound alone.
My body goes rigid before I can help it. Ethan feels it instantly. His arm tightens around me—not desire this time, but protection—before he lets go and pushes himself upright.
The blanket falls off his torso. He’s gloriously naked. Gloriously unbothered by it. Sunlight hits him like it’s flirting.
“You should answer that,” he says, voice settling back into calm command even though his eyes flick toward the patio door like he’s assessing potential threats. “Might be important.”
My heart drops. Nothing good ever calls like that.
I sit up, pulling the blanket with me, trying to cover myself in something resembling dignity. Ethan leans close—too close—and brushes a kiss along my temple, casual and intimate like he has the right.
It nearly knocks the air out of me.
“I’ll make coffee,” he murmurs. “Go on.”
“I—okay.”
He stands, grabs the other blanket around his waist, and heads toward the house, all broad shoulders and morning wood and quiet certainty, while my phone starts ringing again—impatient, relentless, promising trouble.
And I go inside to face it.
The second I step inside, the house feels wrong.
Too big. Too quiet. Too echoing with the ring of my phone, shrill and frantic, bouncing off the walls like an alarm I can’t shut off. Ethan is at the counter in the kitchen, barefoot, shirtless, blanket low on his hips, already reaching for the moka pot like nothing is on fire.
He glances at me as I pass—quick scan, assessing my face, filing something away—but he doesn’t stop me. Doesn’t ask. Just lets me go.
The phone is still screaming.
My pulse matches it.
“Where the hell—”
I shove aside sheet music, notebooks, scribbled lyrics, receipts, Lily’s drawings—my whole chaotic life spread over the coffee table like a crime scene.
There.
Half-buried, vibrating like it’s trying to claw its way out.
BANKS flashes across the screen.
A punch to the gut.
My mouth goes dry. Ethan’s presence looms behind me even though he stays in the kitchen, giving me space, but I feel him like a shadow.
I swipe to answer.
“Banks?” My voice cracks. I hate that. “What’s going on?”
He doesn’t waste a second.
“Lu—listen. Michael Steifer got early release.”
The world just—stops.
Like someone ripped the sound out of it. Like the air folds in on itself.
“What?” It comes out as a whisper, thin and breaking. “No. No, that’s—that’s not possible. They said—he wasn’t due—”
“I know.” Banks’ voice is steady, calm, the way people get when they’re delivering bad news to someone already bleeding. “System pushed him through faster. Overcrowding, good behavior, whatever excuse they glued together. I got the alert earlier.”
My legs go cold from the inside out.
The kitchen tilts. The lake view blurs.
I grip the edge of the table just to stay upright.
Banks keeps talking, each word another slice to the ribs.
“Don’t panic. Just lie low for a few days. Stick to the house. Keep people around you. I’m making calls.”
Don’t panic.
Right. Because that’s ever worked for me.
“Banks…” My voice shakes. “He knows where I am.”
“Not confirmed,” Banks lies for my benefit. I can hear it. “He hasn’t made any moves. No social media pings. No sightings of you.”
“He doesn’t need sightings,” I snap, breath hitching. “He waits. He watches. You know how he works.”
Images slam into me.
Flashes of doors left ajar.
Messages carved into silence.
The feeling of being watched even when no one was there.
And then the worst one—
the one that lives under my skin like a live wire—
Waking up with him in my bed.
Not a dream.
Not a trick of the dark.
A man-shaped shadow sitting on the far side of my mattress, too still, too calm, waiting for me to stir.
For a second, my brain didn’t understand what I was seeing.
The room was dim, morning gray bleeding in through the blinds.
Then he shifted—just a little—and everything froze inside me.
His eyes.
His breath.
His weight on the mattress.
He was inside my house.
Inside my bedroom.
Watching me sleep all night like he had the right.
My heart stuttered once—then survival instinct took over.
I bolted.
Fast. Panicked. Pure adrenaline.
I don’t remember opening the door.
I don’t remember hitting the staircase.
I don’t remember screaming.
I remember running, barefoot, shaking, clawing my way into the street before he could react, before he could touch me, before he could do what he came there to do.
And that was it.
That was the last day I ever had a home.
Because of him, I lost my home.
Because of him, I lived in penthouse hotels for seven years, surrounded by bodyguards and false names and noise machines so I could sleep without hearing phantom footsteps.
Because of him, I learned how to pretend safety was a luxury suite with a reinforced door.
The memory crashes over me so hard I can’t breathe. My lungs forget how to function.
“I—Banks, I can’t—” I grip my chest, fingers digging in. “I can’t go through that again.”
“You’re not. I’m on it. I swear to you, Lu.”
I want to believe him. I want to climb inside that promise and hide.
But fear is already eating me alive.
“Does he… does he know about Germany? About the tour hiatus?” The words scrape out of me. “My location’s been quiet for months, but—dammit—Banks—”
“I said calm down,” he repeats firmly, in that business management boss tone. “I’m pulling in favors. Checking airlines, monitoring known contacts. For now: stay home. Don’t go anywhere alone. And keep your people close.”
My people.
Ethan.
Lily.
The thought sends a new bolt of terror through me so sharp my knees buckle.
Banks hears the silence on my end and softens.
“Lu… I got you. Just breathe, alright?”
Breathe.
If only.
“I’ll call you again in an hour,” Banks says. His voice shifts into command mode—calm, clipped, unshakeable. “Phone on you at all times. Text me if anything feels off. Anything. You hear me?”
“Yeah.” My throat barely works. “I hear you.”
There’s a pause. A weighted inhale.
And then—because he can never help himself—
“And keep that lumberjack of yours close.”
My stomach lurches.
“Banks—”