Chapter Seven #2
He pushed his plate to the side, as if the meal had served its purpose, then leaned in. “You make this look easy.”
I gestured at the kitchen. “You make this look like a CIA safehouse.” I took a slug of coffee, let the heat sting the inside of my cheek, and made a show of relaxing. “You don’t really strike me as the domestic type.”
He blinked, slow. “Neither do you.”
Grace hiccupped, then went to sleep mid-bounce, head slumping forward in the undignified droop of a passed-out drunk. I watched her for a second, pulse picking up at the sight of her so tiny, so oblivious to how many things wanted her dead.
“I’m just surprised you eat breakfast at all,” I said. “I figured you’d fast until lunch, then do protein shakes until the full moon.”
He ignored that. “Do you want something more substantial than toast?”
“This is fine,” I said. “Besides, if I eat too much, I get slow, and then the baby wins.”
He nodded, as if conceding the point.
There was an ease in the conversation that shouldn’t have existed.
Every time I tried to feel out the edges of it, I found only more comfort, like the world had re-calibrated itself to make space for the three of us: me, Grace, and the man whose kitchen looked like it had never seen a real breakfast before today.
We volleyed like that for ten minutes—me sniping, him fielding every jab with a neutral face and the occasional dry return.
I was starting to think I could get used to it.
He waited until I was halfway through my second cup, then set his mug down, both hands cupped around the rim. “I want you to stay,” he said.
I froze, toast suspended halfway to my mouth. “Come again?”
He didn’t blink. “Not one night. Not a week. I want you here, indefinitely.”
I set the toast down, wiped my hands on a napkin I’d only just realized was linen, and looked him straight in the eye. “You’re aware of how sentences work, right? The kind where you leave room for the other person’s opinion?”
He considered. “I’m aware. I said it anyway.”
I barked a laugh. “You just going to annex my freedom by force?”
He shook his head. “You’re free to go, but I find the alternative—your scent in the walls here—vastly preferable to it anywhere else. Especially above a bakery with compromised security and known threats.”
It took a second to process the phrase your scent in the walls. “That’s the single least romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
He lifted a shoulder. “I wasn’t trying to be romantic.”
“No shit.”
Grace chose that moment to emit a soft, satisfied grunt, followed by a snore. The bouncer’s springs sang a lullaby in off-key metallic.
I tried to come up with a comeback, but found nothing. Instead, I just wrapped my hands around the coffee mug and let the heat bite. My jaw flexed, and I knew he saw it.
Braham said, “I don’t do well with pretense. I’d rather be honest than smooth.”
That landed. Harder than I wanted it to.
The kitchen went silent, except for the pulse of traffic below and the distant hum of the city waking up.
I watched the coffee swirl in my mug, then looked up at him, ready to lob another grenade. But the words just didn’t come. Instead, there were three feet of marble between us, a newborn asleep in a $200 bouncer, and the sense that everything else could wait.
I held his gaze, didn’t smile, didn’t flinch. “You know you’re going to lose this argument, right?” I asked, finally.
He smiled, slow, like the last move in a chess game. “Not today.”
We stayed like that, holding the silence, both of us refusing to look away. The memory of last night’s kiss lingered like an afterimage, sweet and dangerous, but neither of us named it.
After a minute, he pushed the bouncer with one finger, rocking Grace back into a deeper sleep. He asked, “You want more coffee?”
I shook my head. “I’m good.”
I meant it.
I didn’t say yes. I didn’t say no. I let the coffee do its work and watched the morning light crawl across the kitchen, orange and blue and not at all subtle. Eventually, I said, “I need to get my laptop.”
Braham waited, stillness personified.
“I have a manuscript due in six weeks,” I clarified. “My editor is the kind of person who has entire folders labeled ‘revenge.’ I miss a deadline, and she’ll make me look like an instructional video on how not to write a sentence.”
He inclined his head, fractionally. “I’ll have Ashe retrieve it.”
“No.” I set the mug down, spine straightening in a way that suggested we were back to pre-dawn stand-offs. “I’ll get it myself. And I’ll bring back my good coffee, and my switchblades, and the sweater I left on the fire escape last month.”
His jaw ticked, a crack in the marble. “You’ll have an escort.”
“I figured.” I grinned, weaponized. “But let’s keep it to one. If more show up, my neighbor is going to start a podcast about it, and neither of us needs that kind of exposure.”
He almost smiled. Almost. The edges of his mouth moved like tectonic plates threatening to shift. “Fine. One. But don’t rearrange the security measures.”
“I’ll put everything back where I found it.” I paused, feigning deep thought. “Except maybe your feelings. Those I’m going to keep fucking with.”
He didn’t deny it. Didn’t even look annoyed. “As long as you come back.”
I tried to meet his stare and not feel anything.
I failed.
Epically.
The rest of the morning moved fast. Grace stayed passed out, arms splayed in a pose of absolute surrender.
I transferred her back to the crib in my suite, took a fast shower, then pulled on my only clean t-shirt and a pair of jeans that had survived three tours and a year in a rental car.
The baby’s powder scent still clung to my skin, layered with the penthouse’s impossible air of cedar and money.
I stood at the crib longer than I needed, just watching Grace sleep. Her whole face was relaxed, lips parted, the faintest dimple pressed into her cheek. It was the first time in days I’d seen her look peaceful.
I thought about last night. About Braham’s mouth, his hands, the way he’d kissed me like he’d spent months thinking about it and zero time rehearsing. I thought about the way I’d kissed him back—no games, no sarcasm, just pure, reckless want.
I wasn’t staying for that. I wasn’t staying for the imprint, or the pack, or the fact that I apparently made a better wolf babysitter than anyone else alive. I was staying for Grace. She was the only thing in the last few days that made sense.
I repeated it to myself. For Grace.
Even I didn’t believe it.
I shrugged on my jacket, and paused at the mirror to check my teeth. No spinach. Good. I could face down a CEO and a city full of mercenaries, but I wasn’t going to show up to my own rescue mission with breakfast in my smile.
Down the hall, I found Braham by the window, talking in low tones to Ashe. The beta looked me over, nodded once, and turned to prep the SUV. Braham just watched me, unreadable.
“Back in an hour,” I said. “Unless there’s traffic, or a shootout, or a surprise intervention staged by the entire Portland book club scene.”
“Take what you need,” he said, voice steady.
I hesitated. “If I’m gone more than two hours, you send a search party?”
“Of course,” he said, and I could tell he meant it. “And, Flynn?”
“Yeah?”
He let the silence hang, then: “If you’re going to stay, you’ll need better towels. The guest suite ones are subpar.”
I snorted. “Is that how you woo all your conquests? Critique their thread count?”
He arched a brow. “Just the ones I want to impress.”
I grinned, despite myself. “Noted.”
The elevator opened. Ashe stood inside, hands loose at his sides, wearing the expression of a man who’d already preemptively planned for every bad outcome.
I rolled my shoulders, shot Braham a two-finger salute, and said, “See you on the other side.”
He didn’t answer, but his gold eyes tracked me all the way into the elevator. I punched the lobby button, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, I was looking forward to coming home.
I just had to decide which one it was.