10. Holden
TEN
HOLDEN
It’s past midnight when I pull into the driveway.
The house is dark except for the porch light, which Knox leaves on for me. He has a system: light on means someone’s still out. Light off means all personnel accounted for. I kill the engine and sit for a minute, letting the silence settle over me like a weighted blanket.
Sage has been out of the hospital for two weeks and we’re still no closer to figuring out who hurt her than we were the night it happened.
I’ve just spent twelve hours cross-referencing rope suppliers and staring at a list of registered dog owners in the area until the words blurred into noise.
It’s useless busywork—Fenrir is far more talented and has abundantly more resources than I can access—but I need to do something.
Somewhere out there, the person who hung Sage is sleeping peacefully, when they should be dead.
I grab my jacket and head inside, turning the deadbolt behind me to lock up tight.
Eli’s couch is empty. The blanket is folded, pillows stacked. He must be on the back porch. He does that sometimes—sits outside at night, staring at nothing. I don’t check on him. None of us do.
I’d really like to break his nose.
The house breathes around me. The tick of the hallway clock. The hum of the fridge. Knox snoring faintly from upstairs—a sound I’ll never admit I find oddly comforting.
The night nurse stopped coming three days ago. Daytime checks only now. So I take the stairs quietly. I know which steps creak and I avoid them without thinking. Second from the top. Fourth from the bottom. The landing.
Her door is cracked open. She can’t stand it shut anymore. The therapist she’s seen twice this week says that’s a normal trauma response. I hate the word normal in this context. Nothing about any of this is fucking normal.
I push the door open enough to look in.
She’s in my bed. My old bed, technically. I gave her the main bedroom because it has the en suite, and it was the best place to set up all the medical equipment when we first got home from the hospital.
Home.
It strikes me that this house has never felt like a home the way it does when she’s in it. Hell, with all the guys in it too.
I stand in the doorway, looking over her sleeping form.
She’s on her side, knees pulled up, one hand tucked under her cheek.
The moonlight through the blinds falls in stripes across her face, and I can see the bruising on her neck even in the half-dark.
It’s fading, yellowing at the edges, the worst of the purple turning to brown.
But it’s still there. Something I look at every day to remind myself of one thing.
I will destroy whoever did this.
I should go to bed. To the pull-out in the den that’s surprisingly comfortable. But I don’t move. In the weeks before the attack, I slept beside her more often than I didn’t. These weeks without her have been . . . taxing. I miss the feeling of her in my arms, the warmth of her body against mine.
I step into her room.
Not to wake her. Just to . . . I don’t know. See her up close? Make sure she’s breathing? Watch the rise and fall of her chest, evidence she’s alive.
Sage stirs.
“Holden?” Her voice is sleep-thick and rough, still carrying that rasp that makes my chest ache every time I hear it. She’s half-awake, blinking at me in the dark, her hand reaching out across the empty side of the bed.
“I’m here. Go back to sleep, wildcat.”
“What time is it?”
“Late. Go back to sleep, love.”
She watches me through heavy lids. Then she shifts, pulling the covers back on the empty side. A wordless invitation that says more than any sentence could.
“Get in with me,” she murmurs. “Please.”
I should say no. She’s still healing. Still vulnerable. She’s in a bed in my house surrounded by men who would kill for her—who have killed for her—and the last thing she needs is another body in her space, another set of hands that could accidentally become another set of demands.
“I’ve been working all day. I probably stink.”
“Just get in the bed, Holden.”
The corner of my mouth kicks up at that. I take off my jacket. My shoes. My belt. I leave my T-shirt and jeans on because there are lines, and I’m a man who understands lines, even when every part of me wants to cross them.
I lie down beside her. On top of the covers. Keeping the barrier.
She makes a small, dissatisfied sound and shuffles closer, her hand finding my chest. Her palm is warm through the cotton, and I can feel my heartbeat pick up under her fingers.
“Under, please.”
“Sage—”
“I don’t want to feel the covers between us. I want to feel you.”
I close my eyes.
She will be the death of me.
I lift the covers and slide under them, and she’s against me immediately—her face pressed into my chest, her legs tangling with mine. Her hand fists in my shirt like she’s afraid I’ll disappear. She’s warm and small and she smells faintly of the lavender soap Micah bought her the other day.
I wrap my arms around her carefully. One across her back, one cradling the back of her head, my fingers threading into her hair. She lets out a breathy sigh.
“Missed you,” she whispers into my chest.
“I’ve been here.”
“No, you’ve been working. Coming home late, leaving early. I see you for ten minutes a day and you spend nine of them asking if I’m okay.”
She’s right. I have been keeping my distance. Not because I want to—because every time I look at her neck, I see the case I haven’t solved, and the guilt turns me into someone who’s all function and no feeling. The cop takes over. The man disappears.
“I’m sorry.”
She tilts her head up. In the dark, her eyes catch the moonlight—gray and steady and looking at me with something that isn’t forgiveness because there’s nothing to forgive. It’s need. Simple, honest, terrifying need.
“Stop being sorry,” she says. “Just be here.”
She kisses me.
It’s soft. Nothing like our usual heat. This is gentle and direct, lips barely parted. I freeze for a split second because I don’t want to take a shred more than she’s willing to give.
She hums, and the tip of her tongue teases the seam of my lips.
The sound goes straight to my cock, and I kiss her back.
Controlled. Gentle. My hand shifting to her jaw, thumb tracing the line of her cheekbone.
She tenses slightly, and I soften my grip, shifting my hand to the back of her head to avoid touching her neck.
“Holden.” She sinks into me, her thigh riding higher, her cold toes sliding underneath the cuff of my jeans at my ankle. Her hand slides from my chest to my neck, fingers curling into the hair at my nape, and she pulls me closer with a soft sound that goes straight through me.
I deepen the kiss and her mouth parts, urgent, starved, and she gives another greedy little moan. It vibrates against my lips and my control shudders. Fingers tightening in her hair, I tilt her head and kiss her with more purpose.
For the first time since the rope, I let myself want, let myself feel. Her tongue licks into my mouth and she tastes like mint and sleep and, God, her. A taste I’ve somehow built an addiction to.
“Fuck, wildcat.”
The words slip out rough, my voice gravel from exhaustion and want. She presses closer, her body molding to mine, soft curves against hard lines, and I feel her heartbeat hammering through her shirt. It’s fast—too fast—and I pull back, just enough to search her face in the dim light.
“We should stop,” I murmur, my thumb brushing her lower lip.
She shakes her head. “I want this.” Her voice is still raspy, but there’s steel underneath, that stubborn fire I love.
She shifts, throwing one leg over mine, straddling me slowly, carefully, like she’s testing her own limits.
The weight of her settles on my hips, and my cock twitches, already hard just from the kiss.
“I need to feel like me again, Holden. Like you still want me. All of me—even the broken parts.”
“You’re not broken.” I slide my hands up her thighs, under the hem of her shirt, gripping her hips gently. No pressure. No demands. “You’re healing. And I want you more than ever. Fuck, wildcat. You have no idea how badly I want you. But I also don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.” She leans down, her hair falling like a curtain around us, and kisses me again, her tongue sweeping in, tasting me like she’s reclaiming a piece I took.
Her hands roam my chest, fingers slipping under my shirt, tracing the lines of muscle and ink.
“Don’t hold back. Please, Holden. I need you. ”
I groan into her mouth, my control fraying.
I keep it slow, my palms gliding up her sides, lifting her shirt inch by inch, exposing the soft skin of her stomach, her ribs until I lift it over her head and toss it aside.
Her breasts are bare, nipples hardening in the cool air.
I cup one gently, thumb circling the peak without pinching, drawing a soft gasp from her.
She arches into my hand like a cat seeking warmth, her teeth catching my bottom lip, worrying it until I’m tempted to bite her back. Her hips roll against me and she’s making these little noises—half gasp, half whimper—that undo my logic cell by cell.
I want to slide her onto her back, to take control the way I always have with her, but I don’t. I let her stay on top, let her set the pace, keep my hands open and visible on her body. No surprise pressure, no sudden grabs—nothing to dredge up the memory of the rope, the burning, the terror.
But she takes my wrist and starts walking my hand up—over her ribs, over her breastbone, toward her throat.
My stomach drops. I stop her an inch short, curl her fingers into mine, and put her hand back down on my chest where I can hold it.
Her gaze holds steady, pupils blown wide, lips wet and parted. She’s not afraid.
She’s fucking daring me.
I kiss her instead. It’s an answer and we both know it isn’t the one she asked for.
“So fucking beautiful, wildcat.”