CHAPTER 4 #3
“Even after that.” I pulled my jacket on, wincing slightly at the soreness in my limbs.
“I’ve known Cole for three months—longer, if you count the accident—and in all that time, I’ve never seen him as happy as he’s been in the last twenty-four hours.
If having you around makes that harder for him, you’ll answer to me. Understood?”
Marcus blinked. “Understood.”
“Good. Now go to bed. Both of you.”
Cole raised an eyebrow. “What about you?”
“I’m going to lock the alley door—properly this time—and then I’m going to take a very long shower in the panic room. Alone.” I shot a look at Marcus. “No offense.”
“None taken.” He retrieved his duffel bag from where he’d dropped it. “I’ll, uh. I’ll be in the studio. If anyone needs me.”
He headed for the stairs that led to the locksmith’s building. His footsteps were heavy on the treads, the footfalls of a man carrying more weight than his frame could comfortably bear. Cole and I listened to him climb until the sound faded into the building’s ambient noise.
“That went better than I expected,” Cole said.
“Did it?”
“He didn’t punch me. So yes.”
I laughed—a tired, slightly hysterical sound. “Is it always like this with him? The drama, the drinking, the dramatic exits and returns?”
“Pretty much.” Cole leaned against the bar, looking exhausted and satisfied.
“He’s been like this since we were teenagers.
Our parents died when he was seventeen—car accident, drunk driver—and he never really processed it.
Just started numbing everything with alcohol and bad decisions.
I went into firefighting because I couldn’t save them, but maybe I could save someone else. ”
“And you’ve been saving Marcus ever since.”
“Trying to.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “With mixed results.”
I stepped into his space and wrapped my arms around his waist. He smelled like sex and sweat and the lingering cedar scent of his soap. “You’re a good brother.”
“I’m a tired brother.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
His arms came around me, and for a moment we just stood there, holding each other while the bar hummed around us.
The bartop was still smeared with the evidence of our activities.
The stool Marcus had occupied was pushed askew.
The bourbon he’d opened earlier gleamed amber on the back bar, waiting to be recorked.
“I meant what I said,” Cole murmured into my hair. “I love you.”
“I know.”
“I’ve loved you since before I met you. Since I pulled you from that car and watched you fight to stay conscious.”
“That’s not love. That’s trauma bonding.”
“Maybe it started that way. But it’s not that anymore.” He pulled back to meet my eyes. “I know the difference.”
A lump formed in my throat. “Cole—”
“You don’t have to say it again. Once was enough.” He kissed my forehead. “Go take your shower. I’ll clean up here.”
“The bartop needs—”
“I’ll sanitize it. Twice.”
“At least twice.”
His laugh followed me down the stairs to the panic room.
I keyed in the code, stepped through the reinforced door, and let it swing shut behind me with the hiss of its heavy seal.
The fern on the nightstand was thriving—another new frond unfurling, bright green against the darker leaves.
The bed was rumpled from the night before, sheets tangled from our restless sleep.
In the bathroom, I turned the shower as hot as it would go and stood under the spray until my skin was pink and the water had washed away every trace of the evening.
I didn’t hurry. I let my mind wander back over the last few hours—Marcus’s return, the shock on his face, the way his hands had trembled on his thighs while he watched his brother fuck me senseless.
What did it say about me, that I’d liked being watched? That the danger of it—the unlocked door, the vulnerable position, the knowledge that anyone could walk in—had heightened every sensation until my body sang with it?
Maybe it didn’t have to say anything. Maybe I could just let it be what it was: a moment of reckless desire in a speakeasy that existed because two broken people had found each other and decided to try.
I dried off with one of the towels Cole kept stocked in the panic room’s linen closet. Soft. Fluffy. The man had better guest amenities than most hotels. I wrapped it around myself and stepped back into the studio space, and then I stopped short.
Because I wasn’t alone.
Mara stood in the doorway of the panic room.
No—not Mara. Me. But the other Mara, the one Cole had described earlier in the night. The Mara Bennett with tousled hair and exhausted eyes, with toned arms and a slender waist. A woman he’d mentioned in his stories, a woman who existed somewhere in the periphery of his life and mine.
Except she wasn’t in the periphery anymore. She was standing in my panic room, barefoot, wearing only an oversized t-shirt that I recognized as one of Cole’s, and she was staring at me with the same shock I felt reflected in her own expression.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re here.”
“I live here.” My voice came out sharper than I intended. “What are you doing in my room?”
“Cole said I could stay here tonight. There’s a situation with Marcus—apparently he’s in the studio now, and Cole wanted to make sure I had somewhere safe to sleep.” She gestured vaguely at the door behind her. “I didn’t realize the panic room was occupied.”
My towel felt suddenly inadequate. “Cole didn’t mention you were coming.”
“It was last-minute. I lost my apartment. The building got sold—same thing that happened to you, I think.”
The world tilted. Same building? No, that couldn’t be right. Our building had three apartments. I knew my neighbors—the elderly couple on the ground floor, the law student on the second. Mara didn’t live there.
Then why did she look so familiar?
“Have we met?” I asked. “You look—”
“Like you?” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I get that a lot. We have one of those faces.”
“One of those faces,” I repeated.
“You know. People always think they know us.”
The explanation should have settled the unease in my stomach. It didn’t. There was something about the way she looked at me—a too-knowing gaze, a slight curve to her lips that might have been amusement or might have been something else entirely.
“I’ll go sleep in the loft,” Mara said. “Cole has a cot up there for emergencies.”