Page 30 of Gilded Touches

She leans her head back on my shoulder, turns her head and I take her lips in a fervent kiss. I can’t resist her silent need. I angle my head down, tip her chin up farther and savor her essence. Her tiny inhales and exhales stroke over my soul, binding us together. Maybe she feels the connection, too. From the way her eyes flit open and our gazes lock, I’m going to say she noticed our aura blend.

“I need you again, Voss, but I don’t think my body can.” Her blush is not from the hot steam or water.

“We have all the time we need. I’ll wait to have you when you are ready.”

She lifts her head, but doesn't step out of my arms when I think she will. Instead, she turns her eyes up to mine. “You speak as if we have more than this one night.”

“We do. Why do we have to say one night and done? There is nothing holding us back from you. Except you,” I say honestly.

“My father?—”

I turn her to face me. “Is gone. We should have stayed in contact, but he didn’t want us anywhere near you and your sister for a reason. We have a lot of bad blood from our past. Enemies we probably don’t even know about. He understood that.” I press a kiss to her lips and run the pads of my fingers over her delicate jawline. She shudders and I marvel at the hardness of her nipples.

“I always wondered why he talked about you all the time to my mom but never brought us together like a big family. He thought of you as brothers. It just never made sense. And here I am showering with one man he wished for me to never meet.”

“Does that make us a dirty secret of his or yours?”

Her smile shoots arrows straight to my heart.

“Both.”

“We were many things before we became fences with your father. Many things.”

“Where do we go from here?” There’s a hint of disbelief in her tone. Confusion pulls her brows together and the gray of her eyes darken. She places her hands on my chest and I feel the electricity hum between us. Vibrations of our connection simmer just under the surface. It’s a new feeling I’m growing to love fast.

“Let’s start with the truth. Why did you take the diamonds?” I take the side of her face in the palm of my hand and she leans into it. “You were meant to be mine. Ours. You trusted us tonight with your body and your heart.”

She drops her hands. Wide glittering eyes hold me captive. She opens her mouth to try and deny the heart had anything to do with what happened tonight, but I place a finger over her lips before she can sully the recent memories we made.

“You know it’s true, my little jungle flower. Trust us one more time and I swear we will all be there for you.”

Delicate hands slide up my wet chest and settle over my heart.

“Trust you?”

“Your father trusted us when it came to a lot of things. I only wish we could have stopped him from getting killed. The deal was wrong from the beginning, but he swore he knew them. Turns out he didn’t and his arrogance cost him.”

“We told him as much, but he didn’t want to listen.”

We both look up to see Jasper and Shayne with towels wrapped around their middles. I figured they used the other shower so I could have a moment with our beautiful jungle flower.

“You were there when it happened?”

Luna moves her gaze between all of us.

Jasper holds his arm out to her and tucks our girl under his chin. I physically watch as she relaxes against his chest. Shayne presses a kiss to her forehead when her eyes connect with my brother’s, I see something there I don’t want to believe is true. But it gives me a wave of hope that tonight is the start ofsomething that might keep us in Seattle after all. Frankly, I don't care where in the world we go as long as she is there with us.

A pretty, innocent blush spreads over her cheeks. For all her bold wildness, she’s tender and delicate under that false shield she hides behind.

“No, Luna. We were not or we would have died to protect him,” Jasper answers. “It was an impossible situation between men who had no respect for life. There were too many, and it was a deal that never stood a chance. They didn’t intend on paying for the jewels your father was fencing. They had every intention of stealing them by any means.”

She steps out of Jasper's arms, but keeps her hands on his chest. I watch her keep a connection to my brother. She doesn’t realize it, but she likes us to touch her as much as possible. In fact, I don’t think one of us hasn’t had a hand on her since we entered the room.

“What happened to them?” her voice cracks. “The men who killed my father? The cops did nothing and my sister and I had no hope of finding out anything. We just kept on trying to survive.”

Shayne is the one to answer her.

“Remember how I said we were many things before we came to Seattle?”

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