Page 107 of Recurve Ridge

“Is that what I’m supposed to do?” I turned the thought over and rejected it. Anything that marked Mari in the future had to be by her choice. “I think I prefer the puppy.”

“Of course you do.” Jon shook his head. “You’re hopeless.”

“I’m good with that.” I pressed a kiss to the top of Mari’s head. She nestled deeper between us, drawing a thin thread through each of our hearts that held taut.

“Love you.”

We said it at the same time, but not to each other, though I did love him as a brother, a lover, and I knew he reciprocated. Jon huffed while I snorted.

“I love you too,” her sweet, sleepy voice piped up between us as she linked her hands around each of our waists, drawing us closer.

Jon grinned while I went back to stroking her hair. I didn’t know who she meant, but it didn’t matter. We’d do anything to protect the girl who fell out of nothing into the woods and gave us back something none of us had claimed for far too long.

A heart to care for.

She loved us. All of us. And that was enough.

EPILOGUE

ROBE

Mari stirredon my lap as Jon pressed a cooled cloth to her cheeks, cleaning away the remnants of the delayed reaction to her horror from the day before. I should have looked for it and had failed her yet again. She worked out for more hours than I could count in the wake of her walk through the forest. And then she took that solid night’s sleep and her fear, and she belted it out against her opponent the way we taught her.

But we’d forgotten to tell her how to stop. Her stomach emptied itself as she hunched over her arms, once outside the house and once back inside it, where she dry heaved as her limbs shook until her body gave out.

Miller grumbled while he held her the entire time, swearing lovingly in his own strange way, like he was proud of her for finding her limits and pushing through. Then she let each of us hold her, passing her around for cuddles until she returned to me. I fed her a few mouthfuls of water, and then she purred against my chest.

“Too much, too fast,” I murmured, tangling my fingers in her hair.

Plus, I’d been a complete asshole, making her retrace her steps, dictating where she should find security after the months we’d spent wrapped around each other. The need to destroy everyone who hurt her burned within me, dolloping a decent helping of self-loathing onto my shoulders.

Cinnamon notes bloomed as I curled a glossy lock around my fingers. She used the shampoo and lotions I’d given her, and some deep-seated part of my inner beast roared its approval.

But as much as I wanted Mari to stay, I couldn’t keep her forever. I imagined her in a white-picket-fenced yard, pregnant, a white-and-brown puppy lolling at her feet. But that couldn’t happen, not with me. No world I lived in would ever allow it. Which meant I needed to give her a choice, the choice she should have been given earlier.

Then we got… distracted while I lied to each of us that we could keep her.

If she wanted to return to us, that needed to be her choice. In the half year she’d lived with us, Mari displayed a keen intelligence, a Miller-level-worthy loyalty to all of us, but especially the ability to deal with circumstances beyond her control whenever they were thrown her way, like with Alan and his skewed sense of morality. I had a place where she could use those skills and keep an eye on her.

Watch her—like a fucking creeper.

Letting her go broke my heart, but she needed to heal without me in her space. And there was that minor issue of professional help.

Jon sensed my hesitation. He paused in his ministrations. “She’ll come around.”

Mari shifted in my arms. “Robe?” she murmured, tilting her head back. She stared up at me with a dozy gaze, her lips parted.

My cock hardened in an instant. I held back from dipping my head to kiss her, from laying her out on the floor and begging her to stay with my tongue between her thighs. She needed more time to heal. I knew that now.

I doubted that with five men who were already obsessed with her, she would get that time in this house.

The unspoken words that pressed against my lips threatened to break me.

“Sweetheart, sit up.” I searched her gaze for any hint of internal damage. I couldn’t fix every hurt she’d endured, but I knew someone who might.

“Thanks,” she murmured, snuggling into my shoulder. She wrapped her arm around Jon’s giant bicep, drawing him closer. “I feel a lot safer when you’re both here.”

Adoration lit Jon’s eyes. I expected my face matched his, which made the next part so much harder to push out.

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