Page 97 of Recurve Ridge

The glass trembled in my grip, water sloshing to either side in its effort to escape its enclosure. Enormous hands folded around mine in the gentlest touch, their firm grip dropping a blanket of calm over me. I stared up into Jon’s golden gaze, all too aware of Robe’s presence at my back.

Rage and calm.

Safety and sweetness.

The two enormous men crowded my space, but rather than eliciting new fears from my addled brain, their combined presence soothed me.

Fully letting go of my fears for the first time, I leaned back into Robe’s arms and smiled at Jon. “Thank you.” I sipped the water, then swirled it around my mouth to remove the sharp tang of a shattered life that remained.

Alan passed me a bowl of chocolate mints with one hand while cleaning up my mess with a rag held in the other.

“You don’t have to do that,” I protested, grabbing for the cloth.

“Mari, let me,” Alan murmured.

His tone, devoid of his usual contagious excitement, stopped me. Something more than our friendship lingered in his eyes, a gentle warning not to push. I bit my lip and nodded.

Jon released my fingers to bring his to my cheek, making sure the motion remained within my view the entire time. He traced over my cheekbones, trailing where we both knew the faintest echoes of bruises once blossomed beneath my skin, even if they had healed months ago now. Long fingers stroked the length of my throat and back, concern filling his amber eyes.

I held his gaze and inched my way forward to press my cheek into his open palm. Fire lit in his face, and I reveled in his approval. Jon lifted my hair to tuck a flyaway strand behind my ear.

Robe’s arms slid around my waist, pulling me back to him. “You know we share everything here, Mari,” he murmured, his lips brushing my ear. “And we want you, need to protect you. Even if you don’t want… all of us yet.”

But you will.

The unspoken promise hovered between us, winding around everyone in the house in a bond deeper than any I had ever experienced.

Movement shuffled in my periphery as I became aware of three more sets of eyes feasting on the vision of us connected. Every one of them held desire in his face, all aimed at me. And Robe. And Jon.

Even Miller, though his ever-present anger raged beneath the surface of his forced blank expression, a facade that he thought hid his roiling turmoil but actually exposed his need at the same time, even when he hated himself all the more for the perceived weakness.

I should have run from him. Robe. From them all, once upon a time. Now. My past and present mashed together in a heady swirl that left me swaying on my feet. I should have torn from his arms, screaming bloody murder. I should have protected my abused, healed body with my fists and all the skills Miller had instilled in me, one bruise at a time.

I did none of those things.

The weight of their need spun the room in a dizzying maelstrom. Robe’s shoulders curved around my smaller frame. I sank into him and smiled deliriously at Jon, the glass slipping from my grip to shatter at my feet. My body followed in a graceful collapse as my knees buckled.

Two pairs of arms encompassed me, and I let myself fall.

27

ROBE

I scaredthe shit out of her.

It was all I could think of the whole time Mari had slept off the dizziness that slammed into her the moment I tried to offer more of who we were to her. That my grace period was up and that lost her. Like I lost others.

But with Mari it wasn’t the same. I wanted her.

We all did.

Miller’s affection confused her. I saw it in the way she peeked at him over her crispy waffles and when she was curled on my lap and tensed every time he spoke. Her gaze tracked him whenever he entered or left a room.

Something had happened between them. I knew that much, and Alan made his own hints about the time they spent in the bedroom when I sent them away. A mess of my own making, of course, and not knowing irritated the shit out of me. Strange enough for the stubborn man, he broke the tension in the short term between us all, if not in the way he intended.

“That’s too cute.” Mari flirted with Alan in her safe zone as he showed her his new stripperesque crop top and matching black glitter boots.

I bit back a snarl; I’d be sweeping that shit out of my floorboards for the next decade.

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