The blood pressure in my veins is stratospheric. “Eagle isn’t going any fucking where.”

Charles blinks at me with disbelief as he puffs up in his designer raincoat. “She’s going with me to France. My jet is waiting at a private airstrip nearby. As soon as this storm passes, we’ll be?—”

Charles croaks, clawing at his throat when I lock my fingers around his skinny neck.

“Eagle isn’t yours and never will be.”

Paul’s mouth is hanging open. The new guard, Tice—a former SEAL also—holds up both hands. A satisfied grin cants on his battle-worn face. “You do you, man. I’m here for ya.”

“She decides where she goes and when.” I shove Charles into the wooden rocking chair so hard the legs bust. In a tangle of broken wood, he flops backward off the porch, landing in a gigantic puddle. As he squeals like a little pig.

“Now,” I turn to face Paul McKenna. “I’m sending a truck to get Eagle’s belongings.”

His face flushes like an eggplant. “She’s not moving in with you!”

“Didn’t say she was. Eagle’s going to live wherever she wants. I’m sure as hell hoping that’s with me, but that’s her call.”

“You want me to live with you?”

Eagle’s voice makes me snap to attention. Our gazes lock, the knife falls from her hands, and she lurches forward, wrapping her arms around my waist.

“I promise to treat you like you deserve to be treated.”

She nods against me, tightening her arms. “I know you will. And I’d love to move in with you, Kane. There’s nowhere else I want to be but in your bed.”

“Wait a fucking minute!”

Paul’s arms flail out to the sides when Tice snatches him up by the collar of his coat, frog-marching him off the porch. “See ya around,” Tice calls as he shoves Paul—spitting mad—into the company SUV. Charles, covered in mud, hair hanging limply down his face, scuttles to the car, slamming the door once he’s inside.

“Let’s go back to bed, sweetheart.” I scoop Eagle up, kissing her neck. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

TWELVE

Eagle

I step back, looking at the carefully organized clothes in the closet. My clothes. “Are you sure? I mean, you hardly have any room.”

Kane shakes his head. “I wear the same thing. Cargo pants, T-shirts, and workout shorts. This closet has never been one-tenth full.” He hangs one of my shirts, putting it exactly between the colors that are one shade lighter and one shade darker than its adjacent neighbors.

He grins, making a satisfied sound. “There.”

The heat inside my chest is nearly overwhelming. And when he turns, making a rough sound, I melt even more. “Sweetheart,” he murmurs. “I don’t want you to cry.”

“These are happy tears.”

His palm cradles my head as he stares at me. “Are you sure this house is… enough?”

“It’s beautiful, Kane.” I look around again, hardly believing how gorgeous Kane’s home is. The house he built by hand overyears, any time he could get home on leave from the SEAL teams. “I love it here.”

“Thank fuck.” His words are gravel, but his eyes are soft, softer than I’ve ever seen them. “I’d move if you wanted to.”

Standing on my tiptoes, I kiss Kane Mathews. The man who has, in a matter of days—no, months—become the only man I can imagine myself with.

“No, this is perfect, and I can go to college just down the road. I can’t believe I finally get to take the jewelry design classes I’ve always wanted to take.”

All those months when he was working for my father, I was falling more and more. Just as he was. “I think we should… um, see if we can both fit in your tub. We haven’t tried that yet.”

Although we have had sex in the kitchen, with my hips perched on his kitchen counter, and twice in his gigantic king-size bed—where Kane had more than enough room to work.