Page 124 of Fractured Loyalties
And that means something is already bleeding between us.
She moves.
Just a little.
And then her fingers find my thigh.
And curl.
She doesn’t open her eyes.
She doesn’t need to.
“Your scent,” she murmurs. “It always gives you away.”
My hand closes lightly over hers. Not possessive. Not tender. Just certain.
“You’re in my bed,” I say.
She hums. “Didn’t feel like the guest room would listen.”
That hits harder than it should. I stare at the place where her fingers rest against my thigh. “You left the house without telling me.”
“I left because the silence got too loud.”
That stops me.
“I waited,” she says, softer now. “But it felt like you were already somewhere I couldn’t reach.”
“I had to clean up a name I buried.”
Her eyes flick open, sharp against the low light. “And did it stay buried?”
“No.”
We stay there like that, quiet, neither one moving. The knife still gleams where she left it. My breathing is too shallow. Hers isn’t.
“I wasn’t followed,” she says finally.
“I know.”
“But you still checked to make sure, I'm sure.”
“I always will.”
Her expression doesn’t change. But something in the air does. Like the tension isn’t between us anymore—but around us.
“I saw Caleb,” she says.
My hand tightens slightly.
“Lydia showed up. She handled it.”
“She shouldn’t have needed to.”
“She didn’t. But she did anyway. Which means you told her to watch me.”
I don’t answer that. Because there’s no version where I didn’t.
