TREY
By the time I get home, it’s pushing nine-thirty, and the chicken place I usually hit after training has already closed.
Whatever’s in the fridge will have to do, if there’s anything left. Nash has his own apartment, but judging by the rate my groceries disappear, you’d never know it.
I punch in the code, shoulder the door open and make it three steps inside before stopping.
Sadie is curled up on my couch.
My first thought is that she fell asleep working on her project. My second is that she drank the suppressant again. That possibility has me across the room in seconds.
I drop my training bag beside the couch and crouch next to her. "Sadie."
Two fingers against the side of her neck find a steady pulse.
"Sadie."
This time, she grumbles something I can’t make out and buries her face deeper into the sofa.
A breath leaves me as I sit back on my heels. Good. She’s fine. Just out cold.
The coffee table tells me why. Her laptop is still open in the middle of a mess of books, papers and notes, with a glass of water wedged between them. The apartment smells like food too, so she studied, made dinner and crashed before I got home.
Could’ve picked her bed for that last part, but I guess my couch won.
She’s taken up maybe a quarter of it too, curled into the corner with her knees pulled up and one arm folded beneath her cheek. Somehow her shirt got twisted around her waist in the process, leaving a little skin showing above her shorts.
She really is tiny. I knew that already. Kind of obvious when the top of her head barely reaches my shoulder, but like this, it’s almost funny. Five-four. Five-five at most.
Tiny everywhere that counts for height. Definitely not everywhere else. Narrow waist, full hips, great tits. Nothing I haven’t noticed before, but with her shirt pulled tight across her chest, I’m getting a pretty good reminder of what those oversized cardigans she wears around campus usually keep covered.
[Want our scent on her.]
"You want our scent on her."
[We.]
"You."
Sadie shifts, one knee sliding farther down the couch.
Trex rumbles. [So every male who gets close knows to stay away.]
"She isn’t ours."
The growl that tears through my head says he strongly disagrees.
He’s been pushing the same instincts since she moved in. Scent her. Touch her. Keep her close. And me standing here checking her out only blurs the line between what he wants and what I do.
I tap her shoulder. "Get up."
That doesn’t do much, but another tap gets a slight twitch out of her. A few seconds later, her eyelids finally drag open, and the green catches me again. Still not used to that. Probably won’t be until somebody figures out what the suppressant did to her.
She blinks at me a few times, like it takes actual effort to figure out who I am. "You’re here."
"Good observation. I live here."
Satisfied with that information, she closes her eyes again.
"No." I shake her shoulder. "Get up. You have a bed for this."
She mutters something into the couch.
"What?"
Another string of words I can’t make out.
I lean closer. "Can you walk?"
"No."
At least that one comes through loud and clear.
I run a hand through my hair and stand. "Of course you can’t."
Trex perks up the second I gather her into my arms.
[So warm. So soft.]
"Behave."
Sadie barely reacts. She’s light, her body fitting easily against my chest, and instead of waking up like a normal person being carried through an apartment, her fingers curl into the front of my shirt.
Good to know she’d sleep straight through her own kidnapping. No survival instincts whatsoever.
For someone who’s spent years taking care of herself, she has an impressive lack of self-preservation once she’s unconscious. Maybe dorm life beat the caution out of her. Maybe she’s just hopeless once her eyes close.
Halfway down the hall, every breath comes with her scent, stronger than I’m used to. But I like it enough to breathe deeper.
The memories that come with it are a different problem, especially when I’m the only one who has them.
Her voice. The blood. The way she stayed when she had every reason to run. Years spent wondering who she was, and when I finally find her, she’s mated to my brother.
[Was.] Trex practically spits the word. [And it stays that way.]
I lower her onto the bed, expecting her to let go once she hits the mattress. Instead, her fist tightens around my shirt and drags me down with her. My hand lands beside her head just in time to keep the rest of me off her.
Fuck. I’m close enough to kiss her.
That’s the first problem. The second is that once I notice it, I can’t stop looking at her mouth. Her lips are parted, every breath hitting mine, and all I’d have to do is drop my head a couple inches.
Yeah. I need to get off this bed.
"You gotta let go," I say.
Her answer is to pull me closer.
"Don’t want to," she mumbles.
I’m about to pry her fingers loose when a tear slips from the corner of her eye into her hair.
"I’m lonely," she whispers. "Nobody wants me."
A slow breath leaves me as my tongue presses against the inside of my cheek.
She really has no idea.
"That’s not true."
"It is." Her mouth pulls into a sleepy frown. "But I don’t care anymore. I’m done with men. Completely done. I just want one really good kiss first, then I’m done. For real this time."
Her little speech catches me off guard enough that a laugh bubbles up my throat. Who knew Sadie Rhodes sleep-talks? Better yet, who knew all it took to get past that shy, reserved filter of hers was for her to be barely conscious?
I catch her wrist and start peeling her fingers from my shirt. "Enough. Go back to—"
My next word gets swallowed by her mouth.
It takes me a second to catch up with what the hell just happened. She actually kissed me.
Her wrist is still caught in my hand, and I haven’t even decided what to do with that when common sense finally shows up. She’s half asleep. I’m not. Putting some distance between us shouldn’t require much more thought than that.
Then her other arm slips around the back of my neck.
That’s about as much restraint as I’ve got.
Her wrist slips from my grip as my hand finds her jaw. I kiss her back, keeping her right where I want her before I can reconsider any of it.
She tastes like strawberries. Something she had earlier, maybe, but figuring it out ranks low on my list when I can just kiss her again and get another taste.
So I do. And once more isn’t enough either. After that, I stop counting.
Keeping my hand on her jaw is starting to feel like an achievement. I want it around her waist, sliding over her hip, grabbing enough of that ass I was staring at earlier to pull her against me properly.
Somehow, I don’t let it wander. Barely.
The restraint doesn’t extend to kissing her. Igo harder, get messier with it, and every time I tell myself that’s enough, I go back for another until my cock is throbbing against my pants like I haven’t kissed a girl before.
Ridiculous. Except I haven’t kissed this girl before, and I’ve spent years wondering about it.
Turns out knowing is a hell of a lot worse than wondering.
My tongue brushes her bottom lip and a small whimper slips out of her.
Yeah. I like that. Enough to immediately go looking for another one, but this time she doesn’t meet me with the same enthusiasm. Her grip behind my neck goes slack first, then her lips stop keeping up with mine as she sinks back into the pillow.
And just like that, I’m left hovering over her and breathing like we did a lot more than make out.
"Sadie?"
She’s gone again. Or getting there fast, judging by the way her eyes stay closed and her breathing settles.
Her lips are parted, slightly swollen, and some asshole part of me likes knowing I did that.
The smarter part catches up about a second later.
She’s half asleep, Mercer.
Outstanding decision-making on my part.
A satisfied rumble comes from Trex, followed by the unmistakable sense that he has plenty to say.
I shut him out before he gets a single word in and reach for the blanket bunched at the foot of the bed. Sadie doesn’t stir when I pull it over her, not even when I tuck the edge around her shoulder.
A few curls have fallen across her forehead. I push them back before I can think too hard about why I’m doing it, then get off the bed.