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His eyes lifted to mine.

They glowed with a heated mix of affection and something else. I stared at him, my own eyes hooded as my air released in puffs of nervous energy.

I slowly raised my arms over my head.

Reed swallowed, his movements even slower as he elevated on his knees between my parted legs and the blouse followed the upward glide of his hands. My tangle of hair fell back down, a chilly waterfall over my bare shoulders and bra straps. His chest heaved in and out, his own breaths shallow and frayed. Jaw ticking, he avoided my eyes as he slipped the neck of the shirt over my head and helped guide my arms through the sleeve holes.

I pulled my hair from the collar and glanced down at the T-shirt. “This isn’t Tara’s.”

It was his Soundgarden shirt.

Gaze aimed at the front of my chest, he blinked at the logo. “Yeah,” was all he said.

The scent of amber and earthy masculinity wrapped me up in a warm hug as Reed reached across the couch to snag the chocolate-brown blanket beside me. He draped it over both of my shoulders, tucking me into the cozy cocoon, his hands lingering on the fringed ends as he clasped it tight.

“Thanks.” I pressed my palm to the back of his knuckles as a way to keep him close. His hand was cold and dry, so I gently massaged warmth back into his skin with my fingertips. “You’re cold, too.”

“I’m fine.” He idled between my legs, voice rougher than grit. “Feel better?”

“Yes.”

A small nod answered me as he found my eyes. “She’s going to be okay,” he said gently. Then he reached out and tucked a strand of wet hair behind my ear. “When she was just a puppy, she’d get loose from the yard all the time. She’s good at finding escape routes. She’s even better at finding a safe place to hide until she’s found.”

I rubbed my lips together. “I feel terrible.”

“That’s because your heart is so damn big.” Reed reached for my hands poking out from the front crack of the blanket, cupping them between his large palms and applying friction. “You’re still freezing.”

I wasn’t freezing. I was a melty mound of warm goo. “That feels good.”

He raised our intertwined hands and blew heated breaths into his tented palms before rubbing them together again. Tingles bloomed in my fingertips like tiny razorblades and ran a marathon up the length of my arms. When Reed raised our hands again, he released another hot breath, then fully cupped my slow-warming palms as he brought them to his chin and held. His eyes closed through a long sigh, and we just sat there.

Still and silent.

I didn’t speak; I just savored the moment while the moment savored us.

There was a difference between staying quiet and having nothing left to say. I had words. Plenty of them. But I wanted to be where the peace was, and sometimes that was in purging the words, and sometimes it was in withholding them. Right now, I chose the intentional quiet.

The peace resided in the things unsaid.

When his eyes finally reopened, he propped his chin on our locked hands and studied me through the dim lighting of his apartment. “I’m sorry for how I spoke to you earlier,” he said, and while the words were soft and feather-light, the turmoil I saw reflected in the stormy green of his eyes was anything but. “I know you’re scared. I didn’t mean to make it worse.”

My lashes fluttered at his gentle touch and the tingly trail his thumb left behind as he kneaded my fingers. Then I glanced at him, perched only inches away from me, and tucked my knees inward until they brushed his outer thighs. “Are you scared?”

I didn’t know if I was referring to Ladybug or something else.

Maybe both.

His hands slowly untethered from mine as he dropped his chin and caged me in with both arms, pressing forward on the couch cushions on either side of me. When he glanced back up with just his eyes, his gaze was churning with new waves, new turmoil. “Halley, I’m?—”

The phone rang.

I jolted in place, blinking away the daze. Reed stared at me for a heavy beat, whatever he’d wanted to say lost at sea.

He let out a sigh as he dropped back on his heels. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he sent me one last look before rising from the floor and stalking toward the edge of the kitchen where a cornflower-blue phone hung from the wall.

For an insidious drumbeat, I wondered if was a woman…one of his lady friends.

“Hello?” he answered, tone clipped. Then, in the span of a few seconds, his brows unfurled and his eyes flared. “Really? Shit…yeah, thank you.” He nodded. “Okay. I’ll be over soon.”

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