Navy Seal's Match. Amber Williams Leigh

touch. She couldn’t tell Harmony because of what Mavis had felt the moment she’d sensed Gavin’s walls trembling...when she’d thought maybe she had done the impossible. “All I really know is that for a few moments he felt safe enough with me—he trusted me—to help him out of it, and it worked, if only temporarily.”

      Harmony searched Mavis’s face. She stepped aside. “I can’t stand to see him like this. I’m scared of what’s on this path if he keeps going down it alone. Do what you can for him.”

      “Okay.” Mavis climbed the rest of the stairs. Glancing back briefly, she said, “Thank you.” For trusting me, too, she added, silently.

      When Harmony nodded in answer, Mavis moved from the landing. The Leighton house was laid out with rooms tightly knit. An ideal nest that kept its inhabitants close. The master suite was on one side of the hall and William’s and Finnian’s rooms were on the other, connected by a Jack-and-Jill bathroom. Mavis had been there once. She’d gone from one boy’s room through the bathroom to the other so she could climb out the back window and escape without Olivia and Gerald’s notice.

      It felt odd choosing the first door on the left. She’d dated William in secret so their families wouldn’t find out and make noise about the two making things more permanent. It was strange seeking another man through the same door, intruding on the space of her ex.

      Gavin’s shirt she found hung at the foot of the full bed, and his shoes near the bathroom door. She heard the shower running.

      She bypassed the shirt, stepped over the shoes and came to the door. Raising her fist, she quelled hesitation and rapped her knuckles against it.

      She heard a curse. The door was snatched from the jamb. Gavin filled the space of the frame.

      Mavis blinked. He was a mountain. Like Prometheus, he was a fricking beast. Toned. Muscled out—definition on top of definition.

      There were ribs, however. Enough of a hint that on anyone else might’ve looked ordinary. On him, they smacked of self-neglect. His rib cage as a whole should’ve been lost to the ripple of abs and the scintillating muscles that honed his waistline to perfection. Behind the eyes, she saw truth. There, he looked gaunt. As if the sharp bones of his honest self peered through the coat of naked flesh.

      She caught the moment...the very brief moment that his honest self reached for her. She nearly reached back.

      Then he blinked. Resignation resumed. Annoyance followed. “What do you want?” he asked.

      “No questions.” Placing her hand on the deep-inked, red-eyed wolf as black and forbidding as the storm he held inside him, she moved him back into the bathroom, stepping in, too, until she could shut them both in.

      His expression turned puzzled as she shut off the tap in the shower stall. “What’re you up to now?”

      “This is me pouring water over the fire,” she told him.

      He stared. Shook his head. “No. No, this is you dressing up as a can of lighter fluid and throwing yourself at it.”

      “Give me your thumb,” she said, extending her hand.

      He held it back. “I’m fine.”

      “You let me in the other day,” she reminded him. “Why?”

      “I thought we weren’t asking questions.”

      “Gavin. Why?”

      “Maybe I was desperate.”

      “Maybe you do need someone.”

      “This is hell. I’m not dragging you into it.”

      “I do what I want. And what I want is to help you. So stop being a man—a big stubborn man—and let me help you!”

      The staring didn’t cease. She wondered how much he could see in the closeness of the whitewashed room, under the single bright vanity bulb. Not her pulse tripping against her throat. Not the frisson of nerves in her wrists and knees. Hopefully not the desperation pressed between her lips.

      He brought his hand up to meet hers.

      She fought a tumultuous sigh. There was dirt on his fingertips still. There was dirt on hers, too, despite several scrubbings in the powder room downstairs. It was caked red under both their nails. The scent of it, of their work together, came between them. She hoped he found it as grounding as she did. Gripping him lightly, she extended his thumb toward her. She moved her shoulders back, trying to grind the edginess out of her joints. She started to press her thumb and forefinger against the web between his. Then she stopped and bent her head, releasing a long breath that streamed cool over his thumb.

      The shower steam, fine and damp, was suspended around them. Silence closed them in. She saw his lungs expand against his ribs and noticed his pulse trip against the base of his throat. His breath moved over the center part of her hair, at the apex of her brow.