Breaking that threshold, bringing our bodies together for the first time since everything changed, makes my legs tremble before I can move again. She grinds against me, holding my stare as she finds her pleasure, and I lose myself when her head falls back letting out a moan. But I hold it together for her, pumping into her as I watch her explode into fragments of pleasure. My hands hold her body tight against mine, and I wince as she digs her fingers into my scalp, gripping my hair to bring us even closer. Her legs clamp themselves around me, her muscles tensing as I come, filling her with everything I have.

After we get out of the shower, I carry her to my bed where I can’t help but bury my face between her legs just to watch her come again. Then, I make her sleep. Whether she wants to or not, I wrap my body around hers like a vice, and before long she steadies until we’re both out.

It’s almost three in the afternoon when we wake to the sound of people in the living room. When we leave our room for the first time, they are waiting.

Rafe is the first I notice, standing stoically in the back but with a tense smile for me.

Logan with Sierra’s hand entwined with his. She’s biting her lip and looking only at Savannah.

Ryder is talking with Tia near the kitchen, but they stop when they see us.

Ruby walks into the room with a cup of coffee in her hand and an all-knowing smile that warms me somehow.

And Lucy, who is the first to break ranks and run to my arms.

Everything I lost this week, the pride, the bitterness, the loneliness has infected me since my own family abandoned me. I wore them as a suit of armor, and as I look around the room at the people who care so much they must have been here waiting since yesterday, I realize Hazel did this all for me. She couldn’t break through my armor, but she gave me something worth breaking through for.

My eyes drift toward Ryder who is watching me with his brows carved in concern. Everything that happened this week, before the will, before the party was my fault, and for the first time ever, I see something familiar in him. The shape of his eyes. The slope of his nose. I see myself in him, my brother.

And even putting all of that physical trait stuff aside, when I needed him this week, he was there. He didn’t fucking hesitate for a second. He cared for my girl like his own, and as I look at Lucy, my niece, my own flesh and blood, I realize I would do the same. In a heartbeat.