“What are you implying?”
“Just observing.”
“How far out is the road not plowed?”
“About four miles north you hit the main road again. I can do it once I get some light again.”
“What time is it?”
“About four-thirty.”
Four-thirty.
And I was still out cold?
I never really did lose my military time, always getting up before the sun. It was something Ranger, Quin, Smith, Lincoln, and I all had in common. Much to the chagrin of Kai and Miller when we were working jobs together.
“Must be all the… shoveling,” Ranger supplied in that rumbling growl of his, lips twitching up as his gaze went to Sloane’s face. “Really makes a man want to stay in bed,” he added for emphasis.
“I get it,” I said, trying to convince my cock to calm down when Sloane made some soft mewling noise in her sleep, her body shifting over mine, the top of her thigh almost pressing against my crotch.
Soft.
She was so fucking soft.
She tried to be hard to cover it.
But once you spent some time around her, you could see it was all a front. She was just trying to protect herself. Hell, it sounded like she had valid reasons to do so too.
“You’re gonna be tossing her on her ass in a new life in a few days,” he went on, clearly thinking I didn’t, in fact, get it. “Figure she’s had enough shit hands dealt her way recently. Doesn’t need to become a notch in your belt on top of it. Never to see you again.”
“I fucking get it, Ranger,” I said, voice getting a little louder. “I gave this speech to Quin last year.”
“Yeah, and look how that worked out,” he said, lips curving up a little. It was rare to find humor in him, unless maybe it was at your expense, like when he once threw his head back and laughed at Kai attempting to figure out how to change the oil on a generator at Ranger’s place.
“He’s happy.”
To that, Ranger made some noise that was neither agreement nor denial. “Well, let’s get moving,” he declared, clapping his hands before he could think better of it, face scrunching up immediately when Sloane shot up on a swallowed shriek.
Because when Ranger clapped those dinner plates he called hands, it was like a gun going off in the small space.
“Easy,” I tried, reaching out to her as she flew upward, sitting back on her heels, eyes huge and confused. My hand went to her wrist, closing around it, giving it a squeeze. “This is Ranger,” I added as her eyes went to the wall of a man sitting on the coffee table not more than two feet away from her. “I work with him,” I added when she still didn’t seem to be grasping it, her breathing a little faster than it should have been from the shock.
“It sounded like a gun went off,” she admitted, looking down at me.
“He clapped,” I explained, nodding over toward his hands as I moved to sit up as well.
As her gaze went to Ranger, so did mine.
It was fair to say the man was good-looking. In a rugged, wild, skyscraper kind of way. It didn’t surprise me when Sloane did an up-and-down in her half-awake state.
What did surprise me, though, was the way Ranger did one as well. I’d known the man a long time. I’d been on jobs with him. Been to his place. Been out celebrating with him. I’d never seen him with a woman. Not like me and Quin and Smith – casual. Or like Lincoln – always shacked up. Never.
His eyes traveled bottom up, though, looking at the short pink silk bottoms she had on, exposing most of her long, slim thighs, then over the slice of pale skin above the waistband and below the hem of her barely-there peach silk top with some white bird design if you looked really closely. His gaze stopped for a stutter at her breasts, small, but there, the nipples pointed, before it traveled up again, taking in her face, the way her hair was falling out of the up-do thing she had it in.
“Get it,” he said to me, nodding. He moved to stand, unblocking the fire, allowing the light to cast on us.
Which made him stop suddenly, arm flying out, grabbing the bottom of Sloane’s shirt, and yanking up.
“What…” I started to object, but noticed the way his brows were drawn low.
His breath hissed out of him. “Hurt?” he asked, drawing my attention back to a shocked Sloane, her body stiff, eyes on Ranger instead of her stomach where his gaze was.
“What?”
“You’re bleeding, duchess,” I supplied, finally realizing what had caught his attention. There must have been a small stain of it on her shirt.
“What? No, I’m… oh,” she said, air exhaling out of her.
And I swear to fuck, she went white as a ghost immediately.