The smile was slow, but when fully formed, radiant. It was so large, she could see the gaps where he’d lost his molars. She freed her hands from beneath him, cupped those bearded cheeks and smashed her lips against his. He answered, like he always did, with restrained aggression. She revelled in it.
The clearing of a throat had them reluctantly pulling apart. Nick’s features were impassive, but the heat that filtered through his green eyes could not be denied. Neither could the bulge against the fly of his pants.
Measuring them and their reaction, he sat in their nest. Kira noticed the space he left between himself and Euan was less than he’d allowed last night.
‘You’re right, Pix,’ Nick said, ‘and he knows it. He’s just being a stubborn ass.’ He elbowed Euan, who cut him a sly glance. ‘Look what I found.’
From Nick’s outstretched fingers, a black eyepatch hung from a string of dark elastic. ‘I found it in the tack room, in one of the drawers. It’s big, probably for one of the horses.’ He waited for Euan to reach out before he finished. ‘You’re gonna be infamous with this thing.’
Euan grunted, took the patch from Nick’s grasp and positioned it over his ruined eye. Their combined acquiescence had eased her temper, and the patch further destroyed it. She swallowed it all, closed her eyes, took a breath, centred herself. Suppressed her irritation that would do no good to them now. They needed her, more than they were willing to accept.
‘Looks good,’ Nick whispered when the patch was in place. The scar was still visible above and below the leather, but it removed the brutal realities of his torture from view.
Kira stood and brushed the straw from her knees and out of her hair. She couldn’t let him see her tears. She wouldn’t allow them to comment on the salt water that pooled in the corners of her eyes, to comfort her, to provide a retreat. Not after her tirade. She had asked for equality. And yet she cried when Euan put on a simple eyepatch.
They had come so far, but he had travelled the hardest road.
She shook her head when she heard Euan move to stand. She stepped out of his reach when the corner of her eye caught his attempt to reach out to her. She swiped at her cheeks and was disappointed with her voice when she finally spoke. ‘Plans? Strategies? Thoughts on what we’re going to do next?’
Never fooled. Never distracted. Euan pressed his large body against her spine. The warmth that radiated out from him, that woodsy smell. His physical presence …
The tears slipped over her cheeks in silence.
‘You can stand by our side and still be who you are, Kira. Being equal doesn’t mean you have to be less feminine.’
His hands were on her shoulders. So big, they cupped the entire rounded edge. She leaned into him, allowed him to hold her, and she closed her eyes, just for a minute, and she allowed herself to feel him, and all the torment that came with it.
Nick’s touch was just as assertive, just as possessive. Like they had that first night, they wrapped her in an embrace of solidarity and hope. But this time, love anchored them. Love tied them to their foundations. Love drew them closer, pulled them tighter. Love extinguished the anger that simmered between them.
Love made them whole.
Kira felt safe, free from the terror that surrounded them, until Euan said, ‘We go back home, see what’s left, what we can salvage and then find somewhere safe to live out our lives together.’
Kira’s stomach plummeted.
Chapter 9
Nick
The bomb had been dropped. The ultimate goal voiced. But at the heart of the explosion, there was no unanimous agreement.
The rain had cleared but the sky was white with high cloud. Grey wisps hovered below the expanse of colourless mist, shielding any blue from view. The wind had removed the smoke, and the orange-red glow that had accompanied the sun in the previous day no longer surrounded them. Now, the sky was white and the scent of smoke absent.
Nick emerged from the barn with cautious steps. His lips were chapped and the skin on his checks stung when the wind hit them. He wrapped one of Kira’s scarves around his neck and mouth to keep the worst of the breeze at bay, but until things warmed up, he was resigned to endure freezing fingers.
He looked back over his shoulder. Within the shadows of the barn, Euan and Kira were still wrapped in each other. Not sleeping and not fucking, just finding comfort in the warmth of their shared embrace and the safety of each other’s arms. Even if disagreement simmered between them.
Nick eyed his boots in his hand. They were still wet but no longer soggy. His socks were merely damp now too. But he still begrudged the icy hold on his toes that he knew would come as he sat his ass on the concrete step and slipped his feet into the boot. He repressed the shiver, but not the grimace.
He stood and adjusted his belt. He’d take a piss and then, in the light of day, he would see what he could find in the farmhouse they had avoided for the sake of safety the night before.
The tussock, knee-high grass scraped against the fabric of his dry pants with a soft rasp. They were brittle in the winter. Yellow and dry. But the green around the edges of the base told him spring was not far off, if not here already.
His boots squelched in the mud and slipped on the running weeds. When he found a dip that gave him a sense of privacy, he pulled the waistband of his pants down and fumbled in his briefs for his dick. His fingers were cold and he winced when they touched the warm skin there as he quickly did what he had to do, staring out in the mountains.
Mickey-O’s army was out there,
