“Because of prison?”

  He shrugged. “Didn’t have much before that. We lived on the road until I was twelve.”

  My Cornish boy was from the fairgrounds.

  He ain’t yours.

  The pain in my chest came back and morphed with an older ache and fucking choked me.

  I stole the lemon bottle back from Embry and sniffed it. To me, it smelt like the sherbet sweets the old lady who’d lived in the flat next door had kept in her pockets, but it always put a smile on his face, and I’d be lying if I denied accidentally spilling it on my clothes from time to time.

  Sudden wind rattled the rooftop. I screwed the cap back on the lemon oil and tucked it into the pocket of Embry’s jeans, careful not to touch anything I shouldn’t.

  He tracked my hand forward and back.

  Blew out a breath when I was done. “You’re killing me, you know that?”

  I knew that slow death all too well. Didn’t always occur to me that he felt it too. I eased off my sore spine and faced him, mirroring his pose. “Sorry.”

  Embry stared at me in the dark. The weed blunt was long gone and all I could smell was lemon and mint. But there was something else too. Something that smouldered between us, raw and untamed. He leaned forward.

  Hesitated.

  Then leaned in again, bringing his face a mere inch from mine. “I missed you.”

  His whispered admission washed over me like the warm summer breeze the wind had become. His lips were so fucking close.

  Kiss him.

  Instead, I rooted my body to the hard roof beneath me. “I missed you too.”

  “Why?”

  My hands twitched with the need to touch him, a weird tic my body had thrown up in response to the constant state of oppression forced on it in moments like these. “Because I feel like a real person around you.”

  He didn’t repeat his question, and for that I was thankful. But his proximity made my head swim, throwing me off balance, despite the fact I was already lying the fuck down.

  Kiss him.

  Kiss him.

  Kiss him.

  As if I was that fucking brave. Give me a three-on-one fight any day of the week before I could make this choice with no fear of the consequences.

  I know.

  I know.

  The irony that I’d begged him not to overthink this whole thing wasn’t lost on me. Heart pounding, I gazed at his mouth, watching his tongue dart out again to wet his bottom lip. Watching that bottom lip . . . twist into a smirk.

  I frowned. “What’s so fucking funny?”

  “We are.”

  “Since when?”

  Embry flopped onto his back, turning his wry grin to the crescent moon. “I thought about what I’d do when I saw you again the whole time you were gone. Didn’t factor talking about your mother into the equation.”

  I missed his face being so close to mine. His sweet fucking scent. It was the only explanation I had for looming over him and dropping lower, reclaiming that shared orbit. “Maybe I shoulda left your bocadillo in the fridge for someone else.”

  “Maybe you should have.”

  “I should ask you how your hospital shit went.”

  “Saint didn’t tell you?”

  I shook my head. “Just called and told me to speak.”

  “He’s a wise man.”

  “Yup. You’re okay, though . . . right?” I searched his face for anything that wasn’t the half-lidded haze of weed smoke. Found nothing but the amusement that made his eyes fucking shine.

  “I’m good,” he said. “They pressed my belly so hard I wanted to die for a while, but everything else was fine. Got an iron injection to liven me up.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Think so.”

  A pause stretched out.

  Six thudding beats of my overwrought heart.

  Then something wicked and reckless inside me broke free.

  I leaned down and pressed my lips to his, just once, light and sweet, before I pulled away without giving him the chance to make me.

  Or . . . you know.

  Kiss me back.

  I forced words out of my windpipe, picking up where we’d left off. “That’s good. Not too lively, though, aye? You’re already a fucking menace on that Tiger.”

  Embry made a low sound. A growl. A rumble. It happened too fast for me to catch. Then he surged upright and toppled me backward, pinning me with his slighter build, eyes fucking blazing. “Don’t do that. Don’t kiss me like I’m your goddamn grandmother.”

  He gripped my chin and claimed my mouth, savage and dirty, like fire had been injected in his veins in the split second it had taken him to throw me down and slay me with his lips, his teeth, and his tongue.

  With his fingers digging into my jaw.

  He tasted of mint.

  He smelt of lemon and herbal smoke.

  He felt like home, and desire coursed through me, searing my nerves, sending my blood sluicing round my body so fast it was a rush I couldn’t handle. A rush I lived for, cos I was an adrenaline junkie for him.

  I tugged Embry over me, dragging us together, his chest to mine, all the while my heart screamed a warning to my kiss-drunk brain: slow this down.

  No.

  I couldn’t.

  I didn’t have the fucking strength. How could I when I craved him so bad? Craved his skin against mine, his body grinding my hard length.

  The tightness in my jeans woke me up. The sharp pain of the zip against my cock, and shit, he was hard too.

  I felt it as he rolled his hips, legs straddling my waist, and a deep groan escaped me. “Fuck.” I pulled back, panting. “Fuck.”

  Embry’s chest heaved in time with my laboured breaths. He was still on top of me, and I realised that all the fantasies I’d had about us together had been the other way around.

  And that I liked this better.

  I reached up and thumbed his bottom lip. “I wasn’t sure this would happen again. I was gonna tell you it was okay if it didn’t.”

  Embry bit my thumb. Then pushed my hand away. “You’re a fucking idiot.”

  “That’s a given. What’s your point?”

  “You’re taking the piss, right?”

  “Dunno. Am I?”

  He glared, but there was no heat behind it. Riled up, Embry was more beautiful than ever, but up here on the roof, his mood was never bad. “You’re the biggest fucking idiot if you thought what happened in the cave was never going to happen again. If you didn’t know that first time was gonna lead us here. It’s why I was so angry that I kissed you in my bedroom. I knew it would fuck everything up.”

  “Where do you wish you’d kissed me?”

  “Here. In the fucking woods. On the beach. Doesn’t matter. It just kills me that it’s all so tainted, you know? I don’t want that to be your memory too.”

  “Chaparrito, you don’t need memories if you have the present.”

  “That right?”

  “Yup.”

  Embry tilted his head. “I like this theory. It means to remember the good stuff, you have to do it over and over again. So your present becomes permanent.”

  “If you say so. I ain’t that clever, mate.”

  For once, he didn’t correct me. He brought his forehead to mine and words seemed to fail him.

  I wrapped my arms around him, careful of his abdomen, and rubbed his back. When he stayed relaxed, I took a chance and let my hands slide under his clothes.

  Embry closed his eyes. “That’s amazing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Hmm.”

  “How about this?”

  I kissed him again, slow and languid, blocking out the inferno in my veins. My limbs shook with the effort, but his answering moan was so fucking worth it.

  Low.

  Gentle.

  A fucked-up contradiction of the tapped loon my boy could be when people didn’t treat him right.

  It was so good. I held him against me, giving him room to escape if he needed to, and kept fucking kissing him, grinding my pelvis with his until my dick ached.

  Then I let Embry roll us so he was beneath me. Died a slow, fiery death as he hooked a leg over my hip and brought his hands to my face.

  “Can you do something for me?”

  I propped myself up on my elbow. “Anything you need, cielito.”

  “Take your shirt off.”

  “You sure?”

  He nodded. “I want to smell your skin in case I forget it’s you.”

  “Been on the road two days, brother. Might give you new nightmares.”

  A faint smile warmed Embry’s face. “Couldn’t if you tried.”

  I didn’t agree. Embry wasn’t a naïve dude, but sometimes he gave me too much credit. Still, if he wanted my grimy tee gone, I’d throw it off the goddamn roof.

  Metaphorically.

  Unless we wanted any brother below knowing we were losing clothes up here.

  I pulled the black crew neck over my head and let it drop into the shadows around us, steeling myself against the shiver that rocked me. It wasn’t the first time Embry had seen my bare torso, not even close. Fuck, I’d slept in his bed with nothing but sweatpants to my name. But as he gazed at me, drinking every inch of me in, I felt more naked than I did in the shower with my dick in my hand.

  The seconds ticked by. I hovered over Embry, keeping my weight from his belly, which left me nowhere to go but his groin.

  He was still hard. For me.

  Fuck. Was I even awake right now? Or had I knocked out at the side of the road, delirious with stress and fatigue?

  Either way, my pulse rocketed. I wanted him so much. All of him. Any of him. I’d never let myself dream of moments like these—not often, anyway. And as he slowly splayed his palm over my thundering heart, I was glad of it.

  Cos I’d have been wasting my time. My imagination was wild when I let it fly, but against this right here, it never stood a chance. The best dreams were the ones that came true without you ever knowing they were there.

  Embry pressed his face into my neck, breathing me in. Then he licked the sensitive skin he found there, kissed it, and dug his teeth in.

  Heat flared deep inside me. I set my jaw, tilting my head on instinct, offering him more of my throat, shuddering as he kissed a path to my mouth.

  Somehow, I ended up on my back again. My body craved the wicked sensation of Embry straddling my waist, grinding with me, pushing me off a cliff we’d never jumped from before, not together. But he lay beside me instead, tracing patterns on my chest, gazing at me as we took a break from kissing to reclaim some fucking oxygen.

  I thought I might die of happiness.

  Or combust with the scary heat still blazing inside me.

  None of those things happened.

  With Embry pressed up against me under the summer stars, I fell asleep.

  11

  EMBRY

  Mateo had a bruise on his spine from where I’d manhandled him on the roof. He wouldn’t admit it, but I knew. His bullshit game was terrible.

  Also, I saw him wincing every moment he thought I wasn’t looking, which was often. My game was on point.

  “Are you even listening to me?”

  I blinked and my surroundings came back into focus. A family farm I’d never lived on. A man who was a young version of a grandfather I’d never met.

  My cousin Joe scowled, and I grinned, grateful that the time I’d spent with him over the years had trained me to deal with men like Mateo. “Sorry. Miles away.”

  Joe’s glare deepened. “Kid, you came to see me. Any chance of you telling me why before you float off to another fucking planet?”

  He had a point, but as much as I loved my moody older cousin, a boy I’d worshipped when I was younger, I had Mateo on the brain. Indelibly etched. I couldn’t breathe without thinking about his heated skin beneath my palm.

  Didn’t even try.

  “Embry.”

  I held up my hands in surrender, dodging as Joe chucked a handful of hay at me. “All right, all right. I came to tell you we just signed a supply contract with Scania for our haulage firm. So I can get you cheap parts for your horse box if you need them.”

  Joe stopped hauling hay around. “How cheap?”

  “Thirty percent lower than you’ll get them from any garage.”

  “They dodgy?”

  “Nope. Legit as fuck.”

  Suspicion flared in Joe’s dark gaze. Didn’t blame him in the slightest—he’d known the club longer than I had—but for once it was easy to look him in the eye and tell him the truth.

  “Honest. Cam started a haulage firm a while back. It’s straight money.”

  “Keeps you out of trouble, eh?”

  “Nah, but it could if I wanted it to.”

  Joe’s harsh expression fell into a grin. “You’re such a fucking Carter.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “Ten years ago, it was, but then I met Harry and saw how fucked up other families are. It made our lot seem not so bad, you know?”

  A nice theory, and Joe was right about the Carters. Shame they hadn’t raised me. “Anyway, I’m gonna go. But call me if you need anything, yeah?”

  I turned away.

  Joe caught my arm, grip strong like Mateo’s.

  Like mine.

  “Hey.” He turned me back to him and held my gaze. “You don’t need a reason to come down here. I know I called your boss a cunt that one time, but I’m over it, I swear. You need that place as much as I need to be here. I understand that now. Don’t mean we have to be strangers.”

  I knew that.

  And I loved Joe. Him and his sister Emma were the only blood relatives I had any relationship with. But this land wasn’t mine. It was never meant to be, and where I came from, that was important.

  I left Joe with a promise and walked back to where I’d left my bike. The route to the remote lay-by took me past the field containing the only beast on Joe’s farm I felt any connection to. Shadow, an ageing stallion with an attitude that made Mateo seem like sunshine on a stick. He tracked me as I passed him, tail flicking, showing his characteristic disdain for just about everything.

  I was at the gate when he decided I was worth a look after all.

  The big horse trotted to the reinforced fence that kept him in. He sniffed my head and huffed.

  Then he danced away and didn’t look back.

  “Git.”

  I kept walking. Ten minutes later, I came up on Mateo and Alexei, guarding my bike in the quiet lay-by. They were lounging in the sun, Mateo smoking while Alexei tried to show him something on his phone.

  Mateo growled before he saw me coming. Got up and stomped away as I stepped into Alexei’s peripheral.

  “You are back,” Alexei said.

  I dropped into the sun-warmed space Mateo had vacated. “Were you trying to get him to read something?”

  Alexei turned his owlish gaze on me. He didn’t wear glasses, but I reckoned he’d rock them. “Only the manual for a weapon I think he’d find useful.”

  I ignored that. I was as attuned to our violent world as any brother, but every time I thought of Mateo with a gun—with the gun Alexei had given him to kill the man who’d stabbed me—I felt sick. “He doesn’t read so well.”

  Alexei frowned. “Dyslexic?”

  “I don’t think so. Maybe it’s more he never learnt properly. I don’t think he went to school much.”

  “Neither did you, chaplain. You were born on the road, no?”

  I leaned against the big sandstone behind me. “In a caravan on the old Redruth fairgrounds.”

  “So what is your connection to this horse farm? Mateo said it was your grandfather’s.”

  “It was, once upon a time. He died years ago.”

  “Were you close?”

  “I never met him.”

  Alexei was as nosy as I was. Part of his arsenal was to know what had made the people around him. I knew this about him. Expected it.

  I spoke again before he could press me. “My cousin Joe owns Whisper Farm now. Our fathers were brothers. But they hated each other. No one round here knew I existed till years after my dad passed.”

  “How old were you then?”

  “When my dad died?”

  “Da. I mean, yes.” A faint, rueful smile crossed Alexei’s face. “You people make me careless.”

  “We make you comfortable. There’s a difference.”

  “We were talking about you, chaplain.”

  Alexei reached for Mateo’s discarded riding jacket and stole a cigarette from the crumpled box. “Do not tell Saint.”

  “I would never.” I made the sign of the cross on my chest and kept talking. “My dad’s family were horse trainers in the circuses back in the day. Then my grandfather came here and won the farm and some other things in a card game. He rescued horses till he died here. Now Joe does it too.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “She was from the fairgrounds. We stayed on the road after my dad died, until I was about twelve and the gorgers said I had to go to school properly.”

  “Where did you go to school?”

  “Truro.”

  “The nurse has a new job at the hospital there.”

  “Skylar?”

  “Yes.” Alexei exhaled sideways out of his mouth before stubbing out the half-smoked cigarette. “It is why I hacked your records. Our mole has moved on.”

  “Nice.”

  “I thought so. If it is any consolation, I did not allow Cam to read them.”

  “But you read them.”

  “I did.”

  “Nosy fucker.”

  “I am.”

  I laughed and closed my eyes to the sun. “I can’t remember what it was like without you.”

  “I will take that compliment.”

  A quiet fell over us. Alexei was silent and still enough that I forgot he was there. I was half asleep when he spoke again. “You said your family here did not know about you for a long time. How did that change?”

  I cracked an eye. “Appleby. My mum’s family always went. Carter was a known name, and one year, when I was about ten, I think, someone realised who I was, and Joe just happened to be up there rescuing any horse that got left behind.”