Page 74 of Shared By the Mountain Men Triplets

Her smile is wicked when she says, “Maybe lose it a little. I like how that feels.”

A rough laugh breaks out of me, and I move. I draw my hips back, then push into her, slow and deep and completely. Her fingers dig into my back, reminding me Wren has never wanted to be handled like something delicate.

I pull back again and thrust in harder, then harder. She lifts her hips to meet me, then wraps her legs around me and pulls me even deeper with a demand that scrapes me raw.

I give her what she asks for, and she gives me everything I could ever want.

The bed rocks and her nails mark my back. She says my name again and again, until I cover the sound with my mouth because Boone is out in the main room and Cade is on comms, and the selfish part of me wants her all to myself for one night.

She comes apart beneath me, and I follow her down, holding her like I never want to let her go. My body loses control, and I empty myself inside her, wanting to give her everything.

I shift to the side before my weight gets too heavy, but she makes a sound of protest and wraps herself tighter around me.

“Stay,” she says, so I do.

I roll us onto our sides and pull the blanket over her without letting her go. Her head fits against me like we were carved from the same piece. She slides one of her legs between mine, and my heart seems to swell big enough to press against my ribs.

“You scared me earlier,” she says.

“When?”

“When you were on the phone. You sounded like you were turningyourself into a weapon.”

I stare over her head at the wall. “That’s what I know how to do.”

Her lips brush my chest. “But you’re more than that.”

She says it like it’s easy. Like she hasn’t just called out the one fear I ignore. I know how to be a Ranger, a brother, a team leader, a business owner, and a protector. Those are roles with clear missions. Being something more than that is harder.

“You don’t have to carry the responsibility alone just because you’re the oldest by four minutes,” she says.

I huff out a breath. “They told you that?”

“Boone did. He also told me you’ve been trying to keep them alive since you were six.”

I should be irritated, but I’m not. I’m too tired. Too open right now.

Too hers.

I kiss her again, and my entire body responds like I haven’t just had her.

“Sleep,” I tell her before I let myself get carried away.

Her eyebrow arches. “That sounded like an order.”

“It was.”

“You’re bossy after sex.”

“I was bossy before sex.”

She smiles, and my heart aches like it never has. She settles against me, and her breathing evens out after a couple ofminutes, but I lie awake thinking, because having Wren asleep in my arms gives me clarity like nothing else.

I don’t know what the next few days will bring, but I know what I’m fighting for. It’s not an operation, business, pride, or even territory.

It’s her. And my brothers. And what the four of us are together.

It’s Boone asleep with a pistol within reach because he trusts me to wake him if I need him.