I don't sleep.

Of course I don't sleep.

I lie in the dark staring at my ceiling, listening to the mountain silence that's somehow louder than any city street I've ever known. Every creak of the cabin settling sounds like footsteps. Every gust of wind against the windows could be someone testing the locks.

The investigator is gone. Ezra made sure of that.

But Garrett isn't.

And knowing my brother, that investigator was just the first wave. A test. A probe to see if I'd surface.

I roll over. Check my phone.

2:47 AM.

No new messages from Ezra, which means either he's finally sleeping or he's doing something I don't want to think about. Something that involves those cameras and that control room and watching over me like I'm a problem to be solved rather than a person to be—

To be what?

Wanted?

I throw off the covers before that thought can finish forming.

The cabin is cold. I should've started the fire before bed, but I'd been too wired, too aware of my own skin and the way it still remembered the weight of Ezra's gaze when he'd told me to go inside.

Don't do that. I'm trying to be a gentleman.

Yeah, well. I've never had much use for gentlemen.

I pull on jeans and a sweatshirt, shove my feet into boots. If I can't sleep, I might as well work. The Norton's engine rebuild has been mocking me for three days—a timing issue I can't quite solve. Manual labor is good for insomnia. Good for not thinking about storm-gray eyes and the dangerous things they promise.

The garage is a separate structure, twenty feet from the cabin. Close enough that I don't need a jacket, far enough that the cold air slaps some sense into me as I cross the gravel.

I unlock the side door.

Step inside.

And freeze.

Because Ezra Holt is in my garage.

At my workbench.

With his hands buried in the Norton's engine like he has every right to be here.

"What the fuck."

It's not a question. More of an observation of the universe's cruel sense of humor.

He doesn't look up. "Your timing chain tension is off. You've been compensating with the cam adjustment, but that's just masking the real problem."

I should be angry. This is my space, my project, my—

But he's right.

Of course he's right.

And he's stripped down to a black t-shirt that clings to shoulders I've been trying very hard not to notice, his forearms corded with muscle as he works. There's grease on his hands, under his nails, smudged across one cheekbone where he must've pushed his hair back.

He looks like every bad decision I've ever wanted to make.

"It's three in the morning," I say, staying by the door because walking closer feels dangerous. "Don't you have a mansion to brood in?"

"Couldn't sleep." He makes an adjustment to the chain, his long fingers moving with surprising delicacy. "Figured I'd make myself useful."

"By breaking into my garage?"

"I own the garage. And you don't lock it." Finally, he looks up. Those gray eyes find mine across the space, and the air gets thinner. "Sloppy, Sloane."

"I'm on a mountain in the middle of nowhere with exactly one neighbor who happens to have a god complex and a security system that could probably track a gnat. Forgive me for feeling safe."

Something flickers across his face. Too fast to name.

"You shouldn't," he says quietly. "Feel safe with me."

The words land like a physical touch.

I should leave. Go back to the cabin, lock the door, put distance between us and whatever this is that keeps pulling tighter every time we're in the same room.

Instead, I walk toward him.

"Why are you really here, Ezra?"

He straightens. Wipes his hands on a rag that was clean this morning and is now thoroughly destroyed. "I told you. Couldn't sleep."

"So you decided to fix my motorcycle at three AM."

"It was bothering me."

"The motorcycle."

"The fact that you couldn't solve it." He tosses the rag aside. "You're good. Better than good. But you've been approaching it like a Whitmore—trying to force an elegant solution when what you need is to tear it down and rebuild from the foundation."

The use of my real name—my old name—sends a jolt through me.

"Don't."

"Don't what? Don't say your name? Don't notice that you're still trying to be perfect even when you're pretending to be someone else?" He takes a step toward me. "Don't acknowledge that we're both lying to ourselves about what's happening here?"

"Nothing's happening here."

"No?" Another step. He smells like cedar and coffee and now engine grease, and it shouldn't work but Christ, it does. "Then why haven't you told me to leave?"

Because I'm an idiot. Because I've been alone for so long that even dangerous attention feels like oxygen. Because when he looks at me like this—like I'm a problem he wants to solve with his hands and mouth—I forget every reason this is a terrible idea.

"Professional courtesy," I say. "You're fixing my bike."

"I'm invading your space." He's close enough now that I have to tilt my head back to hold his gaze. "The way you've been invading my thoughts for weeks."

My heart does something complicated and painful.

"Ezra—"

"Do you know what it's like?" His voice drops, rough and low. "Watching you on those cameras, knowing you're twenty feet away, knowing exactly how many steps it would take to get to you?"

"Then don't watch."

"I can't stop." He reaches out, and I think he's going to touch me, but his hand stops an inch from my face. Hovering. "I've built a career on control. On reading people, predicting them, staying three steps ahead. And you—"

"I what?"

His jaw tightens. "You make me want to burn it all down."

The air between us is combustible.

I should step back. Create distance. Remember that I'm supposed to be dead, that he's supposed to be my reclusive landlord, that we're both running from things that will destroy us if we're not careful.

Instead, I lean into that hovering hand.

His palm cups my cheek, and the touch sears through me like a brand.

"This is a bad idea," I whisper.

"The worst." His thumb traces my cheekbone. "Tell me to stop."

"Stop what? You're not doing anything."

"Not yet." His other hand settles on my hip, and suddenly I'm being walked backward until my legs hit the workbench. "But I'm about to."

"About to what?"

"Stop looking at you like I know exactly what you taste like."

The words punch the air from my lungs.

"Do you?" My voice doesn't sound like mine. "Know what I taste like?"

"No." He's so close now that I can feel his breath against my lips. "But I've thought about it. Every goddamn night since you showed up in my driveway with that smart mouth and those eyes that see too much."

"Ezra."

"Say it again."

"What?"

"My name. Like that. Like I'm the answer to a question you're afraid to ask."

This is insane. We're standing in a garage at three in the morning talking in circles around the thing we both want, and I can feel myself falling into it. Into him. Into the terrifying possibility that maybe I don't have to be alone anymore.

"What do you want from me?" I ask.

His forehead drops to mine. "Everything. Nothing. I don't know anymore."

"That's not an answer."

"Then here's one." He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes. "I want to stop pretending I don't know who you are. I want to stop pretending I didn't recognize you the second you got out of that shitty car. I want to stop pretending that keeping you safe is just about property value or mountain code or any of the other bullshit excuses I've been using."

My hands are shaking. "And what is it about?"

"You." Simple. Devastating. "It's about you, Sloane Whitmore, and the fact that you walked away from everything and I can't stop thinking that maybe—maybe someone like that could understand someone like me."

I should tell him he's wrong. That I'm not brave, just desperate. That I didn't walk away—I ran. That understanding him won't change the fact that we're both marked by the lives we left behind.

Instead, I fist my hands in his t-shirt and pull him down to me.

The kiss is not gentle.

It's weeks of tension and fear and want compressed into a single point of contact. His mouth on mine, hot and demanding, one hand sliding into my hair to angle my head exactly how he wants it. I taste coffee and something darker, something that might be need or might be the same desperation I feel clawing at my ribs.

He kisses like he does everything else—with total focus, complete control, like I'm a problem he's solving with his tongue.

I bite his lower lip, and his control fractures.

The sound he makes is half-growl, half-surrender. His hands grip my hips and lift, setting me on the workbench, stepping between my legs like he's claiming territory. My thighs bracket his hips and I can feel every hard line of him, the lean muscle and coiled strength that he usually keeps so carefully contained.

"Fuck," he breathes against my mouth. "Sloane—"

"Don't stop." I pull him closer, wrapping my legs around him. "Don't you dare stop."

His laugh is dark. "Thought this was a bad idea."

"The worst," I agree, and kiss him again.

His hands are everywhere—my waist, my back, sliding under my sweatshirt to find bare skin that's been craving his touch since the day we met. I arch into him and he makes that sound again, the one that says his control is a fiction we're both pretending to believe in.

"Tell me to stop," he says against my neck, his mouth tracing fire down to my collarbone.

"No."

"Sloane." My name is a warning and a prayer. "If we do this—"

"What? It gets complicated?" I thread my fingers through his hair, tugging his head back so I can see his eyes. They're almost black, pupils blown wide. "News flash, Ezra. It's already complicated."

"More complicated." His hands tighten on my waist. "I don't do halfway. If I have you, I'm keeping you."

The possessiveness should scare me. I've spent my whole life being owned—by my family, by their expectations, by the Whitmore name and everything it demanded.

But this is different.

This is a choice.

"Then keep me," I whisper.

Something breaks in him.

His mouth crashes back to mine, and this kiss is different—deeper, more consuming, like he's trying to crawl inside my skin and make a home there. His hands map my body with the same precision he brings to everything else, learning the dip of my waist, the curve of my ribs, the soft skin just above my jeans.

I'm drowning in sensation—the heat of his mouth, the strength in his hands, the way he's holding me like I'm precious and breakable and his.

My sweatshirt is gone. I don't remember him taking it off.

His t-shirt follows, and then there's just skin on skin, the broad planes of his chest against my palms, my fingers tracing the lean muscle of his shoulders and back.

He's beautiful. Unfairly so.

And he's looking at me like I'm the only thing in the world worth seeing.

"You're thinking too much," he murmurs against my throat.

"How do you know?"

"You get this little line right here." He kisses the spot between my eyebrows. "What are you thinking?"

That this is a mistake. That we're going to ruin everything. That I've never wanted anything as much as I want him inside me right now.

"That you talk too much," I say instead, and pull him back down.

His laugh vibrates through both of us. "Noted."

Then his mouth is on my neck, my shoulder, the hollow of my throat. Every touch is deliberate, controlled, designed to take me apart piece by piece. When his teeth scrape against my collarbone I gasp, and I feel his smile against my skin.

"There," he says. "That's what I wanted."

"What?"

"You. Not thinking. Just feeling."

His hand slides up my back, fingers splaying across my shoulder blades, holding me to him like I might disappear if he lets go. The other hand traces patterns on my hip, my thigh, higher—

And stops.

"Ezra." His name comes out like a plea.

"I know." His breathing is ragged. "I know, but—"

"But what?"

He pulls back, and the loss of his heat is almost painful. His eyes are wild, his hair thoroughly destroyed by my hands, and he looks like every fantasy I've ever had and several I haven't gotten around to yet.

"We need to stop," he says.

"Why?"

"Because if we don't stop now, I won't be able to." His hands are still on me, contradicting his words. "And you deserve better than a garage workbench at three in the morning with a man who's wanted you since the second he saw you."

"Maybe I don't want better. Maybe I want this."

"Sloane." He rests his forehead against mine again, eyes closed. "You're not thinking clearly."

"I'm thinking very clearly. You're the one who's—"

"Trying to be decent." His laugh is bitter. "Trying not to take advantage of the fact that you're scared and alone and I'm the only person who knows who you really are."

The words hit like cold water.

Because he's right.

I am scared. I am alone. And some part of me—the part that's been running for months, that's been pretending to be someone else, that's been so goddamn lonely it hurts—wants to use him as an anchor. A distraction. A way to forget, even for a few hours, that my brother is hunting me and my old life is circling closer every day.

That's not fair to him.

And it's not who I want to be.

I slide off the workbench, putting distance between us. My sweatshirt is on the floor. I pick it up, pull it on, try to find some semblance of dignity in the aftermath of almost.

"You're right," I say. "This is—we shouldn't."

"I didn't say I didn't want to." His voice is rough. "I said we need to stop."

"Same thing."

"No. It's really not."

I risk looking at him. He's still shirtless, still devastatingly beautiful, still looking at me like I'm a problem he desperately wants to solve.

"So what do we do?" I ask.

"We agree this can't happen."

"Okay."

"We maintain appropriate boundaries."

"Sure."

"We stop pretending we don't want each other and just... manage it."

I laugh, and it sounds a little broken. "How very corporate of you. Managing desire like it's a quarterly projection."

"Would you prefer I throw you over my shoulder and carry you to my bed?"

Yes.

"No," I lie.

He pulls his t-shirt back on, and I mourn the loss of all that bare skin. "Then we're agreed. This—" he gestures between us, "—doesn't happen again."

"Right. Professional relationship. Landlord and tenant."

"Exactly."

We stare at each other across the garage, and the air is still thick with everything we're not doing.

"You should go," I say.

"I should."

He doesn't move.

Neither do I.

"Ezra."

"I'm going." But his feet stay planted. "Just—lock your door. The investigator might be gone, but your brother isn't."

"I know."

"And if you need anything—"

"I'll call Mae. Or the sheriff. Or literally anyone who isn't you."

His jaw tightens. "Sloane."

"What?"

"I meant what I said. About keeping you safe."

"I know that too."

He nods. Turns toward the door. Gets three steps before he stops and looks back at me. "For the record? When this does happen—and it will, because we're both terrible at denial—it won't be in a garage."

My heart stutters. "Confident."

"Realistic." His smile is dark and full of promise. "Sleep well, Sloane."

He leaves.

I stand in my garage, surrounded by tools and engine parts and the lingering scent of cedar and coffee, and try to remember how to breathe.

My phone buzzes.

Ezra: Your timing chain is fixed. You're welcome.

Me: Breaking and entering is still illegal, even for billionaires.

Ezra: Sue me.

Me: Don't tempt me.

Ezra: Everything about you tempts me. That's the problem.

I stare at the message for a long moment. Type and delete three different responses. Finally settle on:

Me: Goodnight, Ezra.

Ezra: Lock. Your. Door.

I do.

Then I lie in bed, wide awake, my skin still burning from his touch, and wonder how the hell I'm supposed to maintain appropriate boundaries with a man who kisses like he's trying to claim my soul.

My phone buzzes one more time.

Ezra: For the record? You taste better than I imagined.

I throw the phone across the room before I can do something stupid like respond.

But I'm smiling when I finally fall asleep.