He needed to come again.
But . . . if he stayed here, if he came again . . . there was a terrifying chance it might be with Reese.
He cleared his throat and addressed Nash. “I’ll be right there.”
*
Reese watched in dazed silence as Sloan picked up his discarded clothing and started to get dressed. Her gaze zeroed in on his bare ass. The tight, perfect ass that made her fingers tingle with the urge to squeeze it.
She’d seen Sloan naked countless of times before. There was no such thing as modesty in the free land—sometimes you had no choice but to take your clothes off in front of another outlaw, especially when you were traveling and there was no privacy to be had.
So yes, she’d seen Sloan naked. She’d admired the hard planes of his body. His long, powerful legs and sculpted arms. His muscular chest and impossibly broad shoulders. His ass . . . God, that ass.
But this was the first time she’d seen him naked in a sexual context. The first time she’d seen him come. A shiver flew up her spine. Christ. She’d just seen him come in another man’s mouth.
And she’d never been more turned on in her life.
“Sloan,” Rylan started, his voice gruff.
“Gotta go,” was the terse reply, and then Sloan slid through the door and latched it shut behind him.
After a beat, Rylan turned his frustrated gaze toward Reese. “You taking off too?” he muttered.
Slowly, she shook her head, causing his blue eyes to narrow as he stared at her face. He searched, studied, probed, for what felt like hours, and Reese saw it the instant that understanding dawned on him.
“Fucking hell.” He started to laugh. “It’s not just him.”
She swallowed hard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Still chuckling, he sat on the edge of Sloan’s bed, laying one hand flat on the tousled sheets. He was completely unbothered by both his nudity and the thick erection rising toward his navel.
“I thought it was one-sided,” he said slowly. “I thought it was his issue. Wanting you so badly it drives him mad, but not being able to have you. I figured you shot him down.” He tipped his head thoughtfully. “But I’m wrong, aren’t I? You’re as hot for him as he is for you.”
She tried to summon a denial, but her mouth stayed stubbornly closed.
“Why won’t you fuck him, gorgeous?” Rylan sounded perplexed. “Why won’t he touch you?”
Because . . .
She swallowed again. Harder this time.
Because . . .
Damn it, no. She didn’t want to think too hard about the answer to that question. She didn’t want to slash open all those old wounds that—
Because Jake won’t let us.
Fuck. Fuck. And there it was, the pathetic truth that both she and Sloan had never, ever spoken out loud.
She’d acknowledged her attraction to Sloan only once—four years ago, when she and Jake had been tangled together in his bed, recovering from a round of hot, sweaty sex that’d left them both breathless. In a low voice, Jake had admitted that Sloan wanted her. Then he’d asked her point-blank if she felt the same way.
Reese had whispered yes.
That was the night she discovered that Jake didn’t like to share.
He’d completely lost it. He’d growled that as long as he was alive, no other man would lay a hand on her. His eyes had been wild, his dick harder than stone as he’d proceeded to show her that he was the only man she would ever need, the only man who could ever satisfy her.
Sick as it might have been, Reese couldn’t deny that his possessive, feral response had excited her. Everything about Jake had excited her. After he’d taken her that night, he’d made her promise that she would never touch Sloan.
And even though Jake had been dead for three years, it was a promise Reese was still keeping. But for a different reason, this time.
“You know what? It doesn’t matter why,” Rylan said quietly. “C’mere, baby. I’ll give you the answers you need.”
His blue eyes warmed as he extended his hand to her, and Reese wondered what he’d seen on her face to make him soften like that. Guilt? Fear? Regret? Whatever it was, she didn’t like the thought of Rylan getting such a candid peek behind the carefully constructed mask that she was usually much better at maintaining.
“The answers I need . . . ?” she echoed warily, because what the hell did he mean by that? He was the one asking all the questions, poking at old scabs he had no business poking.
Despite her irritation, her confusion, her reluctance, she found herself rising from the chair and approaching the bed. She stopped when they were a foot away, so he reached for the bottom of her oversized sleep shirt and pulled on the fabric to erase the rest of the distance between them.