Page 98 of Married to My Sis’s Bratva Fiancé

"If you hadn't come back..."

"You would have gotten yourself out." My eyes dropped to the pepper spray by her paint box, half sunk in mud, safety already flipped off.

Her shoulders eased a fraction. "He knocked it out of my hand."

"Next time keep it in your pocket. If someone gets close, back into open space first. Don't let the river cut off your exit."

Her eyes turned sharp.

Orders. Always fucking orders.

I crushed the urge to keep telling her what to do. "Sorry. Habit."

She glanced at the old scar on my jaw, then down at my shoes, caked in mud.

"You crawled through the woods wearing that?"

"My car was parked far out."

"So I wouldn't see it?"

"So you wouldn't get pissed."

Her mouth twitched, so light it could've been my imagination.

I didn't use it as an opening. I didn't step closer.

I bent, picked up the spray, clicked the safety back on, and set it where her hand could find it fast. Then I straightened her easel. The river on the canvas ran gray-blue. The lower right corner was smeared.

"Can you fix it?"

"Yeah. The canvas didn't tear."

She scraped off the mud with her palette knife and laid color back down. I stood beside her, far enough not to crowd her. The wind blew a few strands of hair across her lips. The red mark on her wrist kept stabbing at my eyes.

"Thank you," she said suddenly.

I thought I'd misheard.

She didn't look at me. "For what just happened."

"Don't thank me."

"I don't like you following me."

"I know."

"But I'm not going to pretend you didn't help."

She finally turned her face. The wind tugged her shirt collar open, showing a small strip of pale collarbone. My gaze held there for less than a second before it snapped back to her eyes.

She saw it.

Her breathing went shallow. Her fingers tightened around the brush.

Heat ran up my spine.

My body remembered her—how she'd weighed in my arm, how she always held her breath before a kiss. Memory wasn't permission. Want sure as hell wasn't.