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Like a chained box loaded down with rocks that had been sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.” Harsh sincerity carved my voice.

The dip of her head was filled with gratitude, then she lifted her face again.

So fucking pretty it pierced me like an arrow.

“I’m going to need a little space now, though,” she asserted.

My stomach fisted in refusal. “Isn’t this enough? Living here, beyond the confines of the club?”

In the muted light, I watched her delicate throat tremor. “But I’m stuck, Trevan. Stuck on something I can never have, and it’s time I moved beyond it.”

It felt like a sucker punch.

I knew exactly what she was implying.

Without giving the words.

This tether that had been strung between us forever.

Sure. It’d been there when we were kids.

But it had been that night when it’d taken new shape. When she’d come to me. Offered herself. It’d taken every restraint inside me to resist.

After that, I’d never been able to look at her the same.

It was my greatest fucking shame.

This was my best friend’s little sister, for fuck’s sake.

The one I was expected to treat as such.

Every inch of me knotted like a gnarled root. “I understand.”

Did I? Could I accept it?

Sarcasm puffed from her nose. “Do you?”

The girl always had me pegged.

I itched. “I’m trying.”

“Unless—”

“Don’t go there.” It snapped off my tongue.

Who knew how the fuck I’d react if she actually vocalized it. If she put the words out into the molten atmosphere that spun around us.

Was pretty sure it’d be more explosive than if two galaxies collided.

She cleared her throat and lifted her chin higher.

Ferocity seeped out.

“Then I guess we’re on the same page.”

I got the sense she was laying it out. Telling me that she was moving on. That I could no longer paint her into a corner of innocence.