Mountain Darkness (Wild Mountain Men 1)

It wasn’t just the sex with her I craved, but her smile. Her softness that smoothed all of my rough edges. She was light where I was dark. I could sound like a fucking poet, but she was everything.

She’d been all in, been right there with us in this relationship. We hadn’t lied, hadn’t played any games. Only two days together, but the thing between the three of us had been simmering for over a year. Longer than that even. What kid saw a girl across the school and wanted her forever?

Me.

Nix, too.

It had taken for-fucking-ever to get to this point. When we’d told her we wanted to marry her, we’d meant it.

This fucking case was ruining everything. Sure, I sounded petty thinking about my love life when Erin Mills was on a slab in the morgue, but what Nix and I had with Kit had nothing to do with the case, with what happened to Erin.

I put my empty coffee mug in the sink, turned off the kitchen light.

Fuck, the case was ruining everything. The one line of Kit’s note, it will only make things worse for you and Donovan, told me all I needed to know.

She was sacrificing herself for us. That wasn’t how this was going to work. No fucking way. Our girl didn’t get to decide shit like that all on her own. She didn’t get to decide what I did with my job, what Nix did with his. Yet, she had.

I grabbed my keys and headed out of my apartment. Nix leaned against his SUV out front.

“You look like you slept as well as I did,” I grumbled, walking up to him.

His hair was a mess, as if he’d run his hands through it and dark circles were beneath his eyes. It went unsaid that while we’d spent two nights in bed with each other—naked—it had been because of Kit. For Kit. With Kit. I had no interest in Nix. I didn’t play for that team. We had a shared interest in our woman. Making her happy, keeping her happy. And since two dicks were in her playbook, we stripped down and gave her what she wanted.

“You slept?” he asked, taking a sip of his to-go cup of coffee. “This isn’t going to work.”

“What isn’t?” I practically growled. If he was going to agree with Kit, he was going to be sporting a black eye.

He held up a hand. “Hear me out, fucker. She broke up with us to protect us.”

“Yeah,” I said, waiting for something I didn’t know. I was surly as fuck and didn’t have time to wait for him to get his ass in gear.

“We should be together, no matter what.”

That, I agreed on.

“But she’s trying to protect us,” I said. “Our jobs.”

“Exactly. We’ve known all along that being with her while working the Erin Mills case was not a good idea.”

“But we did it anyway,” I added. “Why should it tear us apart? It’s not fucking fair.”

Nix smiled, let it fall away. “This isn’t kindergarten. I think Miranski has an idea about the three of us, but she hasn’t let on. If my boss found out through channels… he’d shit a brick.”

I could imagine. “There’s epic conflict of interest on my part. Any case against Kit could be thrown out because of impartiality alone.”

“Which is why we shouldn’t be together,” he replied.

“Fuck that.”

A couple walking by eyed me funny at my vehemence. I ran my hand over my head, stepped closer to Nix.

“I’m resigning,” I said.

He froze. “You’re serious.”

I tucked my hands in my pant pockets. “Deadly.”