Nightfire by Lisa Marie Rice Page B

this pale, anxious beauty. Now she was glowing with happiness, eyes gleaming with tears of joy, cheeks flushed. Absolutely irresistible.
    “Oh!” Chloe covered her mouth with her hand. “I don’t mean to impose! I booked a room at the Del, you don’t need to put me up, for heaven’s sake. You have a small child and . . .” Her voice trailed off when she saw that Harry and Ellen weren’t even listening to her. Ellen absentmindedly gave her shoulders a squeeze while talking to Harry about beds and space, then turned to give Chloe another kiss on the cheek.
    “This is so exciting! It’s the best Christmas ever!”
    “No, really.” Chloe stepped back, just one tiny step, but it was the first step back anyone had taken. Her hands clasped in front of her and she pulled them apart. A sign of distress.
    Harry glanced at Sam and at him and they drew closer, closer to him and to Chloe.
    It was a look they’d shared all through their adolescence in a brutal foster home, a look they all understood instinctively, down to the bone. Harry wanted Sam and Mike to have his back. It was a call both Sam and Mike were incapable of resisting. They’d have Harry’s back no matter what. Mike would willingly take a bullet for him, and for Sam, too. He loved them.
    He’d walk into the jaws of death for both of them.
    Coming closer to Chloe, something he wanted desperately, was a no-brainer.
    Harry took Chloe’s hands in his, carefully. Harry had big strong hands, they all did. They were all careful not to hurt women or kids with their hands.
    A hot flush of grinding guilt shot through Mike at the memory of holding down the cokehead during the fuckathon last night. Hurting her. She was a whack job, true, but she didn’t deserve even one second of pain from him.
    It was a memory that shamed him, made him feel unclean. Unworthy, of his brothers, of their wives. Of Chloe.
    “Chloe,” Harry said gently, watching her face carefully, “you need to understand something really important. We’re all your family now. Sam and Mike and me, we’re like brothers. More than brothers. We’ll have all the time in the world for me to explain why, but for now—all you need to know is that they are your brothers, too. Together with Nicole and Ellen and Merry and Gracie. We’re all one family. Yours.”
    Chloe burst into tears again. Mike could see that she couldn’t contain her emotions, which made sense. When she’d told her story, he could hear a longing for connection in her voice. Almost feel her yearning. He’d had his family until he was ten. He knew what it was like to yearn. She’d had it harder than he had because she’d never known family except for the first years, when Harry protected her. Years she couldn’t remember.
    Sam bent to gently embrace her. Sam was tall—six-three. He had to bend down low to her. He kissed the top of her head. “I’m your brother, too, Chloe. It’s just like Harry said. Nicole and Merry and me—we’re your family now, too.”
    Chloe smiled up at him and swallowed, the muscles in her long, graceful neck moving. She swiped at her face. “Thank you, Sam,” she whispered.
    Sam stepped away for Mike.
    Mike put his arms around her. Somewhere along the way, she’d shed her coat. She had on some silky thing, a ruffled blouse in a delicate pink—the color of her flushed face.
    She eased into his arms. She fit so perfectly, just slotted right into him.
    The hug with Sam had been clumsy. He was so much taller than she was, and she’d moved stiffly. The embrace had been genuine but awkward.
    But with Mike, she just moved naturally into his embrace and just as naturally his arms closed around her.
    Time stopped, telescoped.
    The room disappeared. Harry and Sam, Nicole and Ellen—gone. No more.
    There was no noise, nothing. Just Mike and Chloe, in his arms.
    Mike was shorter than his brothers and Chloe’s head fit naturally, perfectly, right against his shoulder, at exactly the point where all he had