I glance down at the knife. Sometime during our conversation I moved it from under my arm, and my knuckles are pale from how tightly I’m gripping it. Setting it down on the ground, I fidget, suddenly unsure what to do with my hands.

“Sophia isn’t prey. She’s Margot’s sister. Her apartment is getting painted or something, I don’t know. She needed somewhere to stay for a few nights.” He gives me an incredulous look. “Do you really think I’d do that? Hire someone else?”

“That’s the point of the contract, right? None of the hassle of a relationship. Thirty days and done. Strictly business.” As I say it, I feel in my bones how wrong that is. There’s nothing businesslike about the way he’s looking at me.

“Just business?” Shane’s jaw works side to side. When he speaks again, his voice is low and rough. “Do you think I’d spend every evening with you if it were just business? Think I’d rush home from work because talking to you is the highlight of my day if it were just business? The things I’ve told you”—his throat bobs with a hard swallow—“may not seem like much, but it’s more than I’ve ever shared with anyone.” If the woods caught fire around us, I’d burn, the emotion in his gaze impossible to look away from. Shane keeps talking, his eyes fierce. “Tell me it’s just business to you. That you honestly think that’s all there is between us. Tell me.”

“I thought there was more.” The words tumble out, choppy and fast. “But you never asked me to stay, never said anything about the end of the contract. I almost texted you before I left, but then I saw Sophia and…” My voice trails off, and I want to stop, but that feels cowardly. “It hurt. It felt like I was being replaced. Again.”

“Never. I would never do that.” He drags a hand through his hair. “I kept putting off talking to you, because I couldn’t figure out the right way to do it.” An agitated chuckle comes out with his exhale. “I’m not good at relationships. I like contracts, rules—clear expectations so that I know exactly what my job is. I’ve always been this way. When I know what and how to do something, I can excel at it, but relationships don’t work like that. And I’ve already fucked this up.” He gestures between us. “And I will probably keep fucking it up.”

His use of the word excel jostles a memory to the front of my mind—what Gretchen said when she ran into Sydney and me at the coffee shop: He avoids things he thinks he won’t excel at. That man’s scared of anything that doesn’t have a handbook and KPIs.

Looking at his face extinguishes any final embers of uncertainty. This isn’t ultracompetent lawyer Shane, or dirty-talking sex god Shane. This is just Shane the overthinking human who hates making mistakes. Considering that I bolted when I saw Sophia because of my own insecurities, I can appreciate this side of him as much as the other two.

“How did you fuck it up?” I keep my voice gentle, trying to coax out the words he’s tripping over. “We’re here, we’re talking; that’s pretty much Relationship 101.”

Shane steps toward me, closing the remaining space. “I wish I had asked you out properly. I wish I’d asked you to dinner, or a movie, or to feed ducks. Worked my way up to fucking in the woods like animals. I wish I’d started this the right way.”

He quirks up the corner of his mouth in a smile, but there’s sadness in his eyes.

Aw.

“You are going to be very unhappy to hear this, what with your passion for rules.” I keep my voice light. “But there’s no such thing as the right way. If we do this, there’s just our right way, and we decide what that is.”

“ ‘If’?” Eyes stern, jaw set, Shane’s stare could cut glass. “What do you mean, ‘if’?”

We’re chest to chest, T-shirt to T-shirt, but not embracing.

“You still haven’t told me what exactly you want.” I’m split fifty-fifty between serious and teasing. “I understand this is hard, but I need words. Don’t try to act shy. If you can tell me there’s nothing on Earth that tastes better than my cunt, you can ask me for whatever it is you want here.”

Feathers are rustling in my chest again; hope trying to take flight too soon. Settle down, I want to tell it. Don’t get too excited, let’s see how he does. There’s still a chance he could whip a contract out of those well-fitting jeans.

Fidgeting, he shifts his weight from foot to foot. Taking my hand, he squeezes it a smidge too tight. Shane blurts, “I want you to move in with me. For real.” As soon as he says it, his eyes go wide, his free hand coming up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Fuck. I wanted to say that more eloquently.”

A giggle escapes, and I have to tease him before he starts spiraling. “Are you sure you’re a lawyer? Because you’re not great at this whole talking thing.”

“I’m great in the courtroom,” he grumbles. Dropping my hand, he toys with the edge of my T-shirt. “Besides, it’s corporate law. If I lose a case, it sucks, but the world keeps turning.”

There’s a lump in my throat, and it grows when his eyes meet mine. He sounds as unsteady as I feel when he says, “If I lose you, I don’t think it will. These are higher stakes than I’m used to.”

I blink back tears. I want to make a joke, ease the emotion, but I don’t. My voice cracks. “That was perfect. I needed to hear that.”

“Good,” he says emphatically. “That’s probably as good as it gets.”

Sniffing, I try to glare at him.

The look he gives me back is stern. “And while we’re defining terms, don’t you ever leave again. Complain, yell, bear spray me, whatever it takes. Just don’t fucking run from me—not like that anyway.”

“Make it clear you want me, and I won’t—” Before I’ve finished the sentence, he’s pulled me to his chest, hugging me tight.

“Are you sure it isn’t too weird dating a guy who hires women to chase through the woods?” He says it like a joke, but the tension in his body suggests otherwise.

“We decide the right way, remember? Are you done hiring women to hunt?”

A rough chuckle makes my heart skip. “Definitely. You’ve ruined me for anyone else.”

“Only took thirty days?” I tease, slipping my hands into his back pockets and squeezing his ass.

“Didn’t even take two. I was done from the moment you flung yourself off the roof.” He makes a displeased noise. “Never again.”

I laugh. “Wasn’t planning on it.” Wrapped in his arms, inhaling his scent—he smells unreasonably good for someone who uses a bodywash-and-shampoo combo—something nags at me. A question that could wait, but now is as good a time as any to prove that the right way doesn’t exist, but that I believe in our right way.

Steeling myself, I prep him. “I’m going to ask you a question. And the answer can be no, it won’t change anything. But since you went outside your comfort zone, I need to too.”

“Let’s hear it.” He nuzzles the side of my head.

Here we go.

“Would you ever let me hunt you?” My mouth is dry, but my palms are clammy. I brace myself for the no. Keith had been adamant that the hunt only went one way, and while I can live with that, a part of me is desperate to know how it feels to be the predator, to be the hunter.

His whole body goes rigid. “You’d want to hunt me?”

“I’d like to try, but only if you want to. Do you?”

“Yes.” It’s an exhale of an answer, more of a prayer. “With you, fuck yes.”

All right, then.

The hunger in his voice fuels my need. I want to see Shane run from me. Hunt him down. Wear him out. And when there’s nowhere left for him to run, watch him yield.

“I’m so glad.” My voice is as breathless as his. “I’m getting turned on just thinking about it.”

He pulls back, eyes bright, and goes in to kiss me. I turn my head, so he hits my cheek, his stubble dragging across my skin.

“You’ve got three minutes,” I whisper. “Do you know your safe word?”