Matisse had the best dream, but when his eyes opened, and the first thing he saw was Nora’s breasts, he realized it had nothing on his reality. He slid forward, grasping her loosely, and kissed her nipple. Beneath him, she shifted and kissed him softly on his head.

“Hey,” she whispered.

He pushed himself up, giving his attention to the other breast before answering. “Hey.” Sliding along her body, until they were nose-to-nose, he kissed her lips. “You’re a very comfortable pillow.”

“And you’re a heating blanket.” It was true. A layer of sweat stuck to his skin. He’d fallen asleep without turning on the air conditioner, and the room was stifling.

With a grunt, he stood and reached for her. Before she could act shy or think about it too much, he tugged her off the bed and into the bathroom. As soon as the water was a comfortable temperature, he lifted her into his arms, and she wrapped her legs around his waist and flicked the shower curtain closed.

Water soaked her hair, and she let go of him to flick it behind her back. “Don’t slip,” she warned, right before she kissed him. It was a helpful warning. He hadn’t had sex in the shower before, and there was a lot to think about besides the tempting warmth between her legs. He’d just positioned himself before he remembered protection. “Sorry, cher. I forgot—”

Her legs dropped, and her hand wrapped around him, silky and wet. With strong strokes, she gripped him, and soon his knees were shaking and he was clutching her hip with one hand, and the bar with the other. Nora’s lips were everywhere she could reach—his shoulders, his sternum. Her small blunt teeth pinched his nipple, and he was done. Embarrassingly quickly, he came, halting her hand when she would have continued pumping him. As soon as he caught his breath, he was on her, slipping a hand between her legs to penetrate her with one finger.

She gasped, hips canting as she rode his hand. He used his palm, pressing the heel onto her clit. With each thrust inside her, he rubbed. Slowly, he added a second finger, curling them inside her and making a flicking motion. Both her hands clamped onto his wrist, holding him in place the second she began to come. He swirled his fingers inside her, loving the way her muscles contracted around him. Carefully, he withdrew, and with his eyes on hers, he circled her clit one last time.

Her head dropped to his chest, shoulders heaving as she caught her breath. “I love you.”

Holding the back of her neck, he reached with one hand for the shampoo, pouring it onto her head and then running his fingers through the strands. “Turn around,” he directed, placing her in front of him so he could suds her hair then rinse it free of soap. Saturated, her curls hung all the way to her waist. He held one out before letting it fall back in place. “Beautiful.”

He finished and added conditioner. Facing him, she gathered her hair over one shoulder to wring out before she picked up the soap and cleaned him. She couldn’t reach his head, so he washed his hair while she tended to his body, fingers tracing his muscles to linger on his stomach. “I love you,” he told her, kissing her wet shoulder and the back of her neck.

Her smile was blinding, and it stayed on her face, even after he shut off the water and handed her a towel. How long could he keep it there?

His phone rang, and she frowned. Damn.

Since arriving, he hadn’t thought about anyone or anything but Nora. His messages, however, showed a lot of people had been trying to get in touch with him. First, there was a message from the security company. Whenever someone set the house alarm, each of them got a text alert. Alarm armed.

His alerts showed both. After the notification the alarm had been set, half an hour later he’d received. “Alarm activated. Police notified.”

A flurry of texts came from Seok, Ryan, and Apollo. All of them asking him to call then asking him to reassure them he and Nora were safe. What the hell had happened?

Nora had dressed in a sweater and jeans, but when she saw his face, she dropped her socks. “What is it? What happened?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, and he dialed Seok.

“What happened?” he asked as soon as Seok answered.

“Are you okay?” Seok spoke right over him.

“We’re fine. At the hotel. What happened?”

Seok let out a breath and yelled to someone. “They’re fine. She’s fine. They’re still at the hotel.” To Matisse he said, “Someone broke into the house. Trashed it.” His voice shook a little at the end, and Matisse covered his mouth with his hand, rubbing his stubble.

“What did they do?” For Seok to be upset, there had to be significant damage.

“Holes in the wall, drawers and closets tossed. The computers are gone, the TV. Your bike.”

“Was anyone there? Anyone hurt?” he asked.

Nora paced and cracked her knuckles. “Is everyone okay?” she asked, and he held up a finger.

“No one was hurt. Cai was with Tyler, and Ryan and I took Apollo out for dinner. We weren’t gone forty-five minutes before I got a call from the cops.”

“We’re on our way,” Matisse assured him. “Is it livable? Do I need to get another room here at the hotel?”

“No,” Seok answered. “Just come home.”

He hung up, and Matisse slid the phone into his pocket. “Someone broke in,” he told Nora, studying the room. Jumping into action, he reached for his suitcase and unzipped it. He scooped his clothes from the floor and dumped them into the luggage. “No one was hurt.”

Standing on the bed, Nora unhooked the lights and rolled them, placing them carefully in her bag. Not much was unpacked, so within minutes, they were set to go. Matisse shrugged into his coat, put a hand into the inner pocket to make sure he had his car keys and found the USB he’d saved Dr. Murray’s research on.

He took it out, staring at it as it lay on his palm before he curled his fingers around it. It was too much of a coincidence—one he wasn’t willing to discount. If Murray could remotely access his computer, he could toss their home.

“Ready?” Nora held the door open, her bag over her shoulder as she zipped her coat.

He touched her cheek and dipped his head to kiss her. “It’s going to be okay.” A steady tremor ran through her body, and his anger built at the person who’d upset her this way.

“Let’s get home.” She kissed him once more then nudged him out the door.

Short legs be damned, Nora double-timed it to the car. Soon they were back on the road and tore along the streets toward their house. The closer they got, the more anxious Nora became. Her fingers, held tightly in his hand, trembled, and her knee jiggled. A few times, she started to speak, but cut off mid-sentence. Focused as he was on getting home as fast as possible, he didn’t ask her to elaborate.

They turned onto their street. Nothing looked different. Cars were parked in driveways. There were no fire engines or SWAT team vans. Nothing to give away the fact that someone had violated their home.

One unmarked car sat in front of the house, but that was it for first responders. Nora jumped out of the car before he shut it off, but she waited for him at the steps, her eyes on the door.

Seok had spent months searching for a door for this house. Eventually, he’d found a heavy, wooden door, circa 1880, at an architectural salvage warehouse. But his search wasn’t over. No. It took a year before he found the hardware for the door then another month of sanding off the rust.

It had stood the test of time but met its match when someone took a booted foot to it. One panel was kicked in, splintered and hacked, while the entire door hung off one hinge. “Holy shit.” It had taken an incredible amount of force to shatter the solid piece.

“Seok,” Nora whispered. Tears spilled from her eyes. Quickly, she wiped them away and sniffed. “Let’s go.” Straightening her shoulders, she strode up the steps, glancing once more at the door, but then through. “Guys?”

“In here!”

Matisse stumbled to a stop, frozen by the destruction that was his home. Seok had been kind when he’d said it was tossed. It’d been tossed, yes. The couch was flipped, the coffee table flipped, the bookcases upended.

But it’d also been ripped, and smashed, and crushed. Pages from Seok’s art books fluttered in the breeze, shooting through the open door. Foam spilled out of a couch cushion, and an upside down end table appeared to be missing a leg.

This wasn’t a robbery. It was a warning. And from the daggers shooting out of Seok’s eyes, he knew it, too.

The police officer standing across from him was familiar, but it took him a moment to place him. Detective Vance. What was a homicide detective doing at a burglary?

Glancing over his shoulder when Seok’s gaze shifted, Vance gave them a solemn nod. “Hey, Nora.”

“Detective.” Her voice shook. “Did something happen?” Whipping her head around, scanning the room she asked, “Where’s Ryan and Apollo? Is Cai okay?”

Flipping the notebook he held closed, he held up both hands. “Everyone’s fine. Department alerted me to the address, and after our conversation, I thought I should come by.”

“Thank you,” she answered, and went right to Seok, smashing herself against his chest. “I’m so sorry, Seok. So, so sorry.”

“Shh.” He rocked her from side to side and rubbed his cheek against her head. His black eyes closed. His body deflated as the tension visibly drained from his shoulders. “It’ll be fine. It’s nothing we can’t fix.”

“The door.” Matisse could barely make out her voice, muffled as it was.

“I wanted a new door anyway,” he replied.

“I don’t suppose you have security footage?” Vance asked. “I noticed the cameras along with your alarm system.”

Matisse nodded. “We should.” He opened the security app on his phone, linking into the security footage. Even now, it was rolling, but this was real time. When he clicked onto the option to see earlier in the day, there was nothing.

Of course, there wasn’t.

“It’s been erased.” He clutched the phone, fingers squeezing, and made himself relax. If this was a chess game, then he was checked. Why hadn’t he anticipated these moves? It was obvious from Dr. Murray’s research that he was systematic and methodical. His entire life’s work was built upon patience and breaking something down—step by step.

Matisse may have thrown a wrench in the works, but Murray had activated his contingency plans.

Matisse refused to play catch-up. The gauntlet had been thrown, and he was happy to accept the challenge.

“The timing of this is suspicious.” Vance interrupted his train of thought. “And it does nothing but make me want to lean a little harder on the doctor. Ran across him at the hospital. Didn’t seem too happy to see me—” Vance’s cell phone rang, and he answered it. “Yeah. I’m leaving now.” He hung up and studied them before speaking again. “Change your locks, and get your cameras back up. You have my card?” he asked Seok.

“Yes.”

“Good. Call me if you need me.” As he walked by, he stopped next to Nora, grasping her elbow lightly. “Don’t be afraid to call.”

“I won’t,” she answered, taking a step back against Seok, who wrapped his arms around her waist.

“Nora?” Apollo’s anxious voice called out from the kitchen. His footsteps pounded through the hall, and then he was tearing her away from Seok. He lifted her into the air and embraced her. “Baby. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Matisse observed his friend, who seemed closer to a breakdown than he’d ever seen him. He’d buried his face into her neck, and as tight as she held him, he held her tighter. “I’m okay, Apollo.” Her hands stroked his back and his head. “I was with Matisse. I was safe.”

As if he remembered Matisse was standing there and he’d yanked her from Seok, he lowered her until her feet touched the ground. “Sorry, man.” His cheeks flushed red, but he met Seok’s glare and didn’t look away.

“All you had to do was ask, Apollo,” Seok said before walking toward the bookcase. He stood for a second, hands on hips.

“Here—” Apollo slid his hands beneath the bookcase, lifting and adjusting it until it was back in place.

Without a word, his friends and Nora began to tidy the room. Nora gathered the loose pages, and stacked them into a neat pile after Apollo righted the coffee table. He did most of the heavy lifting, flipping over the couch and lifting bookshelves, while Seok and Matisse picked up the broken furniture and carried it down to the workshop.

On their first trip, they passed Ryan in the kitchen, who doodled in a notebook while he talked on the phone. “Insurance,” he mouthed.

As Matisse worked, his anger built. Like Nora, he was horrified at the personal nature the destruction broadcast. There was no reason for it, except to show it could be done.

Their computers were missing, and anything of any interest would have been in his room. Matisse stumbled on the step, and Seok bounced off his butt. “What?”

“My room.”

Seok sighed, and Matisse glanced down at him. “I’ll go up with you.” His friend pointed. “Move.”

Ryan was off the phone, helping Nora and Apollo straighten and sweep. He held a garbage bag for Apollo to dump a dustpan of broken glass. It was looking better now the books were back on the shelves. Their couch had one cushion, but the chaotic disorder was gone. Depression hit Matisse hard as he and Seok continued upstairs. The first floor may have been close to done, but the second floor remained wrecked.

And wrecked it was.

Like the living room, shelves had been knocked down, desks upended, and the mattresses torn. He refused to regret the money he’d spent on the hotel room, but he was mentally calculating the funds they needed to get the house back in order.

“Don’t,” Seok muttered. “I see your brain calculating. We have homeowner’s insurance.”

He released a breath and nodded. “This is personal, though. You see it, right?”

“Yeah.” Taking his kerchief from his back pocket, he twisted it in his hands as he examined Matisse’s bedroom. “I see it.”

They started with the mattress, flipping it upside down so the long rents were against the box spring, then they got to work. Sheets and blankets were piled on the mattress. Like they had done earlier, they righted bookshelves and made piles of things that could be saved and garbage.

“Lot of anger in here.” Arms crossed over his chest, muscles flexing, Apollo studied the room from his place next to the door. “Here, man. Let me get that.” Seok and Matisse were struggling to lift Matisse’s antique oak desk back into place. Apollo grunted, dragging it across the carpet. “Had to be more than one person. This shit is heavy.”

“Unlike you and your super-strength?” It felt good to joke.

“Exactly,” Apollo said, lips curving in a half-smile. “The rest of this will keep, don’t you think?”

“We’ve only just finished mine,” Matisse said.

“We’ll sleep in the living room,” Apollo replied. “Spread out some blankets. Nora’s asleep on her feet, and I can’t handle watching Cai sway as he sweeps anymore.”

“Cai’s back?” Seok asked. “I didn’t hear him.”

“Hours now. Got Tyler settled and came home to help. But he’s still recovering.” He left the rest unspoken. Cai didn’t have his usual stamina, but he wouldn’t complain. He’d push through, and it wouldn’t be good for him. If they wanted him better, they needed to stop.

After adjusting Matisse’s chair to fit beneath the desk, Seok yanked the kerchief from his head. “Let’s get the blankets.”

They raided the bathrooms and linen closets. Finding the blankets took longer than it should have, given everything had been swept off of shelves, but eventually they had what they needed and trekked back to the living room.

Apollo was right. Cai and Nora were beat, and even Ryan looked exhausted, moving slowly as he carried a bag of garbage to the curb. It reminded Matisse. “My bike’s gone?”

“Yeah,” Seok answered, shouldering past him to drop the blankets on the floor. “Police took a report. We’ll call insurance in the morning.”

“Was anything else taken?” he asked. “From the garage, I mean.”

“No,” Seok answered. “Only the bike.”

“Huh.” Interesting.

“I’m going to get pjs on,” Nora announced tiredly and went upstairs.

“So we all agree this has everything to do with Murray?” Cai sat cross legged on the floor, resting his back against the sofa.

“Yes,” Seok said, followed quickly by affirmations from the other guys.

“Because you hacked his files, or because of Nora?” he went on.

“Probably both,” Ryan said. “But he must have been freaked by the possibility of you having the details of this current study.”

“Why?” Matisse asked. “He had to have had it approved by the college.”

“The IRB,” Ryan interrupted.

“Whatever.” Matisse had no idea what the IRB was, but he understood Ryan’s point. Someone above Murray had to know about what he was doing. They had to? Right?

“Not necessarily,” Ryan replied. “You said the Department of Defense was involved? Maybe they worked out some deal with Brownington. You throw enough money at something, and people will look the other way.”

“I don’t get it,” Matisse replied. “Granted my understanding of human motivation is not always stellar, but why choose Brownington? Why do something like this at all?”

“Read the news, Tisse,” Cai answered sarcastically and completely out of character. “People are paranoid as hell, right now. They don’t care who gets hurt as long as they get what they’re entitled to.”

“Fucking depressing, Cai.” Matisse leaned against the wall and glanced at the ceiling. “She’s taking a while, isn’t she?”

As one, they seemed to realize the length of time Nora had been gone and sprang into action. Apollo was first upstairs, lunging two to three steps at a time as he propelled himself using the railing. Matisse was a footfall behind him, but ground to a halt when Apollo stumbled at Nora’s bedroom.

“Baby?” His voice was small, worried, and it took everything Matisse had not to elbow by him. Not that he’d have been able to move him, but he would have tried.

Apollo stepped inside, and Matisse followed, the others on his heels. Nora’s room looked as bad as his, worse maybe. She sat, back against the wall, with a small cardboard box on her lap. No tears fell from her eyes, but her face was grief-stricken. “Why?” Holding up pieces of paper, she let them flutter to the ground. “How’d they do this so fast?”

Matisse stared in horror at what had fallen from her hands. Photographs. He stepped through the piles of detritus and kneeled next to her. Not only were the photos from the box shredded, someone had poured liquid on them, and they’d formed a pasty mess.

This.

This was personal.

Whomever had done this knew what Nora meant to them and knew what little Nora had. By ruining the few things she had from her childhood, her few good memories, they’d challenged all of them.

Nora’s head thumped against the wall where she hit it. Once. Twice. And then she shoved the ruined pile off her lap and shrugged. “Oh well, right?” She laughed, a humorless, bitter laugh that was nothing like what Matisse’d heard from her before. “It’ll be okay. It’s just stuff, and no one was hurt. We’re all healthy.” One platitude after another left her mouth, none of them genuine-sounding.

“It’s okay to be pissed, Nora.” He reached for her hand and laced their fingers together.

Apollo eased himself next to her and took her other hand. “This sucks. You should be pissed. I’m pissed.”

“I don’t have a right to be upset,” Nora said, studying each of them. “It’s my fault. I’m not being dramatic.” She held up a hand when he opened his mouth to argue. “I brought Murray here.”

“No,” Cai answered. “You really didn’t.”

“How do you figure?” Matisse felt a surge of pride. His girl may be ready to take the weight of the world on her shoulders, but it was because she had a spine of steel.

“Tyler,” Cai replied simply.

“Tyler?” Matisse was confused.

“He had Tyler in his study. Things would have gone to shit. Maybe he wouldn’t have broken in here, but I’d have been dealing with that asshole’s fallout. But because of you, we’ve worked out what he’s doing. Tyler has a chance now.”

She wrinkled her nose adorably, staring hard at Cai. Matisse had the impulse to run his finger down her nose to smooth out the little wrinkle, but he didn’t. Minimizing her feelings would help nothing.

“Oh,” she finally whispered.

Cai towered above them and suddenly grabbed her shoulders and yanked her into his arms. “Tyler’s a wreck, but there’s hope for him. I talked to him today, had a rational conversation for ten minutes before his meds kicked in and he was out cold, but the stuff he told me, Nora.” Matisse wasn’t sure if Cai was overwhelmed or exhausted, or both, but his hands, when he skimmed them down her back, trembled. “The stuff he told me broke my heart. We’re going to talk to the other psychiatrists tomorrow. Explain what he went through, make sure Murray doesn’t have access to him anymore. I’m going to make sure the bastard never does this to anyone again.”

His words held a promise. One Matisse could get on board with.

Nora must have heard it, too, because she drew back and kissed him solemnly. “Thank you.” Shaking herself, she took in the rest of them as they stared at her and blushed. “Sorry, guys. I’m better now.”

“We all need rest,” Seok said, and Matisse yawned. He definitely needed to sleep. The cat nap he took on Nora’s breasts hadn’t been nearly long enough. A sharp pang went through him at the thought of missing the night he’d planned, but it could wait. He and Nora had all the time in the world.