49. Sixty Seconds
CHAPTER 49
SIXTY SECONDS
NORA
Nate unlocks the door, and the scent of fresh paint and wood polish wraps around us like a welcome. The one-bedroom apartment is small but immaculate—a canvas painted with someone's determination to make broken things whole again. Every detail whispers of care: hardwood floors gleaming like honey in sunlight, walls dressed in soft neutrals, and baseboards crisp as new fallen snow.
The open concept living space flows seamlessly into a kitchen where stainless steel appliances mirror our reflections. Little touches betray thoughtful preparation—coasters aligned with military precision on the coffee table, fresh flowers standing sentinel on the counter. Nick's perfectionism echoes in every corner, as if leaving anything imperfect was never an option.
"You good?" Nate's voice pulls me from my spiraling thoughts.
I nod quickly, but my stomach performs its own anxious choreography.
"I don't have anything to sleep in," I blurt, hands futilely brushing at my rain-soaked clothes.
"I'll give you one of my shirts." The steady certainty in his voice holds no teasing, no smugness—just Nate, solid as earth. He adds, "And I've got sweats in the car," already moving toward the door. His gaze sweeps over me, lingering just long enough to kindle heat beneath my skin.
"You take a shower, and I'll grab my bag."
"Sure. Thanks." My voice floats unnaturally light, a poor mask for the butterflies staging a revolt in my stomach.
The door's click leaves me in sudden silence, my thoughts start racing uncontrollably.
Will we share the bed?
Does he expect to?
Do I want that?
The answer burns bright: of course I do. But does he?
The bathroom mirrors the apartment's thoughtful design—pale tiles gleaming under soft lighting, a glass-enclosed shower that belongs in a luxury hotel. When I turn the rainfall showerhead on, warm water cascades like summer rain, washing away the day's grime and the lingering cold. Steam curls around me like a protective spell, but my mind fixates on Nate—his mouth, his hands, the careful restraint behind his eyes that masks something deeper, hungrier.
What if he walked in right now?
What if he decided to stop waiting?
Heat pools low in my belly at the thought. He's always so measured with me, every action calculated. But who is he protecting—me or himself? The idea of making the first move sends my heart into overdrive.
How do you tell the boy you've loved forever that you want him to press you against wall and kiss you until the world dissolves?
I rest my forehead against the cool tile, letting the water drum against my back. The old fears surface like sharks in dark water. But then I remember the way his eyes linger, how they burn with something that mirrors my own wanting.
Maybe he's as tired of this dance as I am.
When I step out, his clothes wait on the bed—a Guns and Roses t-shirt and sweatpants with a note in his messy scrawl about getting food. The summer heat makes the decision for me. I pull on just his shirt, the fabric carrying his scent of cedar and clean skin.
The front door opens and Nate freezes, takeout bag dangling forgotten from his hand. His eyes travel over me with deliberate slowness, darkness bleeding into their hazel-green depths. The air thickens until breathing feels like drawing honey into my lungs. My body responds to his gaze—nipples hardening, thighs pressing together as desire coils tight in my core.
He swallows hard, voice rough as stone. "I, uh, got us food from down the road. Thought you might be hungry."
He sets the bag down and moves closer, each step measured and intent. My pulse pounds a war drum rhythm against my ribs because there’s a burning look in his eyes that’s filled with desire.
“Nora, I’m going to kiss you." His voice carries dangerous certainty.
"Is that a good idea?" The question is a lie, but the truth—that I'm terrified he'll regret this tomorrow—feels too raw to voice.
His thumb traces my lower lip like he's memorizing its shape. "Debatable."
"And if I think it's a bad idea?"
A smirk plays at his mouth. "You're saying if I kiss you right now, you wouldn't kiss me back?" His confidence wraps around me like smoke.
I shake my head weakly. "Yes." It's more breath than word.
His thumb follows my jawline, leaving fire in its wake. When his hand cups my neck, thumb settling over my racing pulse, my eyes flutter closed as he peppers kisses along my throat.
"Are you sure?" he murmurs, voice intimate as a secret.
I nod yes, drawing a dark chuckle.
"Liar," he whispers.
When his lips claim mine, the kiss isn't gentle. It's raw hunger and years of wanting compressed into a single point of contact. My hands find his chest, mapping the solid planes beneath cotton.
"Sixty seconds," he mutters against my mouth.
"What?"
"For sixty seconds, forget everything. It's just you and me.”
"And after that?"
"We sit down and eat, then go to bed. No regrets."
I nod, knowing one minute will never satisfy this hunger, but I let him believe his own lie.
His hands frame my face as he kisses me deeper, tasting of mint and possibility. He holds me while I explore him with desperate hands, learning the man who replaced the boy I once knew. For these precious seconds, I want to know every part of him, to feel the kind of pleasure that reshapes reality. My fingers trace his arms, shoulders, stomach, drawing a sharp breath from him before his hands tangle in my damp hair. Time bends and snaps.
When he pulls back, we're both breathing hard, foreheads pressed together.
"Time's up," he whispers, stepping toward the bedroom door.
But instead of walking away, he pauses, leaning against the frame like it's all that's keeping him upright.
"Fuck this," he says softly then turns to look at me. "I'm done."
My heart stutters. "Done with what?"
"Pretending." The words rumble from his chest, heavy with frustrated desire. He crosses the space between us in measured steps. My back meets the wall as his hands cup my face, eyes locked on mine like he's committing every detail to memory.
"I'm done pretending I don't want every fucking part of you."
The kiss that follows isn't just contact—it's combustion. Slow, devastating heat that spreads through my veins. He watches me when I pull away to remove his shirt. My hands slide over his body, exploring the terrain with trembling fingers. Years of protecting those he loves has sculpted him into something beautiful and brutal—hard ridges of muscle shift under my touch, and raised scars tell stories of a childhood spent standing between a monster and the people he loved most in the world. Every mark is a testament to the way he loves—completely, fiercely, with his whole body as a shield. He was a just a boy when he received most of these scars. A boy who learnt way too young that some loves are worth bleeding for.
My fingers wind into his dark hair, silk-soft strands between my knuckles, and when I tug gently, the groan that rumbles from his chest vibrates through every point where our bodies touch. The sound shoots straight to my core, drawing an answering whimper from my throat. Every brush of his hands feels like breaking free of gravity.
We move together with an instinct deeper than memory, as if our bodies have been rehearsing this dance in dreams, just waiting for reality to catch up. His calloused fingertips trace fire up my thighs, the rough texture against my sensitive skin sending shivers cascading through me. I arch into his touch, craving more friction. When he grips the hem of his shirt that I'm wearing and slowly pulls it off, the air between us changes. His eyes darken, pupils dilating as they take in every inch of newly exposed skin. The possessive heat in his gaze is palpable, molten gold and hunger wrapped into one look that makes my knees weak.
His finger comes to rest on my bottom lip, gently tracing its outline. My breath catches as he slowly trails that finger down, over my chin, following the curve of my neck. His touch is feather-light but leaves a scorching path in its wake. He pauses at my collarbone, eyes locked with mine as his finger continues its journey downward, between my breasts, the simple contact more intimate than anything I've ever felt.
"Is this okay?" he whispers, his voice husky with restraint.
The care in his question makes my heart swell. Even now, with desire evident in every line of his body, he's checking, making sure. This is Nate—always has been. He's always been my safe space, the one person who makes me feel protected rather than controlled or used. Who asks rather than takes.
I nod, unable to form words.
“When you say stop, we stop, yeah?"
The tenderness beneath his intensity makes my heart constrict even as every nerve ending in my body hums with electric need—pleasure and anticipation twisted together so tightly I can't tell where one ends and the other begins.
"Do you want me to stop?"
I shake my head, stepping closer to him until I’m pressed up against him, my fingers tracing the muscles of his shoulders until they find their way to his jaw line and lips.
"Don't stop," I whisper against his mouth, the words more breath than sound.
His eyes don’t just look at me—they devour me. Dark and starving and somehow still gentle. My heart kicks against my ribs when his hand slides under the soft cling of my panties, deliberate and purposeful. Fingertips graze heat and slickness and I swear, I whimper —a sound I didn’t know I could make.
God. I ache for him.
The first real touch pulls matching gasps from our throats—his low and wrecked, mine sharp and wreckless. The sound hangs in the charged space between us like something holy and broken. His forehead presses to mine, and he watches me with this intense, quiet reverence, like he’s learning me by feel, by breath, by every little quake under my skin.
"You’re so wet for me. It’s fucking beautiful,” he murmurs. “ You’re fucking beautiful.”
Something inside me cracks open at that. Any fear or awkwardness just burns away, gone like mist in fire. I can't speak—only feel, only burn —as his fingers find this perfect, torturous rhythm that scrapes the breath from my lungs.
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted this?” he breathes, voice soaked in hunger and something almost… desperate. “Wanted you ?”
And then his mouth is on mine, and it’s not sweet—it’s starving . He kisses like he means to carve himself into me, like I’m the only thing that’s ever made him feel real. He starts slow, yeah—but it’s the kind of slow that unravels you. That owns you. Like worship, but wilder. More raw.
I melt for him. And somewhere beneath the softness, something wild in me starts to stir. Starts to howl . Because no one’s ever touched me like this before—not just my skin, but me . All of me.
And now I don’t know if I’ll ever let him stop.
I know, with bone-deep certainty, that nothing will ever be the same again.
“ Fuck , Len... you have no idea what you do to me,” he rasps, voice thick with something jagged.
His hands map every inch of me like I’m made of secrets he’s been dying to uncover.
Slow. Merciless. Intentional.
Each touch sets off tremors under my skin until I’m gasping—needy, unmoored, half-feral.
“You’re going to ruin me,” he breathes against my mouth, and then he takes it—kissing me like the words alone weren’t enough to bleed the truth out of him. Like he’s trying to drown in me.
I let out this broken little laugh between kisses, the sound raw and tangled in everything I feel.
“You ruined me a long time ago.” I grip the back of his head like I’ll fall apart if I don’t hold on, burying my fingers in his hair.
His eyes lock onto mine. “Lenora Kennedy Wells, you will be my greatest undoing.”
And then his fingers quicken, dragging me toward the edge of something I’ve never stepped off before. Something that feels like dying and living all at once.
“Now let me watch you come undone for me.”
I crash into him, kiss him like it’s the only language I know, like I can pour years of love and ache and longing into the heat of his mouth. My body arches against him, chasing the rhythm, chasing release. His free arm slams against the wall beside my head with this raw, explosive force that makes me flinch—and want —in the same wild breath.
Then his eyes—fuck, those deep eyes—pin me in place.
“Eyes on me, Leni,” he says, low and dark, a whisper soaked in velvet and command. My mouth gapes open while my spine turns to liquid. His thumb drags across my lower lip, slow and firm, just enough to make me freeze.
“I want to watch you let go.”
And I do.
I can’t tear my gaze from his even if I tried. There’s something primal in him now—something untamed that calls to the wild thing waking up in me. I let it out. Let it burn . I meet his eyes without flinching, every wall inside me crashing down. I let him see me—raw, vulnerable, undone.
A silent offering. A surrender.
That smile he gives me? It’s not sweet.
It’s lethal.
Slow and smug and soaked in power, like he’s just won a war. He presses into me, close enough that I can feel the full heat of him. His mouth brushes mine—not a kiss, but a promise.
And when his fingers blaze a line down my throat, I swear I stop breathing.
"Good girl," he whispers against my mouth.
Two simple words shatter everything and suddenly the room tilts sideways.
The gentle pressure of his fingers transforms into something else—something rough, demanding, wrong.
Evan's hands, were too harsh, taking what wasn't his to take. The sweet cedar scent of Nate's skin morphs into the sour stench of beer and cigarettes that clung to Evan that night.
Panic spreads through my chest like ice water in my veins.
No, stop.
This is Nate.
Safe, gentle Nate.
Count to three.
One…
But Evan's voice drowns out my counting.
My skin crawls with phantom touches. The soft lighting dims in my mind, replaced by suffocating darkness. The wall against my back feels like that mattress—the springs digging into my spine, the sheets tangled around my legs like restraints. The taste of mint from Nate's kiss turns metallic, like the blood in my mouth from biting my lip to keep quiet.
This isn't real.
It's Nate.
It's Nate.
But my body doesn't believe my mind.
The harder I fight the memories, the stronger they become, like quicksand pulling me under. Evan's grip on my wrists, the weight crushing my ribs, his hot breath against my neck—it all crashes back in vivid, terrible detail. When Nate's fingers ghost along my thigh, reality splinters. I'm falling through time, through space, through that trap door I thought I'd sealed shut, back into the darkness where monsters wear human faces.
My lungs forget how to work. The room spins faster. Every touch, even Nate's gentle ones, feels like burns on my skin. My throat closes, remembering the pressure of Evan's hand, the way he squeezed until stars burst behind my eyes.
"Nora?" Nate's voice cuts through the fog, and I realize I'm shaking, breath coming in panicked gasps.
He pulls back immediately, hands raised as if he's the one who's done something wrong. The hurt and confusion in his eyes guts me.
"Shit, Nora," he says softly, my nickname breaking in his mouth. "Hey, fuck, I'm so sorry. I—did I hurt you?"
"N-no," I force out, though the word scrapes my throat raw. "I…I just need—" But the words die as I'm yanked back to that dark bedroom, feeling Evan's weight crushing me, his hand suffocating me.
Be a good girl and stop screaming.
It will hurt less if you stop moving.
You wanted this, you little bitch.
The concern in Nate's eyes makes my stomach turn. Doubt shadows his features, his own demons layering over mine. We're like two broken mirrors trying to reflect something whole.
"Nora, hey, I'm sorry. I shouldn’t have… I pushed you too far. Fuck. " he says, voice steady despite the pain in his eyes. "Hey, hey." His hands frame my face, grounding me. "I don't know where you've gone, but right now I need you to listen to my voice, okay? Just listen to me."
I nod, barely meeting his eyes as he takes my hand.
"Squeeze my hand," he murmurs, thumb tracing gentle circles on my knuckles. "When you can't breathe, just focus on that. Squeeze as hard as you need to, okay?”
I grip him like a lifeline, nails marking his skin as I fight the spiral.
"I'm here, Len. I got you. Now just keep breathing in and out for me." His voice anchors me, each word deliberate and sure.
Gradually, the panic recedes, leaving me hollow but steady.
Tears spill unbidden, but Nate brushes them away with tender thumbs before grabbing his Guns and Roses shirt off the ground and dressing me in it.
"Lay down," he whispers, guiding me to the bed like something precious. He cradles me against his bare chest where I fit perfectly, arms wrapping around me, lips pressing against my hair. Everything about him feels like coming home.
“I’m… I’m sorry," I choke out, but he shakes his head fiercely.
"Don't," he says firmly. "Don't ever apologize for something that makes you uncomfortable. Not to me. Not to anyone."
There’s no stopping the tears from falling once they start, so I let them while he settles beside me. His fingers find my hair, stroking gently like he used to when we were kids and sleep eluded me. The familiar gesture pulls me back to simpler times, before life complicated everything.
As sleep tugs at my consciousness, I feel his fingers drawing on my back—soft, deliberate patterns. A heart, then the initials N + L inside it.
I drift between sleeping and waking, his warmth keeping the nightmares at bay. Through the haze, I hear his voice, low and aching.
"Who hurt you this badly?"
The name rises like poison to my lips.
Evan.
It slips out, a whisper I never meant to voice.
His sharp inhale follows me into darkness.