Chastity
I woke to a pounding headache, a desert-dry mouth, and the sudden, horrifying realization that I wasn't in my bed.
I was on the couch. Wrapped in two blankets. Hair tied back. Face clean. Water bottle and Tylenol on the coffee table.
"No. No, no, no."
The memories slammed into me like a freight train:
Dancing. Laughing. Wyatt's hands on my waist—firm and warm and impossibly steady. Leaning into him. His breath against my ear. The way his chest felt under my palms when I'd pulled him close.
And then throwing up. Everywhere. In front of his teammates. In front of the entire bar.
I groaned and buried my face in the blanket. Wished desperately for the earth to open up and swallow me whole.
My phone buzzed on the table. I grabbed it with trembling fingers.
Seven texts from numbers I didn't recognize. All tagged photos from last night.
Me, bright-eyed and reckless, dragging Wyatt onto the dance floor.
Me, hands on his chest, grinning up at him like I'd forgotten we were fake.
Him, watching me with an expression I couldn't name. Something between exasperation and...
I closed the app before I could finish that thought.
Footsteps padded across hardwood. I froze.
I peered over the edge of the blanket.
Wyatt walked into the room in low-slung sweatpants and a hoodie. Hair still damp from a shower. Coffee mug in hand. Sleep-rough voice that made my stomach flip for reasons I refused to examine.
He stopped when he saw me awake. "You look alive. Barely."
I made a pathetic noise somewhere between a whimper and a groan. "Did I…? Last night…?"
"Yes."
I covered my face with the blanket again, wishing I could suffocate myself with it. "I want to dissolve into mist."
"You puked on my shoes."
I gasped into the fabric. "NO."
"Yes."
Mortification burned through every cell in my body. I curled into a tighter ball, making myself as small as humanly possible. "Kill me. Please. Just—end it now."
"Dramatic."
"I threw up on your shoes, Wyatt. I danced like an idiot. I—" The memory of my hands on his chest made me want to scream into the void. "I touched you."
"You did."
His tone gave nothing away. Not anger. Not disgust. Just... acknowledgment.
I peeked out again, mortified. "Are you going to hold this over me forever?"
He set a mug on the coffee table in front of me. Steam curled from the rim. "Drink."
Not an answer.
I sat up slowly, head pounding, and reached for the mug with shaking hands. Black coffee. Strong enough to wake the dead.
"I'm sorry," I whispered. "About the shoes. About the—everything."
He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching me with that unreadable expression I'd come to both fear and crave.
"You apologize too much."
"I ruined your night."
"No." His jaw worked. "You didn't."
The words hung between us, heavy with something I didn't understand.
I took a sip of coffee, burning my tongue, and studied him through my lashes. He looked tired. Not angry. Just... worn. "Did you stay up with me?"
He didn't answer.
Which meant yes.
My chest tightened with something dangerous. Something that felt like gratitude mixed with confusion mixed with a longing I had no business feeling.
"Thank you," I said quietly.
His eyes met mine. Held. "Don't make me regret it."
I pulled the blanket down just enough to sip the coffee, keeping my body cocooned in warmth and shame.
Wyatt watched me. Carefully. Quietly. Too intently.
Heat crawled up my neck that had nothing to do with the coffee. "Stop staring."
"You're hungover. I'm checking you won't pass out."
"You're still staring."
He shrugged, unfazed. "Not my fault you look like a wounded hamster."
I glared at him over the rim of the mug. "A hamster?"
"Small. Twitchy. Pathetic."
"I hate you."
"You said that last night too." He pushed off the doorframe, crossing to the chair across from me. "Right before you told me I was 'really nice sometimes.'"
Oh, God.
Oh, God, I said that?
My face went nuclear. I buried it back in the blanket with a muffled scream. His laugh rumbled low. Actual amusement threading through that rough voice. "Don't worry. You also told me I had 'pretty eyes.'"
I wanted to die. Actually die. Right there on his couch.
"I'm leaving," I announced into the fabric. "Moving to Alaska. Changing my name. You'll never see me again."
"Finish your coffee first."
I peeked out at him, mortified beyond reason. He sat relaxed in the chair, one leg crossed over the other, coffee mug balanced on his knee. Watching me with something that looked dangerously close to fondness.
"You're enjoying this."
"Little bit."
"You're cruel."
"You knew that already."
I did. But somehow, sitting here wrapped in blankets he'd tucked around me, hair tied back by his hands, coffee he'd made specifically for me—cruel didn't feel like the right word anymore. Complicated, maybe. Dangerous, definitely. But not cruel.
I took another sip, let the silence stretch. When I finally looked at him again, his expression had shifted. Less teasing. More serious.
"For what it's worth," he said quietly, "you weren't as embarrassing as you think."
That shouldn't have mattered.
It shouldn't have made my chest warm the way it did.
But it did.
I cleared my throat, trying to salvage what remained of my dignity. "Thank you. For… everything."
He shrugged again, but less flippantly this time. Something softer underneath. "Couldn't leave you there. You'd have gotten kidnapped."
"I wasn't that drunk."
He gave me a look that could burn a forest down. "You tried to pet the bouncer."
I died inside. Actually felt my soul leave my body. "Oh, my gosh."
"And told him you liked his eyelashes."
"STOP."
He didn't. He actually laughed—a low, warm sound I'd never heard before. Not mocking. Not cruel. Just… genuine. The kind of laugh that crinkled the corners of his eyes and softened the harsh lines of his face.
It hit me harder than the hangover. Harder than the embarrassment. Harder than anything I'd felt since stepping into his world.
I stared at him, coffee mug forgotten in my hands, watching the way his shoulders relaxed. The way his guard dropped for just a moment. The way he looked… human. Approachable. Real.
My chest tightened with something terrifying. He caught me staring. The laugh faded, but the warmth lingered in his eyes. "What?"
"Nothing." I looked down at my coffee, pulse hammering. "Just… I've never heard you laugh like that before."
The admission hung between us.
His expression shifted. Unreadable again. But not cold. Never quite cold anymore. "Don't get used to it." But his voice held no bite.
I sipped my coffee, hiding behind the rim, trying desperately to ignore the way my heart refused to steady. The way sitting here with him—hungover and mortified and wrapped in blankets he'd tucked around me—felt safer than anything had in months.
"I'm still moving to Alaska," I muttered.
"No, you're not."
"How do you know?"
He stood, collecting his empty mug. Paused before heading to the kitchen. Looked back at me with that devastating half-smirk that made my stomach flip.
"Because you prefer older men. Remember?"
My face went crimson.
I opened my mouth to fire back some devastating retort—something witty and cutting that would wipe that smug look off his face. But he stepped closer. Close enough, I could smell soap and coffee and something darker underneath. Close enough, the air shifted between us.
Then he lifted his hand—slow, deliberate—and pressed the back of it against my cheek.
My breath stopped. Completely.
His knuckles were warm. Calloused. Gentle in a way that made my entire nervous system short-circuit.
"You're warm. Still dehydrated."
Clinical. Practical. Like he was checking a patient. But his thumb grazed my cheekbone.
Just barely.
Just enough.
My brain flatlined.
Why does that feel good?
Why do I want him to do it again?
Why am I like this?
His eyes dropped to my mouth for a fraction of a second—so quick I might've imagined it—before he pulled back. Straightened. Stepped away like nothing happened. Like he hadn't just unraveled me with a single touch.
I sat there frozen, blanket clutched to my chest, lungs refusing to cooperate. He walked toward the kitchen without looking back. "Drink more water. You look like death."
I couldn't speak. Couldn't move. Couldn't do anything except sit there with my cheek still burning from where he'd touched me, my heart hammering against my ribs like it was trying to escape.
This was bad.
This was so, so bad.
Because he was right—I wasn't moving to Alaska.
I wasn't running.
I was sitting on his couch in his blankets drinking his coffee, and when he touched my face like I mattered, like I was something precious that needed protecting…
I wanted him to do it again.
I wanted more.
And that terrified me more than anything else that had happened since walking into his world.
I pressed my fingers to my cheek where his hand had been, still feeling the ghost of his touch, and whispered into the empty room, "I'm in so much trouble."
He returned from the kitchen with buttered toast on a plate, and two Advil balanced on the rim. Set both on the coffee table in front of me with the careful precision of someone who'd done this before. For someone else. Maybe for himself after rough nights he didn't talk about.
"Eat the toast. Take the pills. Drink the whole bottle of water." His tone left no room for argument. "Then shower. You smell like a distillery."
I should've been offended.
I wasn't.
Because underneath the gruffness was care. Disguised. Hidden. But there.
"Yes, sir," I muttered, reaching for the toast.
He paused. Something flickered across his face—surprise? amusement?—before he turned away, grabbing his coffee again.
"I have a game tomorrow."
I nodded, trying not to die from the sheer embarrassment of existing. "Okay."
He glanced at me. Quick. Sharp. Almost shy—if he were capable of such a thing. "You should be there."
My brain stopped again. Completely flatlined. "Me?"