23. Chastity
Chastity
I beat him home. Barely. Hands trembling on the steering wheel the entire drive, heart beating so hard I felt it in my throat, my wrists, behind my eyes.
I'd driven on autopilot, barely registering traffic lights or turn signals, my brain too busy replaying the feeling of his mouth on mine—firm, claiming, devastating.
I stumbled inside and went straight for the laundry basket in the hallway.
His hoodie sat folded on top—dark gray, soft from a thousand washes, smelling like his detergent and something else underneath. Something distinctly him. I'd noticed it days ago. Told myself I wouldn't touch it.
I grabbed it anyway. Changed in my room with shaking fingers, pulling off the Serpents sweater and replacing it with his hoodie. Too big. Sleeves past my hands. Warm in a way that had nothing to do with temperature.
I would die before admitting I'd stolen it.
But I had.
And I pulled it tighter around myself like armor I desperately needed. Then I paced. Living room. Kitchen. Back to the living room. Hands shaking. Mouth dry. Butterflies in full riot—not the nervous kind, the terrifying kind that felt like freefall without a parachute.
Every kiss kept replaying on an endless, torturous loop—
The public one outside the locker room, where he'd grabbed me like he couldn't help himself, where the world had narrowed to just his hands on my waist and his mouth claiming mine.
The one by my car, softer, slower, almost tender in a way that had shattered every defense I'd built.
The way he'd looked at me after. Like I mattered. Like this wasn't fake anymore. Like maybe it never had been.
I pressed my palms against my flushed cheeks, pacing faster. Terrified. Exhilarated. Wanting more with an intensity that felt dangerous, reckless, completely outside my control.
I heard the key scrape in the lock.
My breath stuttered. Stopped completely.
The door opened, and everything inside me pulled taut, waiting, trembling on the edge of something I couldn't name and wasn't sure I was ready for. But wanted anyway.
He stepped through the door.
Hair damp from the locker room shower. Muscles tight beneath his hoodie. Adrenaline still radiating off him in waves I felt from across the room. And a small cut high on his cheekbone I hadn't noticed from afar.
I gasped. "You're bleeding."
He shrugged like it meant nothing. "Guy's elbow caught me during the game."
I moved closer without thinking. My feet carried me forward before my brain caught up.
He froze. Body going rigid, eyes tracking my approach with something that looked like wariness. "Chastity—"
I ignored him and gently took his chin, tilting his face toward the light.
The cut wasn't deep, but it was angry, the skin around it already darkening.
"Sit."
He did. Immediately. No argument. No resistance. Just lowered himself onto the couch like I'd pulled an invisible string.
I went to the bathroom, grabbed the first-aid kit from under the sink, and returned to find him sitting exactly where I'd left him. Watching me. Waiting.
I knelt in front of him. His legs bracketed me on either side. His eyes locked on my face with an intensity that made my pulse stutter. His breathing came too unsteady, chest rising and falling beneath the dark fabric of his hoodie.
I dampened a cloth with warm water and brought it carefully to the cut.
He flinched.
My hand stilled instantly. "Sorry."
"No. It's fine." His voice came out rougher than usual. "Just… not used to people touching me like this."
My chest squeezed painfully.
I dabbed at the blood with gentle pressure, cleaning the wound in slow, careful strokes. He never took his eyes off me. Never moved. Just sat there letting me care for him with a stillness that felt almost reverent.
"You should ice it," I said quietly. "The bruising will be worse tomorrow."
"I've had worse."
"That doesn't mean you shouldn't take care of yourself."
His jaw worked. Something flickered across his face—surprise, maybe. Or something softer I couldn't name.
I reached for the antiseptic. Our knees touched. The contact sent heat spiraling through my body that had nothing to do with first aid. "This might sting."
He nodded once.
I pressed the cotton swab gently against the cut. His hand came up—instinctive, defensive—and caught my wrist like he needed the anchor.
"Keep going," he said, voice barely above a whisper.
I did. Finished cleaning the wound, applied a small bandage, smoothed it down with trembling fingers.
When I looked up, his face was inches from mine. Close enough I could count his eyelashes. Close enough I felt his breath warm against my lips. Neither of us moved.
I cleaned the blood carefully, fingertips brushing his jaw with feather-light touches I didn't trust myself to make firmer.
He stared at my mouth. Not hiding it. Not pretending.
Just watching my lips move with an intensity that made heat curl low in my stomach, spreading through my limbs like wildfire.
Every muscle in his body pulled tight. Coiled.
Controlled. He sat so still I could see the effort it took—hands gripping his thighs hard enough his knuckles went white, jaw locked, breathing shallow and uneven.
Trying so hard not to move. Not to ruin this moment.
But I felt it radiating off him in waves—the restraint barely holding, the hunger he couldn't quite bury, the desperate need to grab me and pull me in and devour me until neither of us remembered our own names.
My hand trembled against his face.
His eyes darkened.
"Wyatt…"
The word came out barely a whisper. Shaky. Uncertain. Not a question. Not a protest.
Something else entirely—permission, maybe, or surrender, or the kind of reckless want that terrified me almost as much as it thrilled me.
His hand came up slowly, fingers threading through my hair with devastating gentleness. Cradling the back of my head like I might break. Like I was something precious he'd been waiting his whole life to touch.
"Tell me to stop." His voice came out rough, strained, barely controlled. "Tell me you don't want this and I will."
I should have.
I knew I should have.
This wasn't part of the arrangement. Wasn't part of the plan. Wasn't supposed to feel this real or this dangerous or this absolutely inevitable.
But when I opened my mouth, what came out wasn't stop. "I can't."
His thumb brushed my cheekbone. Slow. Reverent. "Can't what?"
My breath hitched. "Tell you to stop."
Something shifted in his expression—relief and hunger and something darker, more possessive, more irrevocable. "Good."
He pulled me forward. And kissed me like he'd been starving for it.
He pulled back slightly, just enough to break the kiss but not enough to let me go. His hands stayed buried in my hair, fingers trembling against my scalp with a restraint I could feel unraveling.
I looked at him—really looked—and saw something raw in his expression. Hunger, yes. But underneath it, hesitation. Like he was waiting for me to come to my senses. To realize what I was doing. To push him away.
I didn't want to.
Before I could talk myself out of it, before fear could win, before logic could remind me of all the reasons this was dangerous and reckless and completely insane—
I leaned up and kissed him. Soft. Tentative. Nervous.
My lips pressed against his with a gentleness that felt like surrender, like stepping off a cliff without knowing if there would be ground below or just endless falling.
He inhaled sharply, entire body going rigid beneath my touch.
But he didn't kiss back.
Not yet.
His hands came up, gripping my shoulders with devastating gentleness, and he pulled back just enough to look me in the eyes. The loss of contact felt like being doused in cold water.
His voice came out rough, strained, barely controlled. "You don't know what you're doing."
My heart slammed so hard I felt it in my throat, behind my eyes, pulsing through every nerve ending.
But I didn't back away. Didn't retreat. Didn't let fear win.
Instead, I cupped his jaw, thumb brushing over the rough stubble there, feeling the tension radiating through him like electricity barely contained beneath his skin.
"I do."
He shook his head once—barely. A tiny movement that looked like it cost him everything. "Sweetheart…" The word came out broken, desperate. "I'm not gentle."
The warning hung between us, heavy with meaning I understood perfectly.
This wasn't going to be soft or careful or the kind of romance I'd read about in books.
This was him—all the darkness, all the intensity, all the barely restrained hunger he'd been holding back since the moment I walked into his life.
I should have been terrified.
Instead, heat pooled low in my stomach, spreading through my limbs until my entire body hummed with want so fierce it stole my breath.
I met his eyes without flinching. "I don't want gentle."
Something changed in his expression—something primal and possessive and absolutely devastating. The last thread of his restraint snapped so visibly I felt it like a physical thing breaking.
That did it.
That broke him.
His mouth crashed against mine with a hunger that bordered on violence, all the careful control evaporating in an instant. His hands left my shoulders and grabbed my waist, hauling me up from my knees and into his lap in one fluid movement that stole what little breath I had left.
I gasped against his mouth, fingers clutching his hoodie for balance as the world tilted sideways.
And he swallowed the sound like he'd been starving for it.
His mouth crashed against mine like a storm breaking—not soft, not careful, not restrained, but like he'd been starving for weeks and I was the first meal he'd seen.
His hands slid into my hair, fingers tangling through the strands with a desperation that sent electricity racing down my spine. My arms went around his neck without thought, without hesitation, pulling him closer even though there wasn't any space left between us.
I gasped into his mouth, and he swallowed the sound like oxygen.