Chapter 24 #3
He looks around, taking in the framed photos on the wall, the books stacked too high on the shelf, the small scuff in the baseboard I never got around to fixing.
His gaze lingers on everything with quiet curiosity, but it keeps circling back to me, like he’s tracing where I’ve been and what I’ve built but never forgetting that I’m what he came here for.
I clear my throat. “It’s different, huh?” Sure, he was here a couple of days ago, but it had been different. Tense and more uncertain in a whole other way.
He hums low, glancing up toward the hallway that leads to my bedroom. “It’s yours.”
Something about the way he says it—like that simple fact is enough, like the claim itself carries weight—sends a jolt through me.
I’ve lived here for years. Paid the bills, painted the walls, made the bed.
But hearing him acknowledge it with that quiet certainty makes me feel like I actually own more than just the mortgage. Like I own this life too.
The silence stretches again, thicker now, charged with something that makes my pulse spike.
My mouth is dry. Every question that haunted me in the car begins to claw at the back of my skull—what does he want?
What happens tomorrow? How long until I lose him again?
—but none of them fit the moment. None of them seem to matter when his hand tightens just slightly around mine.
I draw a breath. “Come upstairs?”
His answer is immediate. “Yeah.”
My heart lurches hard against my ribs. I turn toward the staircase, and he follows without hesitation, his steps a half beat behind mine.
The old wood creaks under us, the same creak that woke my parents up when I was seventeen and trying to sneak out.
Tonight, I don’t care who hears. Tonight, the creak feels like permission.
When we reach the landing, I push my bedroom door open.
The space is familiar and mine, decorated in muted blues and grays, shelves lined with books, a lamp casting a soft golden circle across the bedspread.
It isn’t the room he once knew. It isn’t even the room I grew up in.
But it’s where I sleep, where I dream, where I imagine futures I don’t often let myself believe in. And now, impossibly, he’s here.
We stop just inside the doorway. My hand finally slips free of his, not because I want it to, but because I suddenly don’t know what to do with it.
My fingers twitch at my side, restless, unsure.
He looks at me with that steady gaze that always unraveled me, like he’s waiting for me to decide which version of tonight we’re stepping into.
“Caden—” My voice catches. I try again. “I don’t know what this is supposed to be.”
His mouth curves, soft but sure. “Maybe there’s no ‘supposed to be’ about it?”
The question loosens something in me, but it also makes my stomach twist. Because no, it doesn’t. But yes, it does. Everything with him always has.
I take a step closer, not trusting my words.
His chest rises, then stills, like he’s bracing himself.
The space between us shrinks until I can feel the heat radiating off his dark skin.
My hand hovers, then lands lightly on his chest. His heart pounds under my palm, fast, insistent, and the sound in my ears might as well be its echo.
We stand like that for a long moment—my hand over his heart, his eyes locked to mine—until he moves. He lifts his hand and cups the side of my jaw. His thumb brushes the corner of my mouth with just barely enough pressure for me to feel it. My knees nearly buckle at the touch.
And then he leans in.
The kiss is gentle, almost reverent. No rush, no demand.
Just the quiet press of his lips against mine, fifteen years of absence collapsing in the span of a heartbeat.
I clutch at his shirt, dragging him closer, afraid he’ll slip away if I don’t anchor him.
He groans low in his throat, and the sound sends heat racing through me.
The hunger builds fast, urgent, like it’s been waiting under my skin all this time. The kiss deepens, our mouths parting, tongues meeting, and suddenly there’s nothing quiet about it. His hand slides through my hair. My body shudders, my cock straining painfully against my jeans.
I break the kiss just long enough to rasp, “God, Caden,” before his mouth claims mine again, harder.
We stumble toward the bed, our hands roaming now—his across my back, mine gripping his waist, pulling, tugging, desperate.
The air between us snaps and sizzles with every brush of fabric, every gasp.
I don’t know if we’re about to talk, to make out until the sun rises, or to strip the years from our skin and fuck until we can’t stand.
And the truth is, I don’t care. Any of it. All of it. As long as it’s with him.
When the backs of my legs hit the mattress, I sink down, pulling him with me.
He lands half on top of me, bracing his weight on one arm, and the kiss doesn’t stop, doesn’t falter.
His hips press into mine, the hard line of his cock grinding against me through denim, and my groan breaks open against his mouth.
“This—” I choke out between kisses. “This might be a mistake.”
He pulls back to look at me, eyes dark and steady. “Then it’s mine too.”
And that’s it. That’s all I need.