His chin dips sli #3
He steps closer. Slow. Measured. Controlled. Barely. The room feels smaller with every inch he closes between us. “A part of me died tonight.” The words land like a weight dropped into my chest. No drama. No raised voice. No performance.
Just truth.
I stop breathing for a second. “What?”
His gaze doesn’t leave mine. “I saw you on the ground again.”
My throat tightens painfully. Again. The first night. The street. The van. My body limp in his arms. Tonight, the alley. The pavement. My head hitting hard enough that even Eli heard it.
He looks past me for half a second, like he’s seeing it instead of the room. Then back. “I saw you on the ground,” he repeats, lower now. “And I thought I was too late.”
My hand lifts to his chest without me meaning to. “I’m here.”
“I know.” But the words don’t help him. I see that. Maybe they can’t.
He steps closer again, close enough now that I have to tilt my head to keep looking at him. “I wouldn’t survive losing you.” No elaboration. No explanation.
Just fact.
And that breaks something in me. Not because it’s romantic in some soft, pretty way. It isn’t. It’s too raw for that. Too brutal.
This is a man who doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean. A man who keeps words locked down until they come out like verdicts. And he just told me that losing me would destroy something in him he doesn’t think would come back.
I don’t know what to do with that. So I don’t try to do too much.
I don’t argue. Don’t tell him he’s being intense.
Don’t tell him that we’ve known each other for no time at all, because time has felt irrelevant since the second I woke up with his voice cutting through the dark. I just nod. “I know.”
His gaze sharpens. Like that wasn’t the response he expected.
I take a breath. “You were right.”
His body goes still.
I hate the words. I hate giving them to him because part of me is still angry that he was right, angry that the world proved him right, angry that my attempt at normal became exactly what he warned me about.
But truth matters. So I give it anyway. “You told me not to leave without you,” I say, voice quieter now.
“And I did.” His jaw works. “I thought I was making a smart choice. I thought I was getting out of the crowd so I could text you. I wasn’t trying to be reckless. ”
“I know.”
That makes my eyes sting. Because he believes that. He knows the difference. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
The room goes quiet. Not empty. Full.
His expression doesn’t change much, but something in his eyes shifts.
Heat and anger and fear and something else, something that has been growing between us since the first time I woke up and found him standing like a wall between me and the world.
He lifts one hand slowly. Gives me time.
Enough that I know I can step away if I need to.
I don’t.
His fingers touch my chin, tipping my face up fully. “You’ll learn to listen.” The words slide through me. They should sound like a threat. They don’t. They sound like certainty. Like warning. Like promise. Like something hot layered beneath all that control.
My breath catches. “Cobra…”
His thumb moves once along my jaw. Barely. Enough. “Not because you’re weak,” he says, voice low and rough. “Not because I need you quiet. Because when I say move, it means something’s coming. When I say stay close, it’s because I already see what you don’t. You don’t have to like it.”
I swallow. “You just expect me to obey?”
His eyes darken. “I expect you to live.” That shuts me up.
Completely. Because there’s no arrogance in it.
No male pride. No attempt to win. Just fear.
Buried under control. Disguised as command.
He moves closer until the heat of him brushes the front of me, until my hands have nowhere to go except against his chest or at my sides.
I choose his chest. His heart beats hard beneath my palm, steady but not calm.
Not even close. “You scared me,” he says again, softer this time.
That does more damage than the first time. “I know,” I whisper.
His head lowers slightly. Not kissing me. Not yet. Just close. “Don’t do it again.”
I should bristle. Should argue. Should remind him I can’t promise life won’t happen around me. Instead, I nod. “I won’t leave without telling you again.”
His eyes hold mine. “That’s not enough.”
“It’s what I can promise.”
Something like approval flickers through his gaze. Small. Sharp. There and gone. “Okay,” he says. The word moves through me like touch.
I exhale slowly, and the sound comes out softer than I mean it to.
His mouth shifts, barely. Not a smile. But close enough to feel dangerous. Then his arms come around me. Not lifting. Not taking. Holding.
I go into him because I want to, because my body knows the shape of his before my mind finishes asking whether it should. My forehead rests against his chest, right over the heartbeat still pounding too hard beneath my ear.
He doesn’t tell me everything is okay. He doesn’t lie. He just holds me. And for once, I let the silence stay. Because the truth is already in the room with us.
He was right.
I was scared.
He was scared too.
And somehow, after all of it, I’m still here.
In his room. In his arms.
Choosing not to leave.