Chapter 21
Colette
It wasn’t even the ringtone — just that horrible, insistent vzzzzt, like the sound of a zipper being torn open in the dark, exposing a truth nobody was ready to see.
I felt it in him before he even moved. The way his body went still. The way his arms loosened around me like he was worried he was holding on too tight to something that didn’t belong to him.
I rolled onto my back slowly, glimpsing the phone in his hand.
PAGES DUE
The calendar notification blinked across the screen like a reminder: Silas Reed, beloved author, 51 years old, proper adult with a real life you know nothing about.
Reality slapped me so hard I nearly laughed.
“Everything alright??” I asked lightly, tucking the tangled hair behind my ear in a way I hoped looked casual.
Like I wasn’t suddenly too aware of the fact that I was lying under a blanket with a man I barely knew — a man with a mortgage, and probably cholesterol medicine, and a body that still felt like a damn miracle against mine.
Silas ran a hand down his face, the other still clutching that rectangle of intrusion. “Deadlines.” His voice was rough, like he’d scraped it off the bottom of a well. “Not that I can send anything out, though.”
“Oh.” I nodded, but what I meant was: Oh. Right. Writers don’t stay in snowed-in cabins with messy, pink-haired near-strangers forever.
There was a silence, thick and awful, like steam gone cold.
We both felt it.
I pulled the blanket closer, suddenly shy. I tried to swallow the rush of something stupid and hopeful and sixteen-year-old-crush pitiful.
The phone rang again. “You’ve got pages due,” I said, avoiding his gaze like the plague. “Don’t let me keep you. Go write.”
He didn’t. He just watched me, gaze unreadable, thumb hovering over the screen like a trigger.
“I know I do,” he finally said. “But I don’t want to. Not yet.”
His voice was quiet, but the weight of it pressed heavy into my ribs — a pressure that felt like more, and too much, all at once.
So why did I still feel like I was already on the outside of something warm?
And worse — why did I already miss the way his arms felt around me, like they were allowed to be there?
The phone buzzed a third time. Same reminder. Same reality.
This time, Silas didn’t hesitate.
He sighed — not annoyed, not angry, just… resigned — and swiped the notification away. Silas huffed a short laugh, eyes still somewhere far away.
“Are you gonna survive?” I tried joking.
It didn’t help
“Barely,” he murmured. “But I’ll deal with all of it after… this.”
The word hung between us — unboxed, undefined.
This.
What was this? Warmth? Escape? A mistake waiting to happen?
I didn’t know. But when his hand finally slid back to my waist, fingers curling there like they’d earned the right, I let myself melt into it.
Just a little longer, I told myself.
Just one more fire lit morning.
It was almost too quiet after the call. A quiet that made every little movement feel loud, intentional. So I slipped out of the blankets as softly as I could and forced myself upright — legs wobbly, heart stubbornly tethered to the space I’d been occupying against his chest.
“Where are you going?” His voice was still sleep-rough even after the phone call, face pressed back into the pillow, hair rumpled in a way that made something flutter through me.
“To make breakfast,” I said, tugging the borrowed sweater down over my thighs as I stood. “Or try. Can’t promise Michelin star dining under these conditions. But I make a mean dead phone battery omelet.”
A smug grunt. Then, “You don’t have to.”
“I know,” I said, already rummaging through the bags by the kitchen counter. “But my coping mechanism hasn’t updated since 2004, so anxiety equals scrambled eggs.”
When I glanced back, he was partially upright now — blanket shoved off his hips, bare chest sheened golden in the low flicker of firelight. He dragged a hand over his jaw, eyes lazily tracking me while pretending not to.
Then, like gravity had simply changed its mind, he stood.
And followed.
By the time I cracked the first egg into the bowl, he was behind me, close enough that the heat from his body ghosted over my back. His voice, quiet and amused, curled around my ear:
“You know,” he said, “if you were looking for an excuse to stand around half-dressed in my kitchen, you didn’t need to involve poultry.”
I turned, whisk still in hand, feeling the flush creep up my neck. “You’re one to talk. You’ve been smirking at me like you’re about to write me into a scandalous scene.”
“I’ve never written anything as scandalous as you, Colette,” he murmured.
And just when I was about to say something — anything — his hands found my hips, fingers sliding under the hem of the sweater like he was seconds away from claiming a stake on me.
“You’re trying to distract yourself,” he said roughly.
“From what?” I grinned, tugging his hand just a little higher, “We need to eat. I’m also an excellent breakfast date.”
He leaned down, lips brushing somewhere dangerously near the shell of my ear. “And what,” he murmured, “does an excellent breakfast date do when the host is still… tense from the night before?”
I swallowed.
And stirred the eggs.
“Depends,” I said. “Are we talking… emotional tension, or are we back to the kind where you can’t look me in the eye without remembering exactly how good I felt on your lap?”
His soft groan was answer enough.
He didn’t answer with words — he didn’t need to. The shift in his body was enough: the lean in, the breath that hitched just a little too loud, the hands that splayed with careful intention across my hips.
My pulse skittered. I wasn’t sure I’d remembered to breathe.
“You’re trouble,” he murmured against my neck, voice low in a way that sent sparks dancing up my spine.
“You’re the one standing bare-chested in a cabin with no power and a girl half your age wearing nothing under your sweater,” I countered, smirking — but my voice cracked slightly in the middle, and I hated how easily he noticed.
His fingers slipped around my waist, pulling me just a little closer, pressing the line of his body against mine in a way that asked questions with more weight than words. As he shifted, I felt the hard length of his shaft pressed against me.
“Oh,” he said, voice velvet and ruin, “I’ve noticed.” A slow grin. A little twitch. “Believe me, Colette. I’ve noticed everything about you.”
My breath hitched as the whisk clattered uselessly into the bowl.
He shoved the bowl aside without a second thought. One of his hands slipped from my waist to cup me through my underwear, the moan in his throat deepening. “Damn it, Colette.” He ran his finger against the seam of my panties, releasing some type of growl-laugh at how… enthusiastic I already was.
“Tell me when to stop,” he murmured.
The words punched through me like fire and ice. I swallowed, heat licking through every inch of my skin. “You’ll know,” I whispered.
His answering exhale was nearly a growl — hands sliding up my sides, bunching the hem of his sweater in his fists as if he’d been holding himself back for far too long, and maybe — just maybe, he was out of restraint to give.
That was when the egg timer dinged.
Both of us froze.
A beat. Two.
Then his head dropped against my shoulder blade, a deep laugh raking through his chest as he groaned, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I was laughing too, breathless and burning and already pressing my hips backwards into him. “Breakfast can wait.”
But the way he looked at me — like I was a hurricane in bare legs and borrowed wool — told me he was done waiting.
And maybe, just maybe… so was I.