Chapter 20
REMINGTON
Dawn came through the windows like something that hadn't decided what color it wanted to be yet. Grey. Silver. The faintest suggestion of gold at the edges, Paris waking up in stages the way Paris did everything—without rushing, without apology, on its own schedule.
Chelsea was still talking.
That was the thing I kept coming back to.
Not the sex—though the sex had rearranged something in me that I was still mapping.
Not the way she'd shown up at my door after I'd ruined the evening, which was its own kind of courage I hadn't earned and intended to deserve.
The talking. The hours of it, unhurried, winding through the territory between two people who were simply saying what was there.
She'd told me about her parents' house. Coats on the floor. Good china. A home that was used. I'd heard the ache underneath—not for the objects but for the philosophy they represented. A life where things were touched and worn and allowed to show the evidence of being loved.
I'd told her about the record room. My father's chair. The hours I'd spent there learning that stillness wasn't emptiness—that you could sit inside a feeling without naming it and the feeling wouldn't leave just because you didn't chase it.
She'd said something about books being the place she'd gone after the accident.
The private interior life she'd built while the exterior one was being arranged by someone who loved her and didn't know what else to do.
And I'd heard, underneath the words, a childhood that mirrored mine—two kids raised inside money that loved them and couldn't reach them, building secret rooms inside themselves where the real living happened.
My hand was at the back of her neck. Had been for a while.
The weight of her hair against my fingers, the warmth of her skin, the steady pulse I could feel if I pressed gently enough.
She'd stopped talking a few minutes ago—not because the conversation was finished but because it had reached the place where words became optional and presence was enough.
"I should tell you something," I said.
She shifted. Looked at me. The grey light catching her eyes, making them lighter than they'd been in the dark.
"That sounds serious."
"It's not." I paused. "It might be."
She waited. The patience she had—the willingness to let a sentence arrive at its own speed—was something I'd never encountered in a woman I'd been in bed with.
The women before her had filled silences automatically, because the empty space made them uncomfortable.
Chelsea let the space exist and trusted it to produce something worth hearing.
"Last night was different," I said. "For me. I need you to know that isn't a line."
"I know it isn't."
"How?"
"Because the man who uses lines wouldn't need to clarify that he isn't using one."
"The women from the restaurant," I said. "The life they represent. That's real. I'm not going to pretend it wasn't."
"I'm not asking you to."
"But it's done." Simply. The way simple things deserved to be said—without scaffolding, without emphasis. Just the fact. "Whatever I was doing before I walked into that flower shop—the hotels, the models, the nights that didn't cost me anything because I never let them—that's done."
She was quiet. Not deciding whether to believe me. Sitting with what it meant.
"You don't have to declare that," she said. "You can just do it."
"I know. But I wanted you to hear me say it.
" I looked at the ceiling. The light was changing—warmer now, the gold winning its argument with the grey.
"I've spent too many years being a version of myself designed to keep people at a distance.
Charming enough to attract, careful enough to never let anyone close enough to see what was underneath.
It worked. It was efficient. And it was—"
I stopped.
"Lonely," she said.
"Yeah."
She moved closer. Her hand found my chest. Palm flat, over the place where my heart was doing something steadier than it had any right to be.
"I see what's underneath," she said. "I've seen it since the flower shop. And I'm still here."
I looked at her.
The light had reached her face. The gold in it, the warmth. She was beautiful—I'd known that since the first night. But beautiful wasn't the right word anymore. Beautiful was a category. A shelf.
Chelsea wasn't on a shelf. She was in the room. In the bed. In the conversation. In the quiet, terrifying, unmapped space where two people stopped being careful and started being real.
She was in me.
"Come here," I said.
She did. Not because I'd asked. Because she wanted to.
Chelsea shifted closer, the sheet sliding down her shoulder as her hand moved across my chest—deliberate, unhurried, the way she did everything when she'd decided something mattered.
Her palm was warm. Her fingers traced the line of my collarbone, then lower, following the ridge of muscle down the centre of my torso like she was learning the map of me by touch.
I stayed still.
That was new. I'd always been the one who directed—setting pace, choosing angle, guiding the night so it never slipped out of my control. Today the control wasn't mine to keep, and the strangest part was how little I minded.
She kissed me first.
Slow. Deep. Her mouth opening against mine with the same quiet confidence she'd shown walking into the suite after I'd ruined dinner. No hesitation. Just want—honest, unfiltered, the kind that didn't need choreography to be clear.
I let her lead.
Her tongue slid against mine and I tasted the night on her—sleep, the faint trace of wine, and something underneath that was only Chelsea. My hands stayed at her waist. Holding. Feeling the warmth of her skin, the way her breathing had already changed.
She pushed gently at my shoulder. I rolled onto my back without resistance, pulling her with me so she straddled my hips.
The sheet pooled around her waist. Her hair fell forward, brushing my chest, and the sight of her above me—flushed, eyes dark, the first light of dawn catching the curve of her breasts—hit me somewhere below the ribs and stayed.
She leaned down and kissed me again, slower this time, her body settling against mine.
I felt the heat of her against my cock, already hard and aching, but she didn't rush.
She rocked gently, sliding along my length without taking me inside, letting the friction build until I had to grip her hips to keep from thrusting up.
"Stay with me," she whispered against my mouth.
"I'm here," I said. Raw. Honest. The most honest thing I'd ever said during sex.
She reached between us, wrapped her hand around me, and guided me to her entrance. Then she sank down—slow, deliberate, taking every inch until I was buried inside her and we both exhaled at the same time.
Not just the heat. Not just the tight, perfect grip of her. The presence. The way she was looking at me—eyes open, unflinching, seeing me while I was inside her. No mask. Just us.
She started to move.
Rolling her hips in a slow, grinding rhythm. Her hands braced on my chest. Her hair fell around us. The dawn light turning gold, painting her skin warm, and I watched her face—every flutter of her lashes, every parted breath, every sound she couldn't hold back.
I let her set the pace.
My hands on her hips. Feeling the way her body moved, the subtle shifts when she found an angle she liked, the way she tightened around me when the pleasure built.
She was on top of me and for the first time in my life I wasn't performing.
I wasn't three steps ahead. I was here. Feeling every second of her.
She leaned down, forehead against mine, and kissed me—messy, breathless, the kind of kiss that happened when words weren't enough. I slid one hand up her back, into her hair, holding her there while she rode me slow and deep.
The pleasure built differently this time.
Not the sharp spike I was used to. Something slower, deeper, rolling through me like a wave that had no intention of breaking quickly.
I felt her tightening around me, her breath catching, and when she came it was with a soft, broken sound against my mouth—her body shuddering, pulsing around my cock, pulling me deeper.
I didn't follow her over.
I stayed with her through it, hips rolling up to meet her, drawing it out until she was trembling and saying my name like it was the only word left.
Then I rolled us.
Not to take control. To get closer.
I settled between her thighs, staying inside her, and kissed her—slow, deep, the kind that said everything the words hadn't.
Her legs wrapped around my waist. Her arms around my neck.
We moved together—slow, grinding thrusts that kept us pressed chest to chest, forehead to forehead, breathing the same air.
The way her nipples brushed my chest with every roll of my hips. The heat of her skin. Her fingers digging into my shoulders when I hit the spot that made her gasp. Her breath hitching when I ground against her just right.
I wasn't fucking her.
I was with her.
Present in a way I'd never been with anyone.
When the pleasure started to crest I didn't fight it. Let it build—deep, rolling, inevitable. Her nails scraped down my back. Her legs tightened. She whispered my name against my mouth and I felt her come again—tight, pulsing, pulling me over with her.
I buried myself deep and came hard, spilling inside her in long, shuddering waves, my forehead pressed to hers, her name on my lips.
We stayed like that for a long time.
Still joined. Breathing together. The dawn light fully gold now, painting the room warm. Paris waking below—distant sounds filtering through the windows like a reminder that the world still existed.
I kissed her forehead. Her closed eyes. The hollow of her throat where her pulse was still running. Then I rolled us onto our sides, still inside her, and pulled the sheet over us.
She tucked her face against my neck. Her hand rested over my heart.
I looked at the ceiling and thought about my father.
The record room. The chair. The hours I'd spent pretending I was in my own private world, my father a ghost in the corner.
I understood something now that I hadn't then.
You could sit inside a feeling without naming it. You could let it stay. You could let it change you.
And for the first time in my adult life, I didn't want to leave the room.
I pressed my lips to her hair.
"I can't go back," I said.
She didn't ask what I meant.
She just held me tighter.
And that was answer enough.