33. Chapter 33
I wake up fully expecting the tension to carry over from the night before, what I don’t expect is normalcy.
Well, not normal-normal—no domestic bliss or morning birdsong—but something far quieter and almost intentional. Normal like the scent of breakfast in the morning drifting through a home.
I blink into the dim light filtering through the windows and sit up slowly, sheets sliding down my shoulders to pool at my bare waist. My body aches in that familiar way it always does after you’ve been thoroughly destroyed.
I dress quickly, tugging on one of my shirts and jeans, then follow the sound of movement in the main room to find Alex standing at the stove.
He’s wearing a black tee, dark hair slightly mussed from where I had spent the better part of the night running my hands through it as he thoroughly picked me apart.
Over and over again. Enough times that I can no longer deny that I just…
well, I’m not entirely fond of the idea of leaving him all that much anymore.
It’s all just so… weird.
Neither of us exchange words, and I’m not entirely sure why on his part.
Usually, he is barbing to figure out a way to thoroughly dismantle me.
I’m not talking because I’m afraid if I open my mouth I’m going to say something stupid like I’m not as angry at him anymore.
That some part of me—some really fucked up part—likes his attention.
Likes how much he pours into me.
We sit down at the small table by the window, the plates situated between us as they had been at dinner before.
The food is good and that adds to the dissonance somehow.
This man kidnapped me, held me captive, pinned me to walls with his body and his will…
and now he’s sitting across from me like this is some warped reality. And I’m falling for it.
“I don’t understand how we got here,” I whisper finally, breaking the silence.
“Which part? Before or after you attacked me with a crowbar.”
“I meant after that.”
“The part where we fucked the first time or the two consecutive times after that?” He hums, entirely serious.
“Yes,” I mutter. “That part.”
“Does it even matter anymore, Sadie? Why we do what we do?”
Oh, so he’s the frustrated one now?
“Isn’t that your whole thing? You frame everything like data so that you can understand it. So what, why is that now out the window? It wasn’t sex, because we’ve done that plenty by now.” I snipe.
“It was efficient before, and now it’s not. It’s as simple as that.” He grinds back.
“It’s exhausting,” I counter.
He nods, relaxing back into his seat and doing that thing where his fingers drum off the table while he thinks. Searching for something, like he’s recalibrating in real time.
“I’m not very good at this,” he admits abruptly.
“At what?”
“This,” he gestures vaguely at the table, the food, the space between us. “Whatever this is meant to be.”
My eyes narrow on him, because this bastard drags me into the woods and now he doesn’t know what’s happening?
The man who thinks he knows it all is suddenly up shit creek without a paddle?
I scoff, but I force myself to study the tiny unraveling of himself.
His pristine outer shell and the mask he wears slipping in a way that he can’t control.
And it hits me then, so sharply that it startles a laugh from my chest.
“I think you don’t even know what you want from me anymore,” I say finally.
He of course has an immediate counter. “I want you to stop trying to escape yourself.”
“That’s rich, coming from you.”
“I’m not asking you to forgive me or to understand me. I’m asking you to stay present.” He murmurs.
“With the man who kidnapped me.” I retort blandly.
“Yes.”
I groan, dragging my hands down my face. “You really don’t hear how insane that sounds.”
“I hear it, but I’m choosing not to prioritize it.”
And there it is. The bright, ugly truth. Clean and unapologetic. One that no matter how hard I fight, I can’t get away from, because he’s buried into me. So deep that I have no clue where he begins and I end anymore.
So I deflate a bit.
“I don’t hate you,” I mutter. “And that scares the hell out of me.”
“It shouldn’t. Hatred would be simpler to figure out though.”
“I’m not looking for simple.”
“Neither am I,” he sighs.
We sit here, this tension humming between us that isn’t sexual this time. Something far quieter and more dangerous. Connection.
I push my plate to the side. “This doesn’t mean I’m okay with everything you’ve done.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to be.”
“And it doesn’t mean I won’t try to leave again.” I lie.
His lips curve, knowing. “I would be disappointed if you didn’t consider it.”
I sigh, dragging my hands to clasp them behind my head, cupping it as I hold his gaze. “So, what happens now?”
He rises this time and I watch him as he crosses around the table, placing his hand on the table beside me without actually touching me.
“Now we don’t do anything reckless.”
I snort. “That ship may have sailed.”
“Not like that,” he muses. “The next time we sleep together, it will be because you came to me.”
My brows furrow as he says that, but he’s not done.
“Not in anger or fear, nor reaction. But because you want to.”
“And if I never do?” Another lie wrapped inside of a simple question.
“Then we don’t.”
I purse my lips and nod, resting back in my chair as I look up to him.
“You’re playing a very dangerous game, Alexander.” I tease softly.
His mouth lilts, just barely. “You started it with the crowbar.”
“That’s debatable,” I snort despite myself.
We stand there for a long moment, neither of us crossing the line he’s so clearly drawn in the sand. And when he finally steps back, giving me space, it feels more intimate than anything else we’ve done.
I don’t follow him as he walks away, but I don’t run either.
And maybe that’s okay.