Chapter Fifteen - Eden
The hours after it happen feel unreal—like I walked out of myself and left some shaken, breathless version behind in that elevator. I scrub my hands over my face. I pace the living room. I replay every second and try—really try—to reshape it into something that makes sense.
It meant nothing. It had to mean nothing.
He cornered me. He manipulated the moment. He confused me with adrenaline and tension and that impossible stare of his. Anyone would’ve cracked under that kind of pressure. Anyone would’ve slipped.
The problem is… I remember too much. His mouth. His hands. The way he touched me like I was a question he needed to solve with his fingers. The way my body reacted before my mind caught up.
I keep trying to swallow the guilt, the panic, the heat curling traitorously in my stomach, but the memory won’t fade. It sits under my skin, pulsing.
By the time he approaches me again—hours later, just as the city’s glow bleeds into the apartment windows—I’m already a mess inside.
He doesn’t crowd me. He doesn’t touch me. He just stands in the doorway of the living room, arms loose at his sides, gaze steady. Waiting.
The worst part is how my body reacts before anything else. A shiver, and a catch in my breath. Every instinct I have warns me to step back.
So I do.
He notices; of course he does. His eyes track every retreating inch of me.
“Running?” he asks quietly.
“No,” I say, except my voice isn’t convincing.
He steps closer, slow enough that I could move away again if I wanted to. Slow enough that I hate how my heartbeat jumps.
“Eden,” he says, and the sound of my name in his voice goes straight through me. “If you didn’t want last night, you would’ve stopped me.”
“I should’ve,” I whisper.
“But you didn’t.”
He’s right. God, I hate that he’s right.
I wrap my arms around myself. “It didn’t mean anything.”
His head tilts slightly—just enough to make something hot curl low in my stomach. “Then why are you shaking?”
“I’m not—”
Except I am. A tremor runs down my spine as if my body remembers him too clearly, too intimately, and refuses to let go.
Simon moves closer until the heat from him brushes my skin. “Look at me.”
I do, and it’s a mistake. The tension between us snaps the instant our eyes meet.
He raises a hand slowly, giving me every chance to pull away. His fingers trace my cheek, light as a whisper. The touch sets off a tremble in me I can’t hide. My lips part on instinct—shock, breathlessness, want—and his thumb brushes the corner of my mouth.
“I manipulated a lot of things,” he murmurs. “Not that.”
I open my mouth to argue, but nothing comes out. My body betrays me in tiny ways—the way I lean into his touch, the way my breath catches, the way my knees soften when his hand slides behind my neck.
He doesn’t pull me in; he just waits.
“You shouldn’t have this effect on me,” I whisper.
“Then tell me to stop.”
I can’t. I could lie to myself for hours, but here—with him so close, with his breath brushing my skin—I can’t make the words form.
I know he feels it. The way something in me shifts, loosens, cracks.
His hand slides down to my waist, warm and firm, fingertips pressing just enough to ground me. My breath falters. My pulse races.
“Eden,” he says softly, “I’m not going to take what you don’t give.”
The air leaves my lungs in one shaky exhale.
Then I move.
I grab the front of his shirt and pull him to me. The kiss hits hard—messy, hungry, desperate in a way that steals both our breath. His hands tighten around my hips, dragging me flush against him. I feel every inch of him, every intention, every sharp shift in his breathing.
His mouth claims mine with the same intensity as the night before, but this time I’m the one losing control.
My fingers slide into his hair. My body arches into his.
Heat floods me as his hand slips under my shirt, palm flattening against my stomach before moving upward in one slow, devastating stroke.
“Eden,” he murmurs against my lips.”
The moment unravels fast—my shirt lifting, his mouth trailing down my neck, my breath breaking in small, needy sounds I never knew I could make. His hands memorize me—slow at first, then firmer, hungrier, like he’s mapping every inch of my skin.
“You’re scared,” he whispers, kissing the edge of my jaw.
“Yes,” I breathe.
“You still want this.” His mouth brushes my collarbone. “You still want me.”
A soft, helpless sound escapes me—confirmation, confession, surrender all wrapped together. I grip his shoulders and pull him closer, burying the last of my hesitation in the warmth of his body.
Once I move, once I give in, there’s no gentleness left.
His hands grip my thighs and pull me into his lap as he sinks onto the couch.
It’s my legs tightening around him, my head falling back as his mouth drags fire along my throat.
It’s the way he groans into my skin when I roll my hips, the way his hands explore—firm, certain, claiming without trapping.
“You’re shaking again,” he mutters against my breast as his mouth closes over me.
His hands slide down my hips, guiding me, gripping me, pulling me against him with a rhythm that steals my breath. I cling to him, nails dragging down his back as pleasure builds sharp and fast, coiling in my stomach, tightening with each movement.
“I shouldn’t want this,” I gasp.
“But you do,” he says, lifting his head to look at me—really look at me—while his hands move with deliberate, devastating precision. “You want this so badly your whole body’s begging.”
His words break something inside me. I fall into him, into the heat, into the way he touches me like he already knows exactly how I come apart. My climax hits fast, rough, ripping through me in a tremor that shakes my whole body.
When it’s over, I collapse against him—boneless, breathless, undone. His arms come around me automatically, steadying me. Holding me.
When I finally pull back, my legs wobble. I straighten my shirt with shaky hands, avoiding his eyes.
Simon watches me in unnerving silence. His gaze is softer than I’ve ever seen it—warm, reverent almost. It makes my stomach twist.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I whisper.
“Like what?”
“Like you… care.”
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t deny it.
***
Two weeks pass.
Two weeks of me trying to convince myself nothing changed. Two weeks of tension thick enough to choke on. Two weeks of ignoring how my body aches with something new, something slow and deep and wrong.
Then the nausea hits out of nowhere: sharp, sudden, rolling through me until I have to grip the sink with both hands.
I breathe through it, waiting for it to pass. It doesn’t.
A different kind of fear slides cold through my veins.
I sit down slowly. My hands won’t stop shaking.
My chest tightens. Reality shifts under my feet like the beginning of an earthquake.
I whisper into the empty room—just two small, broken words that crack the air: “Oh God.”
I think I might be pregnant.