Chapter 14
CARTER
The hallway is dark and quiet, the house settling into that deep-night stillness where every creak sounds like a gunshot.
I’ve got my phone flashlight on low, angled down at the notebook balanced on my knee, and I’ve been sitting here for…
hell, I don’t even know how long. Enough that my ass is numb against the hardwood floor and that I’ve scratched out the same line four times.
She tastes like—
No. Delete.
When she laughs, I—
Garbage. Cross it out.
I drag my hand through my hair and exhale slowly. This is pathetic. I’m a grown man sitting outside a woman’s bedroom door at two in the morning, trying to write poetry like some lovesick teenager. Kai would laugh his ass off if he could see me now.
I’ve never been good at saying the important things out loud.
Words get stuck somewhere between my chest and my throat, tangled up with all the jokes I use to keep people from looking too close.
But on paper, maybe I can be honest. I can tell her what she does to me without tripping over my own tongue or deflecting into humor.
I read what I’ve got so far, and it’s not enough.
It’s never enough. How do you capture the way someone rewires your whole damn brain just by existing?
How do you explain that you’ve spent years feeling like you’re running on fumes, and then this woman shows up and suddenly you remember what it feels like to want something?
I scratch out another line.
The soft creak comes from behind me.
I freeze.
June’s door eases open, and she steps out in a thin sleep shirt and shorts, hair mussed, eyes half closed. She’s clearly aiming for the kitchen, moving on autopilot, and she doesn’t see me until her bare foot connects with my outstretched leg.
She squeals and grabs the doorframe to catch herself. I lunge up instinctively, hands hovering near her arms, terrified I’ve somehow hurt her.
“Shit—are you okay? Did you hit anything? June—”
“Oh my God.” She’s clutching her chest, breathing hard, blinking down at me like I’m a hallucination. “Carter. You scared me to death.”
“Sorry, sorry—” I keep my voice low, mindful of Seth and Kai sleeping down the hall. “I didn’t mean to. Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.” She laughs, shaky and breathless. “Just… what are you doing out here?”
Good question. Excellent question. One I don’t have a good answer for.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I say, which is technically true. “And I figured, if you were in pain again, I’d be here if you needed help.”
She stares at me with these heartfelt eyes. “Thank you, that’s so sweet.” Then her gaze drops to the notebook in my hand. The pen. The scratched-out lines are visible even in the dim glow of my phone light.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
She’s waking up now, curiosity replacing the sleepy fog.
A smile tugs at her lips. “Is that… Are you writing a poem?” She says it like an accusation, delighted and teasing.
“You’re writing poetry outside my door in the middle of the night.
Do you know how romantic that is?” She grins, and it tugs at my heart.
She’s already leaning closer, trying to get a better look, and her scent hits me like a wave. Lemon zest and honey and wildflowers, stronger than usual, wrapping around me until I can barely think straight.
“Did you write something for me?” Her voice drops softer, the tease gone. There is something unguarded behind her eyes, like she forgot to lock the door on it.
I crouch back down in the dark hallway outside her bedroom with the notebook in my hand, feeling ridiculous for even having it out. I glance toward her door, then back to the floor.
“I’ll be here,” I say, careful. “If you need me.” I mean it as an escape hatch for her, a way to let her step back without making it a thing. I mean it for me too.
I don’t add anything else or try to joke it away. The silence takes over.
June doesn’t move.
“Can I read it?”
“It’s not finished. It’s crap, honestly. I was just messing around.”
“I was going to get water,” she says, quietly.
I wait for her to head down the hallway. Instead, she lowers herself to the floor beside me.
Not across from me. Not safely distant. Beside me, close enough that if I moved, our shoulders would touch.
My chest pulls tight, and I keep my eyes forward because I don’t trust what my face will do if I look at her too long.
“But now,” she adds, settling in like she belongs here, “I want the poem more.”
The hallway seems to narrow. The air feels different. Not loud, not dramatic, just… charged, like the house noticed we stopped running from each other.
Her bare knee is a few inches from my thigh. I can make out the freckles across her nose even in the dim light. Her lashes shadow her cheeks.
“It’s really not good,” I say.
“Let me decide that.”
I swallow, and slowly I angle the notebook toward her and hold up my phone so she can see.
The poem is short so far. A blank space where I couldn’t find the right words. It isn’t clever or polished. It’s just the truth I couldn’t say out loud.
You make the quiet louder—the kind I used to drown out.
Now I want to sit in it, if you are sitting there too.
June reads it once. Then again, slower. Her lips move with the words like she’s trying them on, like she wants to know how they feel.
When she glances up, something in her has shifted. Softer. Open. Like she made a decision and it scared her a little.
“Carter,” she whispers.
“I told you it was crap.”
“It’s not.” Her voice catches on the last word. “This is how you see me?”
I shrug because I can’t do anything else with my hands except hold on tighter. I can’t hold her, so I grasp the notebook.
“It’s just words,” I say, even though we both know that’s not true.
“No.” She shakes her head, small and certain. “No, this is you. You see me.”
And she stays there beside me in the dark, like she’s saying it back without needing to.
“Look at me,” I say.
June’s eyes lock on mine like she’s been waiting for permission to stop pretending she isn’t burning up. There’s no timid hesitation in her. No backing away. Just that sharp, bright need that makes my pulse jump hard in my throat.
A beat of silence. Not uncertainty. Decision.
I reach for her.
Not gentle. Not careful in the way that keeps space between us.
I catch her by the waist and pull her in close, dragging her into my body like the distance has been the problem all along.
She comes willingly, knee sliding in, breath catching, and the moment her weight shifts toward me, it feels like something in the room finally clicks into place.
My mouth finds hers.
This is the kind of kiss that makes the air disappear, like the hallway has been sealed shut and all that exists is her mouth and mine and the sound she makes when I take it deeper.
Her hands grab at my shoulders, then my hair, and then the front of my shirt like she is trying to pull me closer than physics allows.
She kisses me back greedily, as if I am the only thing that tastes like relief.
I tilt my head and keep going, slowing down only long enough to make her feel it, to make her chase it.
Her lips part, her breath turns uneven, and she makes this soft, wrecked sound right into my mouth that shoots straight through my spine and down to my cock.
I slide my hand up her back, firm, anchoring, not letting her drift away from me even by an inch.
The phone light throws shadows across her cheekbones, across the curve of her mouth, and I swear I could kiss her forever and still not get enough.
She shifts again, restless, impatient with the hallway floor and the way we are positioned.
Her thigh slides over mine, then her other leg follows, and suddenly she is moving onto me like it’s the most natural decision she has ever made.
She straddles me there in the dark, close and warm, breath shaking, mouth still on mine like she refuses to let the connection break for even a second.
I groan against her lips. My hands find her hips, then lower to her ass, holding her there with a grip that makes it clear I am not letting her go. She rolls her body forward even more, needy, and I can’t get enough. This is her, unapologetic, losing control in a way that feels like a gift.
I break the kiss only to drag my mouth along her jaw, to the corner of her lips again, then back to her mouth, because I can’t decide where I want her most. She tips her head, giving me access like she knows exactly what she’s doing, and when I return to her mouth, it’s deeper, slower, the kind of kiss that ruins your ability to pretend this is nothing.
Her fingers curl at the back of my neck like she’s holding me in place, claiming her turn.
“Carter,” she breathes, not a warning, not a plea. Just my name.
“I’m right here,” I murmur, and I kiss her again, swallowing whatever she was about to say.
She rocks against me, impatient, and I tighten my hands on her hips to steady her. Not to stop her. To keep her with me. To keep her exactly where I want her. Her forehead drops to mine for half a second, her eyes half lidded, mouth swollen from the kiss.
“I’m stunned that you can do this to me,” she whispers, like she’s accusing me of a crime she is happy to be guilty of.
I brush my mouth over hers, barely there, a cruel little touch that makes her chase it.
“I’m not doing anything,” I say quietly. “You came to me.”
Her smile is all heat, all challenge.
“Then keep up,” she adds. And she kisses me again, harder, like she has decided she’s done waiting.
I let her set the pace for a few breaths, just to watch her take what she wants.
Then I take it back, because she wanted confidence, and I have plenty of it.
I slide one hand up to cradle the back of her head, guiding her mouth where I want it, holding her there while the kiss turns into something that feels too big for the space we’re in.