Chapter 11 #3
I turned to him , heart thudding like it was trying to speak for me , but I didn’t know what it would say .
His eyes caught the starlight , and I swore they looked brighter than anything overhead .
“I think you were made just for me ,” he said , his voice so sure it scared me more than anything else in the world .
My breath caught . My heart stuttered and then thundered , slamming against my ribs like it wanted to leap right into his hands .
“ Easton …”
He didn’t give me time to say more . Maybe he knew I’d try to ruin it with logic or fear or something else that had nothing to do with him .
“ You’re my one , Natalie . I’ve always known it . And I won’t mess it up .”
I hadn’t said anything then .
But I’d never forgotten it .
Not his voice . Not that night . Not the way his hand held mine like it belonged there .
Not for a single heartbeat since .
I blinked, and I was back, and the memory shattered something in me.
I cried out, my release crashing over me like a dam finally giving way. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t sweet. It was raw and relentless, rolling through my body like it had been waiting years to escape.
He followed moments later with a strangled groan, his body stiffening as he thrust deep one final time. I felt the rush of him inside me, the heat, the way he muttered my name like a curse, like a prayer, like he’d never meant anything more in his life.
For a long beat, neither of us moved.
Thank fuck I was on birth control…because that was definitely a lot of cum dripping down my thighs. Holy hell.
We were still wrapped around each other, skin slick with sweat, breath coming in uneven pants. I trembled in his arms, the aftershocks pulsing through me as if my body were unwilling to let the moment go.
He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me up against his chest, his mouth finding my shoulder…soft, reverent kisses that stole the last bit of fight I had left.
“Still think this doesn’t mean anything?” he whispered, and this time, it wasn’t teasing. It was quiet. It was vulnerable. He kissed my shoulder again. And again. Like he could will the answer out of my skin.
I didn’t reply.
I couldn’t.
Because the truth was already unraveling inside me, slipping through the cracks in my denial like light through a broken window.
He pressed a kiss to my temple, then murmured almost to himself, “No one else could ever come close.”
The words didn’t register at first—just a quiet rumble in the haze of the afterglow.
But then my brain snagged on them, turning them over, examining them under a light that was far too bright.
I blinked. My stomach did a slow, swoopy somersault, one of those queasy-giddy-nauseous flips that only came when you were in serious, serious trouble. Emotionally compromised. Teetering on the edge of falling all the way back in.
I stared at the ceiling. Willed the words to leave me alone.
But then I did the worst thing imaginable.
I opened my mouth.
“So…” I said, my voice raspy.
He loosened his arms, enough for me to roll and face him. His green eyes were heavy-lidded but alert, his brows raised in anticipation.
“Yes, Natalie,” he said patiently, like he already knew I was about to be annoying.
I cleared my throat, trying for breezy. “I mean, it kind of just sounded like I’m…still number one on your list. Which—don’t get me wrong—isn’t surprising. I’m excellent. Like, if I were a Yelp review, I’d be five stars. With photos. And a waiting list.”
His mouth twitched.
“But,” I added quickly, “it’s maybe… slightly surprising.
I imagine all those Hollywood girls are pretty good in bed.
” The last part of the sentence came out in a whisper, barely audible over my mortification.
I stared at the wall behind him, pretending to be fascinated by a festive garland that was definitely not worth dying over.
His mouth did an amused smirking thing that I personally did not like, but which my lady parts did like. A lot.
Ugh.
“Hmm. I wouldn’t know,” he finally said.
I blinked again. “What does that mean?” I asked slowly, like maybe I’d misheard him. Like maybe the post-orgasmic fog had translated it all wrong.
He hesitated, his expression shifting. That teasing glint in his eye dimmed, replaced by something unreadable—guarded, but not cold. Something almost too sincere. He shook his head a second later, shrugging it off. “Forget it.”
Because clearly, he was messing with me. That had to be it. Right? It was just some flirty post-sex nonsense. A joke. A throwaway comment to keep the mood light.
Except…
“Okay,” I said, trying not to sound as thrown as I felt. “It kind of sounds like you’re trying to say you haven’t been with anyone else.” I rolled my eyes and added, “You can tell me the truth, you know. I’m a big girl. I can take it.”
There was a pause. A long one.
And then I noticed I’d closed my eyes, like I was bracing myself for a blow. Like I’d rather not see his face when he laughed and told me I was being ridiculous.
But the laugh never came.
Instead, there was silence. And more silence. Thick, tense, electric.
I opened my eyes.
And promptly forgot how to breathe.
Easton was staring at me. Really staring. His gaze pinned me like a butterfly beneath glass—open, raw, stripped of all the glossy charm I’d come to expect from him. There was no smirk. No smug grin. Just heat. And something else that terrified me more than all of it .
He reached up and gently tapped under my chin, nudging it closed. I hadn’t even realized my mouth had fallen open.
“I’m not joking,” he said, his voice rough…his words rasping against the quiet like sandpaper.
Time slowed.
No. Time stopped .
A thousand things crashed through me at once. Shock, obviously. But also disbelief, panic, confusion…and underneath all of that, a dangerous swell of longing that made my chest feel tight.
He meant it.
He hadn’t been with anyone else. Not since me.
My mouth went dry. My stomach twisted, and suddenly the room felt too small, like the walls were inching closer with every heartbeat.
I wanted to laugh, to toss out something biting and sarcastic, to pretend like none of this mattered. But I couldn’t find my voice. Because beneath all the heat still simmering in my body, beneath the walls I’d rebuilt over and over, something fragile cracked open.
Why would he do that? Why would he wait—hold on to this…whatever this was—for me ?
I swallowed, hard, and a hitched gasp came out of me because evidently I’d been holding my breath for this entire fucking time. “Easton…” I said finally, my voice barely above a whisper. “Why?”
He exhaled, slow and steady, but there was no calm in it. “Do you really want to hear the answer to that?”
And that did it.
Panic flared so violently in my chest it nearly knocked the breath from my lungs. It was like someone had lit a match right under all the carefully stacked reasons I’d built to protect myself from this very moment.
I could feel it rising, tight and furious and uncontainable.
I didn’t want the answer. Not really. Because I already knew.
I’d known it from the moment he’d kissed me in that alley like I was air and he’d been drowning for years.
I’d known it from the moment he touched me like no one else had ever touched me, from the way he said my name like it was sacred.
I didn’t want the answer because it wasn’t casual. It wasn’t temporary.
It wasn’t nothing.
And that terrified me.
Because if this was something…if this was everything …
Then what the hell did that make me, for walking away once?
My breath hitched as I hurriedly righted my clothes, mourning the loss of my panties. I looked at him—at the boy who’d once held my hand under the stars and whispered promises into my hair like he meant every single one of them—and I bolted.
No words. No clever quip to soften the blow. Just me, running.
Again.
This was coming awfully close to becoming a habit…this whole running thing.
The sound of the door shutting behind me was too loud, too final, and it echoed down the hallway like a countdown clock.
Because I wasn’t ready.
And deep down, I wasn’t sure I ever would be.
EASTON
She ran.
I just stood there, dumbfounded in the glowing aftermath, the echo of the door slamming reverberating like a gunshot in the silent office. The only thing louder than that echo was the sound of my own heartbeat—too fast, too loud, still thudding like it was trying to catch up to hers.
Everything was still warm. The desk. My hands. My skin.
The air was thick with her. Her perfume, her moans, the ghost of her fingers clawing at the wood for leverage while I held her hips like a man possessed.
I could still feel the imprint of her body against mine, the way she trembled, breathless, as I buried myself inside her.
And she’d run.
I stared at the closed door like it had betrayed me. Like it should’ve locked itself before she could escape.
What the hell had I been thinking?
I wasn’t supposed to say it. Not like that.
Not now. I had a plan. A whole careful, stupid, slow-burn plan.
Win her back one small, gentle step at a time.
Feed her breakfast. Make her laugh. Be the guy she remembered, the one she once loved, before I let the distance and the months and the career take all that away.
I wasn’t supposed to just lay my heart out, raw and bloodied, and ask her to step over it.
But she looked at me like she wanted to believe it. Just for a second. And that second? It broke me. Because I remembered what it was like to have her believe in me.
I tugged my hat back on, letting the red velvet slouch over my brow, the stupid white puff bouncing like it didn’t realize it was now sitting on the head of a man who’d just emotionally detonated all over his ex-girlfriend in a random office.
And yeah. I didn’t bother cleaning myself up.
I wanted to smell like her.
That lotion she always wore—something with vanilla and citrus and sin.
The perfume that clung to my jacket like a ghost whenever we used to say goodbye.
I wanted all of it soaked into me, branded on me, because maybe if I held on to it long enough, I could pretend she hadn’t looked at me like I was the biggest mistake she almost made twice.
I walked back into the hallway with all the grim enthusiasm of someone heading to their own execution—or worse, having to play a jolly Santa when I was feeling the opposite of jolly at the moment.
“‘Bout damn time. ”
I nearly jumped out of my velvet pants. Her grandmother, MeMaw , popped out from behind a fake snow-dusted wreath like some sort of yuletide goblin. A terrifying one. Wearing orthopedic shoes and a necklace made of glowing Christmas bulbs that blinked in time with her judgment.
“For fu—fudge sake, MeMaw,” I wheezed. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“You should be so lucky,” she said dryly, squinting at me like she was trying to set my eyebrows on fire through sheer force of will.
I tried not to fidget. She had the kind of stare that could curdle milk.
“You gonna mope all the way through Advent, or are you planning to fix what you just broke with my granddaughter?”
“I didn’t break anything,” I muttered, not at all sounding convincing at all. “I told her the truth. That should count for something, right?”
MeMaw kept giving me that long, squinty-eyed look. Then, without a word, she reached for the oversized plastic candy cane leaning against a nearby entry table and whacked me across the head with it.
“Ow!”
“You deserved that.”
“How did I deserve to be assaulted by Christmas decor?”
“I have a ceramic nativity in my purse. Don’t tempt me,” she snapped. “That girl has been through enough without you bungling this all up. You tell her you love her?”
I ran a hand down my face, my palm dragging through sweat, regret, and a healthy dose of self-loathing. The Santa hat slipped sideways again, like even it was disappointed in me.
“Not…in so many words.”
She leveled me with a look so blistering, I half expected the hallway tinsel to catch fire. “Then you’re a fool.”
“Thanks for the emotional support,” I said, deadpan.
“I’m not here for emotional support. I’m here for action.” She crossed her arms. “Now go faster. Get her back before it’s too late.”
I hesitated, the weight of everything pressing down at once…Natalie’s silence, her eyes when she ran, the confession I couldn’t take back.
“And button your damn pants, Easton. No one needs to see Santa’s gingerbread.”
I blinked. “Fucking hell.”
“You’d better hope that guy’s not listening,” she barked, then spun on her heel and stomped off like a tiny, tinsel-wrapped general muttering about men and their tragic inability to use their mouths for anything other than getting into trouble.
I stood there, processing for a long beat.
Then I looked down.
Yeah. Pants. That would be good.
I yanked them up with what was left of my pride, squared my shoulders, straightened the Santa hat one last time, and marched toward the hallway.
Because for Natalie?
I’d go to war in a Santa suit.
And I’d win. Or die trying.