Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Alec
Rain doesn’t simply fall in Seattle. It lingers, draping itself over railings and rooftops, curling around the skyline, slipping into the edges of your lungs whether you invited it in or not.
This morning is one of those that convinces you and everyone else to wake, even when you’re still two steps behind. I step outside anyway, because staying inside feels worse.
Cold air hits the back of my throat, clearing out whatever emotional wreckage I carried from yesterday’s therapy session.
And from avoiding my neighbor for the third .
. . maybe fourth day in a row. Part of me hoped she’d get overwhelmed by the boxes, the responsibility, the noise of starting over, and just leave.
Another part of me—the smarter, more honest part—knows I’ve been hiding because she unsettles me in ways I don’t have the training for.
I’m not good with people.
Attraction? Even worse.
My romantic history isn’t even a history. It’s a trail of moments where women wanted me, and I didn’t mind being wanted. That was the whole equation. When you join a band at sixteen and spend your late teens and early twenties on the road, you learn quickly that attraction is transactional.
Someone reaches for you, and you let them. You don’t stop to wonder what you feel, or if you feel anything at all. You just go along with it because it’s easier than confronting the emptiness you don’t have the language for.
I never slowed down long enough to consider effort, honesty, or building something real. And once I finally sobered up enough to see myself clearly, it hit me that I had no clue how to create anything that didn’t collapse the second I touched it.
Add celebrity to that mess and suddenly you can’t tell who wants you and who wants access to whatever they think your life looks like.
No wonder Dexter hid who he was from Ali. I used to think he was being stupid, but now? I get it. He wanted her to love him for who he is and not just what he represented. It’s the only thing that feels remotely genuine.
Not that it matters with my neighbor.
Nothing’s going to happen.
She has a child—a blunt, perceptive one—who will probably sprint in the opposite direction once she spends enough time near me. Still, I rub a hand over my eyes as tension knots through my shoulders.
I blame her—Mara whatever-her-last-name-is.
This is how I end up outside my balcony at six in the morning instead of seven-thirty—like avoiding Mara has become my new workout routine.
Rain taps against the glass walls, a rhythm I could match if I grabbed my sticks.
Maybe I should drum today. Call Barret to see if he’s available—or if his studio is, and let the music swallow whatever’s clawing at me.
I turn back toward the kitchen for my mug when something shifts at the edge of my vision. Her balcony.
There’s movement and . . . of course it’s the ray of fucking sunshine.
Mara.
But it’s not just Mara.
It’s Mara doing yoga, because of course she is.
She’s barefoot in Dancer Pose—one foot rooted to the balcony, the other lifted behind her, caught in one hand as her arm stretches forward into the gray morning.
Her body curves in a long, elegant line, breath moving through her as if the day is something she can shape if she holds the pose long enough.
Her red curls are tied back, a few loose strands brushing her cheek as she inhales, steady and sure, as if the whole morning is hers to command. She looks like she stepped out of one of those wellness magazines people pretend not to buy at health food stores, all quiet focus and impossible balance.
She also looks like trouble. The kind you see coming and still walk toward.
. . . and sunlight, even under a sky that doesn’t feel like sharing any.
And maybe that’s why my chest pulls in a way I don’t want to examine. Absolutely not. I refuse to stand here on my own balcony catching feelings like an idiot. I don’t do that. Not during my twenties and definitely not now.
Mara shifts again—smooth, controlled, confident—as she releases Dancer Pose and folds forward into Standing Splits. Her palms brace against the balcony floor, her leg rising behind her in one long, sinful arc that makes my pulse lurch.
From this angle I can see the full line of her—her backside, the toned stretch of her thighs, the curve where her shirt rides up—and my body reacts before my brain can throw a punch at the impulse.
Heat builds low and fast, sharp enough that I have to adjust my stance and pretend I’m not one second away from groaning out loud like an idiot.
No.
Absolutely not. I’m not getting turned on by sunrise yoga.
She glances over—upside down from Standing Splits—and freezes.
Her leg wavers for a second, then lowers with that dancer’s grace that makes me want to ruin her.
She rises slow, hands sliding down her legs like she needs a second to come back into her body.
But all I can think is how much I want that mouth on my cock.
She straightens, tucks a curl behind her ear, her skin flushed, and her lips parted like she knows exactly what the fuck she’s doing to me. Her eyes lock on mine, and it hits low.
Real low.
My cock’s hard, and she hasn’t said a word.
“Good morning, grump,” she calls out, bright—too bright for someone who just caught me staring like I forgot how necks work.
Her smile is sunshine dipped in trouble, and my pulse reacts like it didn’t get the memo that we’re keeping things civil.
Absolutely not. I’m not doing this with her at six a.m. on a fucking balcony.
“It’s raining,” I say, because that’s apparently the most intelligent thing my brain can scrape together while she’s upside down, ass in the air, and I’m one breath away from losing whatever self-control I pretend to have.
“It rain-yogas beautifully,” she replies smug as hell.
“That’s not a word or a thing.”
“Anything can be a word if you say it confidently.”
I should walk inside. I should shut the door, grab my guitar, and scream my frustration into a bridge and chorus. No, I should go upstairs to the drums room and bang them until I calm the fuck down.
But I don’t do either one of those things.
Nope.
I stare at her like a fucking idiot. Like a man who hasn’t been touched in months—okay, make that years.
Like a man who wants to pull her out of that pose and make her drip for something other than the rain.
Because fuck me, I do.
I want to grab her by the hips, plant her right here on this balcony, and sink into her while the city sleeps behind us. I want to fuck her through every yoga pose she throws at me like it’s not foreplay.
Downward Dog? I’d wreck her in it.
Child’s Pose? I’d make her whimper my name into the wet wood.
Savasana? I’d make her beg for rest.
And none of this is okay.
Because I don’t get involved. Not anymore.
Not since the last time ended in broken strings and in rehab.
But she stares right back—like she sees right through me.
Like she knows what I’m thinking and doesn’t fucking care.
Almost as if she’s daring me to step into the fire she’s pretending isn’t burning under all that calm.
There’s a smirk tugging at her mouth like she already won. As if she already knows I’m going to give in.
And fuck, maybe she’s right.
She’s infuriating.
She’s luminous.
She’s the exact kind of distraction that ruins you in all the best and worst ways.
And right now? She’s soaked. Her tank’s clinging to her shoulders, nearly see-through where the rain or sweat touched it. Those leggings are practically painted on, and I’m sure if I shifted an inch to the right, I’d get a front row seat to everything I’m trying not to want.
Fuck.
“How long were you standing there?” she asks, wiping a raindrop from her cheek with the back of her hand.
Long enough to picture dropping to my knees and dragging your yoga pants down with my teeth, I want to say.
I don’t.
“Long enough to question your judgment.” I aim for disdain, really try, but it comes out low—too low. Lust-soaked and frayed at the edges. My voice almost implies that I’m seconds from begging. For a taste of her mouth. Her skin. Her pussy.
My cock throbs hard behind denim that’s doing absolutely nothing to help. I almost groan out loud.
“Questioning the whole yoga while it’s cold and raining—even if you don’t get wet—” I break off, groaning for real this time, dragging a palm down my face like that’ll scrub the word from the air.
Wet.
Stupid fucking word.
Now I’m picturing her soaked for me—dripping, open, flushed, and greedy. Her thighs shaking while I bury my face between them until she forgets her own name.
“It’s called grounding,” she says, stepping closer to the railing, a few drops of moisture glistening on her collarbone. Then she licks her lips. Of course she does. “Rain clears the mind.”
“No,” I snap, too fast. “Coffee clears the mind. Silence clears the mind. Not standing barefoot in a goddamn cloud leak.”
She laughs, light and warm and utterly fucking disarming. The sound drifts over the narrow space between our balconies and settles inside me, like she’s slipped past a door I didn’t mean to leave cracked open. I look away—too fast, too obvious.
“I didn’t hear you come out,” she says.
Yeah. That’s ’cause I was trying to avoid it, and when I saw her . . . well, my brain short-circuited and wanted to run inside and watch her with a hand wrapped around my dick, while she moved.
What is wrong with you, Alec Dominique Hovarth? You’re losing your shit.
“Yeah,” I mutter, clearing my throat. “Well. I wasn’t aiming to interrupt your . . . interpretive rain dance.”
“It’s yoga.”
“Debatable.”
I try not to look. But she’s right there—tank top molding to her like it’s part of her skin, nipples barely visible through the thin fabric.
Her leggings cling to every line of her body like they’ve been painted on.
She’s barefoot, standing like she belongs to the storm.
And the worst part is that I want to be a part of it—soak on it, even drown.
“My yoga happens in a controlled studio at a high temperature with a teacher who knows what he’s doing.”
She narrows her eyes like she knows exactly what I’m doing. And not doing.
“Judgmental,” she chirps. “Plus, you’re extra grumpy this morning.”
That earns her a long stare—one I don’t bother softening. I hope it tells her exactly what’s in my head. Exactly how badly I want to pin her against the glass and fuck her until the sunrise forgets its job.
She tucks a curl behind her ear, and it kills me a little. That small movement. That softness. She studies me with those eyes—those eyes—like she wants to know where it hurts.
“Are you okay?” she asks, voice gentler now. “I mean, you’ve been missing for a few days. Anything I can help you with?”
Yeah.
You could kneel.
You could come over here and crawl into my lap, straddle me, and make me forget why I ever built walls in the first place.
You could stop looking at me like I’m someone worth saving.
You could ruin me, and I’d let you.
I hate the question. I hate that she asks it without expectation or pity.
I hate that she sounds like she’d actually care about the answer.
And I hate that for a split second, I want to tell her the truth.
Not the raw, ugly one—the origin of Alec Hovarth.
Nope. I just want to give her the version that ends with her mouth on mine.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
Obvious, brittle, and barely passable.
She nods slowly—like she wants to believe me but can’t quite manage it.
Her gaze catches on the edges of me, tracing the exhaustion I’m too tired to hide, the tension I’ve been carrying like a second skin.
I haven’t breathed properly since the last time this woman looked at me like she does now—curious, concerned, warm enough to burn.
“Do you want tea?” she asks.
“No.” . . . unless it’s from your mouth. Unless you’re the thing warm enough to soothe whatever the hell’s eating me alive.
“Chamomile lavender is good for calming,” she offers, like she’s got no idea what her voice does to me. “I’ll even pause my practice for you.”
“Absolutely not.”
She smiles—soft, infuriating, too kind for someone who wears temptation like a second skin.
“Fine, I’ll make coffee today,” she says, turning toward her door. “You know . . . to balance your chakras.”
“My chakras are fine.”
She raises a brow. “Are they?”
I narrow my eyes. “Are you always like this?”
“Like what?”
“. . . intrusive.”
“I’d call it caring.”
“I wouldn’t.”
Her grin widens—a sunbeam with teeth. Fuck. I hate that I notice how her lips curve. How her eyes crinkle. How my body reacts like she’s said something filthy instead of something sweet.
“Want some anyway?”
I should say no.
I need to say no.
But my body betrays me before my mouth can catch up.
“. . . maybe.”
She blinks.
I blink.
Great. Stellar communication skills, Alec. Top tier. Really nailing the whole “stay away” thing.
She tilts her head toward her sliding door. “Come on. I’ll open up. You can have something warm and soothing with your coffee.”
You. I want you. You’re warm, soothing, and . . . stop it, Alec.
“You shouldn’t be inviting me into your home,” I say, trying for warning, but it comes out low—closer to a growl than anything polite.
Her gaze softens, just a touch. There’s something almost sad flickering beneath it, something like understanding. “Then it’s a good thing I don’t scare easily.”
She turns, walks inside. Just like that.
And now I’m the one unsteady on my feet, painfully hard, jaw clenched, pulse racing—and all I’ve done is talk to her.
If I go inside, I’ll do something stupid and might need to move to another county.
If I stay out here, I’ll lose my goddamn mind.