Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Alec
I should turn around.
I should go back inside, close my balcony door, drink the coffee I already made, and pretend I never saw her bending into sunlight that doesn’t even exist today.
That would be the smart thing. The safe thing.
The only thing that keeps my life contained in the narrow emotional margins I know how to function inside.
But my feet don’t listen.
She disappears into her apartment, sliding the door open with careless ease, and somehow I’m moving. One step. Then another. Then across the balcony divider that suddenly feels too small, too thin, too fragile for whatever the hell this is becoming.
My pulse bumps against my throat, faster than it should be for a man walking twelve feet.
This is a bad idea.
This is a terrible idea.
This is exactly something Dr. Bennet would sit back for, steeple his fingers, and say in that irritatingly calm voice, “And how does that choice reflect your emotional avoidance patterns, Alec?”
I’m not avoiding anything, though. Not right now. Right now, I’m doing the opposite of avoiding.
I’m walking straight into temptation like it won’t destroy me. Like I’m not a guy held together by duct tape, therapy co-pays, and nicotine gum.
This isn’t just a bad idea—it’s an emotional disaster in progress, and I’m the idiot voluntarily marching into it.
My palms feel strange. Too warm against the morning chill, like they already know what they want to touch.
My jaw aches from how tightly I’m clenching it.
And my dick is hard—still hard—because apparently, it didn’t get the memo that this isn’t supposed to happen. Not with her.
My pulse keeps kicking up whenever I think about her looking at me the way she does—open, curious, unguarded. As if I’m not fucked up. Like I’m someone she wouldn’t mind inviting into her life.
Meanwhile, my brain is rattling off reasons to turn around like a malfunctioning warning system:
One: She has a kid. A smart, observant one who clocks bullshit faster than most adults and would see right through me in seconds.
Two: I’ve got enough issues to staff an entire support group. Some of them come with side effects. All of them come with shame.
Three: I’ve never touched a woman outside of a contract or a PR stunt, and that was years ago. My idea of connection involves blackout sex, blurry memories, and waking up feeling even worse.
Four: She makes me feel things I don’t want. Things I’ve spent years suppressing. Things that look a lot like hope and need and fuck, what if. And I just fucking met her.
Five: I want to fuck her. Not just in the “get off and leave” way. I want it slow. I want her laid out under me, her legs wrapped around my waist, her back arching when I push inside. I want to hear her moan my name like I’m something she wants to keep. I want to wreck her for anyone else.
And the worst part?
I want to be good at it.
I want to make her feel safe while I make her come so hard she forgets how lonely I am underneath it all.
Which is exactly why I need to take a shower.
A cold one.
Long enough to kill the heat in my blood and scrub every trace of this stupidity from my system.
Then—and only then—maybe I’ll earn the right to cross that line.
Or maybe I’ll just be clean when I fuck it all up.
I step into the bathroom, flip on the light, and drag a hand through my hair like that’s going to do a damn thing to clear my head. It doesn’t.
Not when I can still feel the phantom heat of her body pressed against mine—something that’s never even happened but lives so vividly in my head it might as well have.
I strip off my shirt first. It clings damply to my back, a reminder of the rain or maybe the sweat I hadn’t noticed. My skin feels too tight, too sensitive. Every inch of me is tense, wired, restless.
I shove down my sweats, underwear going with them, and, fuck.
My cock’s already hard—angry, full, aching in a way that has nothing to do with release and everything to do with her. It bobs against my stomach, shameless, twitching like it’s just waiting for permission.
I glance at the mirror and regret it right away.
I look wrecked.
Wrecked and ready.
Immediately, I enter the shower because I’m not going to be analyzing what’s happening to me. The water hits me before I’m even fully inside—hot, punishing, loud enough that it almost drowns out my thoughts. Almost.
Because she’s still there, on the back of my eyelids. In the curve of my palm.
In the ache low in my stomach that refuses to fade, no matter how much steam fills the room. I brace a hand against the tile, bow my head under the spray, and try to breathe, but all I see is her standing barefoot, lips parted, tank top almost plastered to her skin.
All I hear is the soft way she said, Are you okay?
Like I was someone worth asking.
My body reacts before my brain can form a coherent thought. It’s pointless to fight it—my pulse already surging, my breath uneven.
I wrap my hand around myself, the familiar ache tightening low as I drag my thumb over the tip, slow enough to feel every nerve snap awake, desperate for more. The pressure sends a rush through me, hard enough to steal what little control I thought I had.
I squeeze my eyes shut, expecting the images to disappear. They don’t. She moves in my mind the way she moved on the balcony—slow, fluid, intentional, like her entire body was a quiet invitation.
Fuck. I can almost feel her.
Her mouth against my throat.
Her fingers pushing into my hair.
Her breath catching when I slide my hands over her hips and pull her closer, close enough that I can feel the heat of her through those damned leggings she shouldn’t look that good in.
The fantasy won’t stop. It digs in deeper, turns molten.
I pull myself harder, my hand stroking with the same rhythm I imagine using on her—her body rising to meet mine, her breath catching every time I push in.
I hear her voice in my ear, breaking on my name, needy and close enough to drag me under.
I picture the way she’d open for me—her back arching, her thighs trembling as she pulls me deeper. The way she’d grab at me, frantic, like she can’t decide whether she wants to hold on or pull me farther in. Letting me take. Letting me lose myself in her like it’s the only place I’ve ever fit.
My grip on the tile tightens, knuckles burning.
The water isn’t helping. The heat is making everything worse.
I’m strung tight, restless, my body wired and ready to snap.
Every nerve ending is alive, begging for the moment I finally let go—even in this fantasy, even with her only in my head—because the thought of being inside her is enough to drag release dangerously close.
I let out a low, frustrated sound—half curse, half surrender. I am in trouble.
Big fucking trouble.
Because this isn’t just lust.
It’s longing.
It’s want—consuming.
Somehow stupid.
Somehow hopeful.
And that terrifies me more than the desire itself.
I press my forehead to my forearm, water pouring down my back in relentless sheets, trying to rinse away something that refuses to dissolve.
My hand moves faster—urgent, rough—because in my head it isn’t my hand anymore.
It’s her. It’s her body taking my length in, gripping around me, pulling me deeper with every thrust I imagine.
The fantasy is so vivid my breath stumbles, my muscles tightening like I’m actually inside her, moving the way I’ve wanted to since the moment she looked at me like she knew exactly what she was doing.
A sound tears out of me before I can stop it—rough, guttural—dragged from a part of myself I never let anyone close enough to touch. The need hits in a crashing wave, fierce and consuming, like my body is chasing something it’s already tasted in the fantasy of her.
My hips drive forward, instinct overriding everything else. My lower back locks in a tight, uncontrollable hold as pleasure barrels through me, wild and blinding. I gasp—then shout—because the release rips through me, pouring out in hot, urgent bursts I can’t temper or slow.
I sound nothing like the version of myself I show the world.
I sound undone.
Like she’s the only thing that can quiet whatever this is—whatever she’s turning me into. And that fucking scares me. I should stay here in my apartment or run away, but instead I finish my shower and I get dressed, hoping that I’ll forget the little things that are making me want her the way I do.