10 Zara #2
He laughs under his breath. “I was hoping you’d know.”
That makes me snort. But the truth is—we can’t go back to whatever we were pretending to be before. Not after tonight, after Calcifer and hearing him say “you carry my heart” like it was the simplest fact in the world.
“I think we just…” I shrug helplessly. “Figure it out.”
He nods, eyes glued to my face now like he’s memorizing every inch. “I can do that.”
We lay there in another stretch of quiet, but this one is different. It’s warmer, almost softer. Then my eyelids start to droop.
“Hey,” he murmurs, voice low. “Scoot up.”
I blink at him, confused, until he tugs gently at the blanket near my shoulder. “You’re gonna fall off the bed,” he adds, like he’s trying to sound casual but somehow ends up sounding almost protective.
I shift upward toward his pillow, tugging Calcifer with me. He watches me get comfortable like he wants to be sure I’m okay before he adjusts himself.
Then, softly—too softly—he asks, “Did you take your meds already?”
The question should annoy me. Usually it does, because it reminds me of the parts of myself I wish didn’t need managing. But right now? His voice is so gentle it soothes a part of me I didn’t know needed it.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Before we left campus.”
He nods, something in his face unclenching just a fraction. He lays there, knee bent, fingers twisting nervously in his blanket.
Then he stops, and looks at me seriously “Can I—” He stops, breathes, and tries again. “Can I hold you?”
My mind short-circuits. Like fully. Blue-screen-of-death levels of malfunction.
That’s a really bad idea. Like Monster-level bad.
But what am I supposed to do? Tell him no when he looks at me like that? When he sounds like that?
He looks desperate. Desperate in that whispered, quiet-boy way Cass gets when he wants something he’s terrified he’s not allowed to have.
And I am catastrophically weak.
So I nod. The relief that flashes across his face knocks the air out of my lungs. He slides in behind me, his body moving slow like he’s afraid to startle me. One arm slides under my pillow, the other wraps around my waist, pulling me back until my spine aligns with his chest.
Holy.
Shit.
This is dangerous.
This is stupid.
This is me willingly jumping into a volcano and hoping it’s a water slide.
His chest presses against my back, steady and warm and unbelievably safe. His breath ghosts the back of my neck. His arm settles heavy around my hips, and then—God—he drags me closer, almost as if his muscles made the decision before his brain could stop him.
His thumb strokes under the hem of my shirt, a soft, distracted sweep against my skin. Like he doesn’t realize he’s doing it.
He’s going to kill me. Like actually.
“You good?” he murmurs against my hair.
“Mm-hmm,” I lie, because the truth is I’m five seconds from spontaneously combusting.
We stay like that for a minute—quiet, breathing syncing up, heat pooling everywhere it shouldn’t. Then I shift just a little bit to get comfortable. Except comfortable apparently equals my ass brushing straight into his groin. He inhales sharply, and I go still.
Oh.
OH.
Oh, that’s definitely—
Yup. That is one-hundred percent his dick. His hard dick.
Pressed against my ass.
Jesus. Fuck.
I don’t move, and neither does he. Then he lets out the most mortified little laugh I’ve ever heard from him.
“Uh.” His voice is pitched somewhere between strangled and dying. “Okay, so—I swear, it’s not like—a perv thing.”
My face goes nuclear red and hot. He keeps talking because he can’t stop himself now, since embarrassment has fully taken the wheel.
“It’s just—you’re—warm,” he rushes out. “And soft. And—alive. And—look, it’s a physiological response, okay? My body’s an idiot. I didn’t plan it.”
I bury my face in his pillow to muffle the hysterical sound crawling up my throat.
“Cass,” I manage.
“Please don’t make fun of me,” he begs immediately, forehead thumping lightly against the back of my shoulder. “I’m already suffering.”
“Oh, I know.” I fight a grin I absolutely should not be having. “Believe me—I noticed.”
He groans into my shirt. “Kill me. Please. Just end my life right here.”
His thumb keeps sweeping under my shirt.
His chest stays pressed against my back.
His very obvious situation stays… very obvious.
And my stupid heart—my stupid, traitorous, already-his heart—feels so full it aches.
For a second, neither of us moves. Then he exhales, slow and shaky against the back of my neck.
“Sorry,” he mutters, voice rough in that almost embarrassed way. “Didn’t… mean for that to happen.”
“It’s fine,” I whisper.
Lie.
Huge lie.
World-record-breaking lie.
He goes quiet, and his arm slips a little tighter around my waist, making my ribs squeeze.
“Zae…” he says softly, barely above a breath.
My pulse stutters, but he doesn’t say anything else. Just my name, like it’s the only thing he needed to say. He shifts, settling behind me more fully, forehead brushing the back of my shoulder for half a second before he pulls back just a little.
“Don’t disappear on me again,” he murmurs, so quiet I almost miss it. “Please.”
The ache in my chest goes warm and deep, almost hurting more than being punched.
“I won’t,” I promise. “Just… don’t hit anyone else.”
A tiny huff of a laugh ghosts over my skin as his arm stays locked around me, like even in his sleep he’d keep me from slipping too far away.
The quiet stretches, and my eyelids get heavy as his thumb sweeps under my shirt one last time—a slow, unthinking stroke that steals the breath right out of me. And somewhere between that touch and the rhythm of his breathing at my back, I fall asleep in the arms of the boy I shouldn’t love.
The boy who has no idea he already owns every piece of me.