CHAPTER 4 — THE GUEST ROOM #3
“You're confusing discomfort with surrender,” I replied, staring at the closet door as if it held salvation, while my skin still felt his warmth where we'd almost touched. “And you should put on a shirt before the cold makes your muscle stiffness worse.”
“Right. Thermal concern,” he said. There was dry amusement in his voice, but also a boundary—as if the teasing had come too close to something even he didn't want to name.
“Exactly,” I replied, yanking the closet open harder than necessary, because anything too careful would feel like a confession. “Thermal, clinical, documented, and completely uninterested in your adolescent need to turn a towel into a declaration of war.”
He brushed past me with deliberate slowness, and I hated that I knew it was intentional.
When I finally grabbed the towel and made it back to my room, I closed the door and pressed my forehead against the wood for a few seconds, breathing silently.
The entire penthouse seemed designed to make me slip up somewhere: a sink shared by accident, a light left on in the hallway, his clothes tangled with mine in the laundry, an injured body I needed to care for, and a man who knew how to weaponize his own presence.
In the guest room bathroom, I turned on the cold water and splashed my face, trying to put the world back in order.
I had rules. I needed them. Damon couldn't enter my room, I wouldn't enter his, sessions would happen at set times, no conversations about four years ago unless I chose when, no touching beyond what was necessary, no reacting to provocation.
It seemed simple when written in my head.
Near him, every rule felt like paper held too close to flame.
The night dragged on without real rest. I reviewed notes on my laptop, sent Marjorie the initial report, flagged compensation risks, and suggested imaging if the radiating pain persisted.
I wrote “patient resistant to rest” and almost added “for obvious psychological reasons,” but deleted it before saving.
Damon's name in the report header stared back at me, formal and insufficient.
Damon Blackwood, athlete, captain, left shoulder injury.
No intake form had a field for “man I almost kissed before he hated me.”
Around midnight, after I'd turned off the main light and left only the desk lamp on, I heard a sound from across the hall.
It wasn't loud. It wasn't dramatic. That's exactly what made me get up.
A muffled impact—something between a hand striking marble and a breath held too tight.
I froze for two seconds, trying to decide if invading his space would break the rules I'd created, but then I heard another noise, smaller, followed by a short word bitten out in anger and pain.
I opened the door and found the hallway lit only by slivers of light spilling from the main bathroom.
The door was ajar. I crossed without calling out—Damon would probably respond with venom even if he were bleeding—and pushed the door open just enough to see him sitting on the marble floor, back against the cabinet, skin pale under the cold light, his right hand pressing his left shoulder as if sheer force could hold it together.
He lifted his eyes to mine, and for an instant there was no captain, no audience, no surname powerful enough to shield him from his own pain.
There was only Damon—shirtless, breath shallow, jaw clenched, humiliation burning brighter than the physical suffering.
My body moved before caution could stop it, one step into the bathroom, then another, until I was close enough to see him trembling.
“No,” Damon said, hoarse, the word forced out as he tried to turn vulnerability into command. “Get out of here, Bennett. I don't need you turning this into another report full of observations about my stubbornness.”
I knelt in front of him, keeping my hands visible, because touching Damon without warning in that state would start a war neither of us would win.
The skin of his shoulder was warm, the tension in his neck coiling like a cable about to snap, and my anger at him gave way to a concern so pure it ached.
I wanted to hate him. It was easier. But the man on the floor, pale and stubborn, was still the same one I'd once known too well.
“You can kick me out later,” I said, keeping my voice firm, low, anchored in what I knew how to do best. “Now tell me if you've lost strength in your hand or if the pain has spread to your fingers, because if you lie, I'll know before you finish the sentence.”
“I'd rather break this shoulder completely than ask you for help,” he replied, trying to straighten up, but the attempt sent pain flashing across his face before arrogance could mask it.
“Fine,” I said, bringing my hand closer without making contact, holding his gaze so he'd understand I wasn't asking for emotional surrender—just clinical permission. “Then don't ask. Just stop fighting me for thirty seconds and let me keep you from doing exactly that.”