Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-five
RACHEL
Now
What is that sound?
The blare of Rhett’s alarm cuts through the quiet like a jagged blade, shattering the fragile edges of sleep. God, it’s too loud. It has got to be too early for this. Make it stop. He needs to turn it off.
His arm drapes across my waist, anchoring me in a way that defies reason.
His chest presses into my back. My body wants to melt into him, wants to sink into this tether we’ve made, the quiet intimacy that bloomed in the small hours after midnight.
When words weren’t necessary, and nothing existed outside the warmth between us.
We didn’t spend much of last night talking, or at least talking about what this all means. The only real words we exchanged came during the fight that brought us here, unraveling us until we were tangled together in my bed.
After a decade of wanting him in ways I never thought possible, words felt redundant.
Touch said everything. His hands knew me better than anyone ever could, tracing the contours of me as if he’d studied me.
His mouth found mine, speaking my name with a reverence that felt like ownership and devotion all at once.
He was claiming me in the dark, making me his in a way that had nothing to do with logic and everything to do with inevitability.
I let him touch every part of me because I wanted it.
Because I had been waiting for it, for him, for this moment, for years.
I drank in every second, savoring the way his hands molded to me.
I remember every inch of him. The curve of his shoulders, the heat of his chest against mine, the way his fingers curled around my thigh with a careful, possessive tenderness.
I didn’t care to discuss logistics then.
But now, in the harsh light of the morning, my reality crashes in.
Friends don’t do this.
My house.
My bed.
My dead brother’s best friend.
My best friend.
Naked Rhett.
Oh God.
We crossed a line and not a small one. A massive, blinding, no-going-back kind of line.
I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping the weight of him will keep me anchored while my heart spirals, thudding in a slow, nauseating rhythm.
His arm is still draped over me. As if the world didn’t tilt on its axis sometime before dawn.
But it has. And the truth settles in, heavy and inescapable.
What does this mean now?
Lying here in the quiet afterward, my thoughts spin too fast to land anywhere solid.
We didn’t just blur a boundary. We leveled it.
Years of friendship. The comfort of knowing exactly where we stood.
The careful, unspoken rules we lived by.
All of it is gone now, rewritten in a single night of tangled limbs, half-whispered truths, and touches I am not sure I can survive missing.
The panic starts small, a restless flutter under my ribs, then spreads, scraping through me until it steals my breath. I can’t stop the spiral when I think about how many years of wanting I let spill over into something permanent and irreversible.
Rhett sits up beside me, the mattress dipping under his weight. “Shit,” he mutters softly. “Sorry. I forgot to shut my alarm off. I usually run in the morning.”
He fumbles for his phone, the screen flaring harsh blue in the dim room as the alarm blares on, until finally the sound cuts off. When he turns back to me, he stills.
His brow furrows, the corner of his mouth pulling down in that way I know too well. He can feel it, my panic, before I say a word.
“Hey. Hey, hey,” he murmurs, voice low and steady. He leans closer, reaching across the sheets. His hand settles on my shoulder. I flinch anyway, shame rushing in hot and fast, and bury my face in the pillow, humiliated by how completely I’m unraveling.
Rhett doesn’t pull away. Rhett’s other hand comes up, brushing my hair from my temple, then slides under my chin. He nudges my head toward him. I resist at first, but his touch is patient, and my eyes lift, meeting his.
His gaze holds mine, unwavering, and it feels like being tied to something solid in the middle of open water. Something steady. Something safe.
“Sunny,” he whispers. His voice is rough with sleep and threaded with something softer. “What’s wrong?”
I open my mouth, but words falter, stuck somewhere between desire and the memory of the boundary we just shattered.
“I don’t know,” I finally breathe, voice shaking. “We…”
We ruined the friendship. It’s dead. I’m going to lose him the same way I lose everyone I care about. I’m going to be alone, stuck with myself. And I don’t even know who I am anymore.
Rhett leans in, resting his forehead lightly against mine.
“We are okay. Okay? You’re okay. I’m right here,” he says. His thumb brushes my cheek, and the panic that’s been clawing at my ribs loosens just enough to let me inhale.
“You’re here,” I repeat to myself. “You are here, and you want to be here.”
“There isn’t any place I’d rather be, Sunny,” he confirms, his lips brushing my temple. “You’re freaking out, aren’t you?”
“How the hell are you not?” I shoot back. “We spent all night doing something friends don’t do. Over and over and over again.”
His laugh is soft, warm, a rumble in his chest that vibrates through me. “Yeah, we did. I think we should do it again.”
“It wasn’t a mistake?” I challenge.
He leans in, lips ghosting over my collarbone before he whispers, “Do you think it was a mistake?” and slowly traces a path down my neck, every touch deliberate.
My mind starts to cloud, heat rising to my cheeks, and words become hard to form. “No,” I murmur, breath catching.
“Good.” His voice rumbles against my skin.
He presses a kiss to my ribs. “Because I want this. I’ve wanted this for years.
” Another kiss follows, just above my belly button.
“I want you.” His mouth traces lower, stopping at the apex of my thigh.
“This is not a mistake. Not a moment of weakness. It’s a need. Pure and simple.”
I arch into his kiss, needy for his touch, but before my thoughts can fully scatter, the fear claws its way out of me.
“What if I ruin it?” The words tumble fast. “What if I’m… too much? What if you—” My voice breaks despite my effort to hold it steady. “—get sick of me?”
I hear the doubt even as I say it. I have failed before. I have loved people and lost them anyway. The thought of doing that with him, of being the reason something breaks between us, makes my chest ache.
Rhett stills.
He lifts his head and catches my attention, forcing me to stay with him, right here. His eyes are wholly focused on me, as if nothing else in the room exists.
“Sunny,” he says calmly. “Do you trust me?”
I’m not sure I’ve ever had a problem trusting Rhett.
Even when he left. Even when it hurt so badly, I thought it might split me open.
I trusted him then. The problem has never been him.
It’s me. Somewhere along the way, I veered off the life I thought I was building, and now I barely recognize the woman laying here.
My thoughts slip through my fingers. I want to believe I can still choose clearly.
That I can trust myself enough to believe I’m making the correct decision.
“Yes,” I whisper, the word shaking but true. “I trust you.”
His eyes never leave mine, and it sends my pulse skittering. I feel the old panic leaving my body, being replaced by the flutter of heat he is already drawing out of me. His hands move as he continues.
“I’ve been losing my mind over you for years,” he murmurs. “I’m not just some nice guy, Sunny. I don’t look at other women the way I look at you. I don’t think about touching them the way I think about touching you.”
He leans closer, his breath warm against my skin. His mouth brushes me just enough to make me ache.
“They don’t make me feel the way you do.”
Words abandon me entirely. My fingers grip his shoulders, searching for stability.
Heat coils low and urgent, while a tremor runs up my spine.
My breath hitches. My body tilts toward him on instinct, chasing the heat.
My mind tries to warn me, but the sound of it fades beneath the rush of the chase. It is so close I can almost feel it.
“You’re incredible, Sunny,” he whispers, his voice rough where it meets my skin. His teeth graze lightly, sending a shiver across my entire body. “Every inch of you. I have always noticed you.”
I’m dizzy with want and with disbelief that this is all really happening. He is mine in a way that makes the rest of the world start to fade.
“Let go for me, Sunny,” he whispers, reverent and commanding all at once.
And this time, I do.
I let go.
When the wave is over, he comes back up to my face. His smile is soft as it presses against my temple. “Okay,” he murmurs, voice warm and teasing, “if I keep you in this bed any longer, we’re never leaving it.”
I laugh, breathless, still tangled in him. “I don’t think I’m physically capable of moving, Rhett.”
A low grin curves his mouth. “Do I need to remind you,” he says quietly, “that I carry people, a lot heavier than you, out of burning buildings for a living?”
Before I can protest, he scoops me up with effortless ease and pulls me flush against his chest like I weigh nothing at all. My arms loop around his neck on instinct, laughter spilling out of me, breath coming in soft, unsteady gasps. He starts toward the door.
Just before we hit the hallway, he glances down and grabs his t-shirt from the floor. With a flick of his wrist, he tosses it at me. I fumble the catch, laughing harder as the fabric tangles in my hands.
In the kitchen, he sets me gently onto a barstool, his hands lingering at my waist just long enough to make my pulse jump again.
“Arms,” he says, lifting the shirt over my head.
The cotton slides down over my shoulders, carrying his scent with it. My hair spills loose around my face as I look up at him.