Chapter 20
Sunlight pours through the cracks in the blinds, warming the sheets tangled around our legs.
I’m the first to stir, but I don’t open my eyes right away.
I just lie there, tucked into Will’s chest, listening to his breathing. His arm is draped around my waist, our legs a mess of skin and soft tension.
For the first time in what feels like forever, I feel wanted. But that fragile warmth is layered over the kind of vulnerability that comes after giving someone everything.
I shift slightly, and Will stirs behind me, his voice low, still sandpaper-rough with sleep.
“Mornin’, sugar.”
I smile into the pillow. “Morning.”
His fingers tighten at my hip, pulling me back against him.
For a long moment, we just lie there.
Breathing.
Feeling.
“Last night...” he starts, and his voice cracks a little.
“It wasn’t a mistake,” I say before he can ask. “But I’m scared.”
He presses a kiss to the back of my shoulder. “Me too.”
That’s the thing with Will. He doesn’t give easy comfort. But when he does give you something, it’s real.
“You okay?” he murmurs, lips brushing my skin.
I nod. “Sore. But okay.”
He shifts, his hand gliding down my bare thigh. “Want me to make you feel better?”
My breath catches.
I turn to face him, and his expression is quiet but full of heat.
“I want to take my time,” he says softly. “You gave me everything. Let me give something back.”
I bite my lip, heart pounding as I nod.
He kisses me, then trails his mouth down my throat, across my collarbone, down the soft slope of my stomach. Every kiss is a promise. Every pause, a question.
His hands part my thighs, gentle, grounding.
“You stop me if anything feels wrong,” he murmurs, looking up at me with that same fierce protectiveness that once made me fall for him in the first place.
I reach down, threading my fingers through his hair. “Don’t stop.”
His mouth finds me. Soft, teasing, then confident and sure.
And God, it’s nothing like I expected. Nothing like anything. Because he isn’t just doing this to make me feel good. He’s doing it like it’s an act of devotion.
Every slow stroke of his tongue is patient and purposeful, like he’s learning a language he wants to be fluent in.
My hips lift, instinctive, and he holds me steady, mouth still moving, still worshipping.
He hums low when I moan his name, the sound vibrating straight through me.
And when I come apart, he stays there, hands grounding me, eyes never leaving my face.
When he finally kisses his way back up my body, I can barely breathe. He settles beside me, brushing the hair from my cheek.
“Still okay?” he asks, voice rough.
I nod, still trembling. “Better than okay.”
And in the quiet after, I realize he didn’t just want to claim me. He wanted to cherish me. And that might be the scariest, most beautiful thing of all.
Later, after the rush has quieted and the sun has crept higher across the floor, we sit up in bed, tangled in sheets and half-wrapped in the weight of what we’ve just shared.
It’s not awkward.
It’s something softer than that, like standing still in the middle of a storm and realizing the wind has finally stopped howling.
Will leans back against the headboard, hair tousled, chest bare, and eyes on me like he’s still trying to understand how I’m real. I pull my knees up beneath me, draping the sheet over my lap, but I don’t hide. Not from him.
He reaches out, brushing his fingers down my arm, then trails them lightly over my wrist, my palm, like he’s reading something in the lines of me.
“You’re quiet,” he says.
I shrug. “Still here.”
“Where do you go when you get quiet like that?”
I pause. Then, without breaking eye contact, I answer truthfully.
“Into my head. Trying to decide if this is real or if I’m just gonna wake up and find myself back at square one.”
His fingers still. Then he takes my hand in his, turns it over, and presses a slow kiss to the center of my palm.
“I’m still here,” he says.
We don’t speak for a long minute after that. We just touch.
His hand slides up my thigh, slow, reverent, tracing the curve of my leg under the sheet. My own fingers trail along his chest, over the rougher skin of his shoulder, the dip of his collarbone, the line of muscle along his ribs.
He closes his eyes for a beat, just breathing.
Then opens them again and watches me like I’m a secret he finally wants to learn, not bury.
I shift closer, and he leans in until our foreheads touch.
His hand finds my waist. Mine settles over his heart.
And in that quiet, unhurried moment, we don’t need to rush.
We don’t need to prove anything. We just sit in the space we’ve both been too afraid to reach for, touching each other like we finally belong.
We’ve been sitting like this for minutes. Foreheads touching, hands exploring the quiet geography of skin and breath. Every movement between us is unhurried, almost reverent. But the tension is still there, simmering just beneath the softness. A hum under the surface.
Then his hands slide lower. And I feel the shift.
He eases back just enough to look at me, his eyes searching mine.
“Come here,” he murmurs, voice low, rough.
I don’t hesitate. I straddle his lap, knees sinking into the mattress on either side of him. The sheet slips away from my shoulders, and I don’t reach for it. His hands trace along my thighs, up to my hips, then settle at my lower back as I sink into him—skin to skin, chest to chest.
His mouth finds mine again, slow at first, then deeper, hungrier. He kisses like a man trying to make up for all the ways he failed to speak before. Like every touch is a sentence. An apology. A promise.
His hands roam my back, my sides, my hips. Never pushing, just asking. And I answer with movement, with need, with the way I press into him like I can’t bear a second more of space between us.
When he enters me, it’s different than the night before.
This time, I know the feel of him. The stretch. The heat.
And still, I gasp because nothing could prepare me for what it feels like to fall apart in someone’s arms and then want to do it again.
He moves slowly at first, one hand on my waist, the other slipping into my hair as he guides me. My body adjusts around him, each movement coaxing more of that dizzying pleasure from both of us.
“Look at me,” he says, voice ragged.
I do.
And he breaks.
He kisses me like he can’t breathe without it. Moves inside me like he’s been waiting forever for this exact moment.
Every roll of my hips draws a groan from him, low and guttural. His hands grip me tighter, pulling me closer, deeper, until there’s nothing but heat and friction and the desperate, aching sound of my name on his lips.
“Phern—fuck—you feel like home.”
I cry out when I come, body shuddering around him, the world narrowing to his voice and his hands and the way he holds me through it like I’m something precious. He follows seconds later, jaw tight, arms locked around me like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he lets go.
We stay tangled together afterward, breathless, hearts pounding, skin damp and flushed. And even though we don’t say it out loud, something changed in that moment. Something real. Something that might just be worth holding on to.
The room is quiet now.
Dim light filters through the blinds, painting soft lines across the tangle of sheets and bare skin.
My head rests on his chest, rising and falling with the rhythm of his breath.
His fingers trail lightly up and down my spine, the touch more comforting than sexual—more intimate than anything we’ve done.
We haven’t said much.
But the silence isn’t empty.
It’s full of everything we don’t know how to say yet.
I trace a slow circle over his ribs with my fingertip, the steady thump of his heart under my cheek grounding me more than I want to admit.
Then, softly—so soft I almost miss it—he asks:
“You still going to Vegas?”
My finger stills.
His hand does too.
I don’t answer right away. My throat is dry, my mind already pulling apart the pieces of last night, trying to figure out what it meant.
I shift slightly, lifting my head to look at him.
He’s watching me. No smile. No smirk. Just raw, quiet worry in his eyes.
Like maybe he already knows the answer and just wants to hear me say it.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “I was.”
“Because of him?”
I shake my head. “Because of me. Because I didn’t think there was anything left here worth staying for.”
He closes his eyes for a second, jaw tight.
And then, even softer—carefully—he says, “And now?”
I swallow hard. “Now it’s harder to leave.”
He exhales, a shaky breath like he’s been holding it the whole time. “I don’t want you to go.”
“I figured,” I murmur, pressing a hand to his chest. “You did just carry me across the damn street like a caveman.”
That earns the faintest smile.
But it fades quick.
“I should’ve said something sooner,” he says, voice rough. “But I didn’t know how to love you without messing it up.”
My heart aches. But I don’t look away.
“And now?”
He pulls me closer, forehead resting against mine. “Now I’m ready to try. If you’ll let me.”
The silence that follows isn’t heavy this time.
It’s full of something quieter.
Softer.
A beginning.
Maybe.
I don’t answer right away.
I just look at him, stretched out in my bed like he belongs there. His hands still cradle my face, his body warm, solid, and mine in a way I’ve never let myself believe he could be.
“I’ll stay,” I whisper, breath catching in my throat.
He stills, like the words knocked the air right out of him. “You mean it?”
I nod. “I was only going to Vegas because I thought you didn’t want me. Because I didn’t want to feel anymore.”
His hands tighten on my waist. “You’re all I fucking feel.”
The second he kisses me, it’s different.
No hesitation. No fear. Just need.