13. Can I Help You Sleep?
13
CAN I HELP YOU SLEEP?
KRUZ
The storm hits harder than I ever thought possible.
The wind howls like a wild animal, clawing at the walls of the cottage, and the rain slams against the windows in endless waves. It feels like the entire house is shaking, ready to be torn apart at any second.
I’m curled up on the couch, a blanket wrapped so tightly around me that my knuckles are white. I’ve never liked storms, but this? This is a whole different level of hell.
The wind doesn’t just rattle the house—it screams, pounding against the windows like it’s trying to break in. Lightning flashes, making the flickering light overhead cast twisting, jumping shadows that don’t help my racing heart.
Ezra moves around like he’s totally unfazed, stoking the fire, checking the windows, lighting candles. He’s calm—way too calm for my liking. Like, who the hell doesn’t even flinch in a storm like this?
Meanwhile, I’m just trying to keep it together. My heart’s pounding, my stomach’s in knots, and when a massive crack of thunder shakes the air, I flinch so hard I almost drop the blanket. “This is insane,” I mutter, not meaning for Ezra to hear.
He glances at me, face as unreadable as ever. “It’s just a storm,” he says evenly. “We’ll be fine.”
Easy for him to say. Ezra looks like the kind of guy who could fistfight a tornado and win, while I feel like I might shatter into pieces at any second.
The power goes out with a loud snap, plunging everything into darkness.
“Shit,” I whisper, my breath catching as my eyes dart around the room, struggling to adjust to the dim light of the fire and the candles Ezra lit earlier.
“It’s fine,” he repeats, his voice steady. He crosses the room and sits next to me on the couch, his presence weirdly comforting—though I’d rather die than admit it out loud.
Actually, who am I kidding? We’re past the point of pretending nothing’s changed between us since we got to this damn island. But admitting it still feels like handing him a win, and I’m too stubborn for that.
I try focusing on the fire instead of the chaos outside, but every groan of the walls and gust of wind sends another jolt of anxiety through me. The storm feels endless, like it’s never going to let up.
Ezra pulls the blanket tighter around my shoulders, his hand brushing mine. “You’re safe,” he says, softer now. “I promise, kitten.”
My chest is tight, my mind spinning too fast to let those words sink in. “How can you be so calm?” I snap, fear making my voice harsher than I mean it to be.
He doesn’t even blink at my tone. Just leans back against the couch, his dark eyes locked on me. “Because I’ve been through worse,” he says, matter-of-fact. “And because I’m here. Nothing’s going to hurt you while I’m around.”
The absurdity of that statement almost makes me laugh. As if he can stop the storm. As if his presence alone can hold back the wind, the rain, the very force of nature itself. It’s the kind of arrogant, ridiculous thing only he would say, and yet—there’s something about the way he says it that steadies me. Just a little.
I nod, not trusting myself to say anything without my voice breaking.
Hours pass before the storm finally starts to ease up. The noise fades, replaced by an eerie silence that somehow feels even worse.
Ezra moves to the chair by the fire, but I can feel him watching me.
I lie down on the couch, staring at the ceiling as the candlelight throws faint, flickering shadows across the walls. The house is quiet now, just the crackle of the fire and the occasional groan of the wind.
But sleep doesn’t come. Every time I close my eyes, I see flashes of lightning, feel the walls trembling all over again.
The storm is gone, but it’s still in my head, echoing like a ghost I can’t shake.
Bad weather has always been extra sucky for me. I don’t know why, but if I’m being honest with myself I’m just jumpy as fuck for no real reason.
I think about how the fact that I was snatched off the street will probably make that worse once we’re back on the mainland, and I cringe.
“Let’s get you to bed.” He stands in front of me and holds his hand out for me to take.
I glance at the fire, worrying my lip. We’ve slept with it burning most nights, but my nerves are on edge right now.
He notices.
“I won’t go to sleep. I’ll stay up and make sure everything is taken care of.” He shakes his hand. Reluctantly, I take it and let him help me to my feet.
In the bedroom, I snuggle into the blankets. I think he’ll go back to the living space, but instead the bed shifts behind me.
I tense, not because I don’t want him here but because I really don’t want him to fall asleep and leave the fire unattended.
He pulls my body against his, his big hand splaying over my stomach underneath my too-big sweater. “Relax, I’m just going to stay here with you until you fall asleep.”
I don’t respond, but my muscles do loosen a fraction.
We lay together like that for what feels like an hour. I have given up on sleep at this point, and I release a small huff of frustration.
Ezra shifts, moving his hand up to the mess that is my hair. He brushes it over my shoulder and nuzzles his face into the crook of my neck. He breathes deep and moves his hand back to the flat plane of my stomach.
At the same time his fingers slip beneath the waistband of my sweatpants, his lips are soft and hot against my shoulder. “Can I help you sleep?”
I nod.
“Words.” He kisses me again, his hand not moving any further until I say what he wants to hear out loud.
“Yes.”
“Yes what, more mea?” he teases, and it would be infuriating if I wasn’t so desperate for something to calm my nerves.
“Yes please .” I am not above begging, and I know he loves to hear it.
I grind my ass against his cock. He’s hard and I almost get off on the fact that I turn him on this much without doing anything other than existing in his space.
He places a wet, open-mouthed kiss at the base of my neck and groans softly. The sound vibrates against my skin.
“That’s my girl,” he says in response to answer, and I rub my ass against him harder, silently begging this time for him to fucking touch me.
He shifts his leg between mine and his thighs are so massive that the movement gives him all the access he needs. His thick fingers part me, and it’s actually embarrassing how wet I am for him.
Well, I guess it’s not that embarrassing. He’s hard as a rock against my ass, so the feeling must be mutual.
His fingers slip inside me once before moving up to circle my clit. He moves in slow circles at first. Not in a tentative way but in a way meant to make me feel like I might come out of my skin if he doesn’t do something more .
I know this is intentional and the brat in me really wants to deny him what I know he’s waiting for me to do—beg him for relief.
I pant.
I squirm.
He doesn’t falter. “What is it, baby?” he teases.
“ F-fuck .” I grind my hips forward, seeking what I want.
“Something you need?” He kisses down my neck.
I’m losing my fucking mind. “More.” I couldn’t string together words to form a full sentence right now if I wanted to.
“More what? ”
“Please,” I whine, turning my head to the side. My lips seek his, and the needy gesture seems to take him by surprise.
He leans into the kiss, swallowing the moan I release when he finally gives me what I want.
I’m so worked up that it takes only the slightest increase in intensity of his movements before my vision goes hazy, and then black.
He slips two fingers inside me again, my pussy spasming around them as he bites down on the crook of my neck and grinds his thick cock against my ass. “That’s my fucking girl. God, I love the way you feel when you come for me.”
My breathing is heavy as my mind re-enters my brain from somewhere in the ether.
I’m too far gone to register what he’s doing until my pants are fully off and his face is between my legs.
“ Fuuuck ,” he groans, forcing my thighs into the mattress and sucking my clit between his lips.
“Ezra,” I pant. “I don’t know if I can?—”
I am too sensitive.
Too overstimulated.
“You fucking can .”
I’m a writhing mess, nearly in tears.
But when my eyes catch on the movement of his hand over his cock, and the way his arm flexes as he jerks himself, I realize that he’s right.
I can , and it’s the fact that he’s getting himself off to fucking me with his tongue that gets me there again.
We come together this time, and I don’t think I have ever experienced anything so sexy as the way his body shudders as his moan vibrates against my pussy when we do.
It feels like both minutes and hours later when he curls his body around mine again.
I am jittery, but not in an anxious way. In the way that I can’t control the way my legs oscillate between twitching and shaking.
He pulls me close and I’m slipping quickly into sleep when I think I hear him mutter three words I never thought I’d hear come from his mouth.
But it’s too much, too unrealistic.
I decide I must be dreaming, and I sleep harder than I have since the last time I was in my own bed.
7 months prior
I don’t leave all at once.
It’s slow.
Like the way seasons change—one degree at a time, so subtle you don’t notice it’s happening until the cold settles into your bones.
It starts with small things. I stop staying the night. I stop letting him pull me back into bed when I try to get dressed. I stop answering the late-night texts that used to make my heart race.
I tell myself it’s not on purpose.
But maybe it is.
Because I love Ezra. I love him so much it hurts. And that’s the problem.
I don’t know if he loves me. Not in the way I used to think he might.
He wants me. That much is obvious. But when it comes to anything deeper, anything real, there’s a wall I can’t get past. He keeps me close enough to touch, but never close enough to keep.
And maybe that was enough for me before.
But it isn’t now. Especially not now that we have to work together in a professional capacity; that, of all things, was my tipping point.
So I let the space between us grow. I let the silences stretch longer. I let the phone ring instead of answering it.
Ezra doesn’t call twice.
He never has.
And that’s how I know the path I chose was the right one.
Because if he loved me—really, truly loved me—he wouldn’t have let me go so easily.