Chapter 1 #4
She found the strength to punch his arm. He caught her fist and brought her knuckles to his lips, kissed them soft. “You’re trouble,” he murmured.
“You said that already.”
“It keeps being true.” He tucked her under his chin, his heart slowing under her cheek. They lay like that a while, neither in a hurry to fill the quiet, the city humming faint beyond the glass.
“Thank you,” she said into the dark, drowsy now.
He lifted his head and looked at her. “Thank me for what?”
“For making me something besides sadness tonight.”
His arms tightened around her. “You have no idea how glad I am you let me.”
She didn’t know what to do with that, so she didn’t do anything but let her eyes drift shut, the air thick with heat and the ghost of his cologne, the slow thud of his heart the last thing she knew before sleep took her.
When she woke it was still dark, the city lights smearing the window.
He lay on his back, his arm heavy across her waist, his breathing deep and even.
She listened to his heart, slow and steady, the sound of it anchoring her in a way that made her want to stay.
Just a little longer. Just until the sun came up.
But that wasn’t the deal she’d made, and she’d made it for a reason she could still recite even half-asleep and aching for him.
She didn’t move right away. She lay there and argued herself through it, every line of the case, the way she had on the rooftop.
Staying meant a name. A name meant a number, a morning, a second night, a slow unspooling of everything she’d just rebuilt brick by brick on a bathroom floor.
She’d done that once. She’d handed a man the whole map of her and he’d used it to find the exit.
This man had a way of looking at her that made her forget she’d ever learned that lesson, and that was precisely the problem.
The wanting was so loud it drowned out the warning, and she’d promised herself she would never again mistake the volume of wanting for proof that something was safe.
So she peeled herself away slow, careful not to wake him.
His arm flexed, instinctive, like his body already missed the warmth of her, and she froze, breath caught, but his lashes never stirred.
She let herself look one last time, the way he looked in the half-light, all golden skin and loose muscle and sleep, not a single wall up, not even a crack to hide behind.
Beautiful. Raw and unguarded in a way she suspected almost no one ever got to see.
The urge to crawl back in nearly undid her. She found her dress in the wreck of sheets and stepped into it, left the zipper gaping, and slipped to the bathroom on bare feet, her heart pounding for reasons that had nothing to do with nerves and everything to do with regret.
Her reflection looked wrecked. Hair wild, lips swollen, skin marked with proof.
She pressed a hand to her throat and felt her pulse leap under it, found the red bloom at her collarbone in the exact shape of his mouth, and smiled at it like a fool before she could stop herself.
She splashed cold water on her face and it changed nothing.
She still smelled like him, sweat and skin and the expensive edge of his cologne, and some traitor part of her wanted to climb back into that bed and drown in it.
She braced her hands on the counter, head down, eyes shut.
Leaving was supposed to be easy. She’d done it before.
Just not from a man who looked at her like she was the only thing in the room worth seeing, who’d told her he was glad she’d let him close enough to chase the sadness off for one night.
That was the thing she had to walk away from.
That was the one that could cost her everything she’d just spent months learning to hold for herself.
She slipped back into the bedroom quiet as a ghost. He hadn’t moved, still sprawled on his back, sheets tangled at his hips, one arm reaching for the warm hollow she’d left behind.
She gathered her shoes, her keys, her clutch.
At the door, the hallway light spilled across the carpet and caught the gold in his hair, and it almost turned her around. Almost.
She closed the door behind her without a sound.
In the hallway she finally let herself breathe, and it hurt, sharp and mean as a fresh bruise.
She wanted to go back, crawl in, let him fold around her again.
She kept walking instead, one step after another, dress gaping, heels swinging from two fingers.
She didn’t look back. She made it all the way to her car before the sting started at the corners of her eyes, a hot ache behind her ribs with no business being there over a man whose name she’d refused to learn.
She drove home in silence, each block carrying her farther from the only person in months who’d made her feel seen.
She didn’t let the tears come until she was through her own front door.
And this time, when they did, they weren’t the kind that had put her on the floor in a wedding dress.
This time, somehow, against everything, they were almost happy ones.