Chapter 28
twenty-eight
. . .
CONNOR
I wake up and immediately realize I’ve made several mistakes.
One: falling asleep in the same bed as Whitney.
Two: waking up before she does.
Three: waking up with Whitney curled against me and my body reacting exactly the way a man’s body is going to react when the woman he’s completely wrecked over is warm and soft and draped all over him.
Her head is tucked under my chin, one arm draped across my ribs, her leg hooked over mine in a way that has her pressed into me from chest to thigh.
I go still. Not because I don’t know what’s happening, but because I know exactly what’s happening.
I’m hard as hell, and there’s not a single part of my body interested in acting mature about it.
She shifts in her sleep just enough to drag herself tighter against me. Her thigh slides between mine, her hand moves lower on my stomach, and a hot pulse goes through me so sharp it almost makes my teeth clench.
Fuck.
I stare at the ceiling and breathe through my nose like that’s going to save me.
It doesn’t. If anything, it makes me more aware of every inch of her.
The heat of her tucked into my side. The drag of her breath through my shirt. The way her leg is hooked over mine like she has no idea what that’s doing to me.
Or maybe worse—like some sleeping part of her does.
That thought alone nearly kills me, because my body can’t deal with that.
And it’s already latching onto the idea of rolling her under me and finding out what sound she makes when I wake her up with my mouth on her throat.
I shut that down immediately, or at least I try to, but it doesn’t work, because once that thought is there, it keeps going.
My hand sliding under her shirt.
My palm over her stomach, then higher, cupping her breasts and teasing her tight nipples.
Her waking slowly, soft and confused and already warm against me.
The first little shift of her hips when she feels how hard I am. Then, the second she realizes exactly what she’s doing to me.
Fuck.
I clench my jaw.
Morning wood is one thing. This is not that. This is her. This is wanting her in a way that feels too sharp to simply be called arousal.
Because, yeah, I want to fuck her. Badly. That part is brutally obvious right now.
I want her half asleep and needy, grinding down on me before either of us says a word.
I want to push her shirt up and kiss my way down her stomach while she’s still waking up, then spread her thighs and make her come before she’s fully opened her eyes.
My whole body tightens.
But it’s worse than that, because the physical part isn’t even the hardest hit.
It’s the trust.
The way she reached for me in her sleep. The way she’s draped over me like I’m a safe space. And the way she’s loose with me right now, unguarded in a way she isn’t when she’s awake and looking at me like she remembers every reason I don’t deserve to be near her.
That’s what really gets under my skin.
She makes a soft little sound and nuzzles closer, her mouth brushing my shoulder through my shirt, and I swear to god I almost groan.
My hand is on her waist, yet I don’t remember putting it there. My thumb rests just above the hem of her sleep shirt, one inch from bare skin, and it takes everything I have not to slide it underneath.
But I find the will anyways, because I can’t be that guy. Not with her. And not when she’s still hurt.
I give myself a few seconds longer than I should, just existing with the weight of her on me in the quiet of the early morning.
Then, very carefully, I slide my arm out from under her and ease away.
She frowns in her sleep and rolls into the mattress, still out cold.
I sit up on the edge of the bed and drag a hand down my face. I’m still hard, still aching. And distance feels like the only intelligent move left.
So I get up and cross the room, putting space between us before I do something stupid like crawl back into bed and test the limits of my own self-control.
From the chair by the window, I watch her sleep anyway.
Hair messy, mouth slightly parted. One leg tangled in the sheets like she’s got no idea what she’s doing to me.
She said she needs to hate me a little, but I’m trying real hard not to give her any more reason to.
By the time we pull into Savannah, we’re already behind.
Not enough to be a full disaster, but enough that I can feel it under my skin as I follow the GPS through a maze of one-way streets and impatient Monday morning commuter traffic.
A delivery truck cuts me off, a car behind me lays on their horn, and I check the time again even though I already know what it’s going to say.
We’re late.
And, I didn’t even sleep. Not really.
After I extracted myself from her cuddling and finally calmed my body down, Whitney rolled over and I was able to climb back into bed, but sleep didn’t come.
Physically, I was horizontal, eyes closed, doing a decent impression of resting. But mentally, I spent most of the night very aware Whitney was in the same bed.
I glance over at her.
She’s quieter than usual, one leg tucked under her, fingers absently twisting the end of her ponytail as she watches the city pass by. There’s something softer about her this morning, like the edges have blurred just enough to make everything feel a little less sharp than it did yesterday.
“Just so you know,” she says after a minute, still looking out the window, “I’m sorry about the cuddling situation.”
I glance over at her. “The cuddling situation?”
I know exactly what she’s referring to, but part of me wants her to say it.
“Yeah,” she says, like she can make it smaller if she keeps her voice casual. “Won’t happen again.”
I probably should let it go, but I don’t. Instead, I shift my grip on the wheel. “I liked it.”
She turns her head just enough to look at me, not fully, like she’s not committing to the reaction yet.
“Oh.”
I shrug, keeping my eyes on the road. “Wasn’t sure I was allowed to, but yeah.”
Silence stretches between us, but it’s not as sharp as it was before.
She looks back out the window, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear like she needs something to do with her hands.
“Okay,” she says after a second, quieter now.
I don’t push it. Don’t try to turn it into something bigger than it is, even though part of me wants to.
Because this is what she needs. The space to feel it without being cornered by it.
After a second, she adds, “Still not happening again.”
There’s a hint of something in her voice this time—lighter, almost teasing, like she’s trying to reestablish ground she understands.
I huff out a quiet breath. “Tragic.”
“Very,” she says, shaking her head, a small laugh escaping her.
Her mouth curves, quick and reluctant, like she didn’t mean to let that happen.
It’s far from simple between us. And nothing’s fixed. But at least for the moment, it feels easier again.
I pull into the lot and kill the engine. The quiet settles between us, heavier than the drive, like without the motion there’s nothing left to buffer what’s sitting just under the surface.
Whitney exhales and reaches for the door. “Okay. We’re professionals again.”
“Right,” I say, grabbing my bag. “Totally normal. Nothing weird happening here.”
“Nothing weird at all,” she echoes, already stepping out into the heat.
We walk in side by side, close but not touching, like there’s an invisible line running between us that neither of us is willing to cross in daylight.
Inside the aquatic center, the Rising Tides swim clinic is already in full force.
Kids in swim gear dart between stations, parents line the walls with coffee cups and camera phones, and a handful of instructors are already in the water, calling out drills and corrections over the echo of splashing and chatter.
Tate, the Rising Tides Foundation social media coordinator, spots us first.
“There you are,” she calls, jogging over with her phone in hand. “I was about to send out a search party.”
“We made it,” I say, because anything beyond that feels like a terrible idea.
Her gaze flicks between us, quick and assessing, but whatever she clocks, she lets go.
“Okay, quick rundown,” she says, shifting into work mode. “We’ve got four groups rotating through. You two will spend time with each group, keep it light, answer questions, jump in where it makes sense. Let the instructors handle structure.”
Whitney nods easily. “Fun, not terrifying. Got it.”
“Exactly,” Tate says. “You’re perfect for it.”
Something about that tightens my jaw for half a second.
Like that’s all people expect from her.
Before I can sit in it, one of the kids barrels into me.
“Are you Connor Fisk?” he asks, eyes wide.
I crouch down until I’m eye level with him. “Depends. You here to beat me in a race?”
He reveals a toothy grin. “Yeah.”
“Then yeah,” I say. “That’s me.”
That’s all it takes.
Within minutes, I’ve got a small group gathered around me, all talking at once, asking questions, daring each other to go faster, louder, better. I crouch at the edge of the pool, walking them through turns, showing them how to streamline, how to trust the water instead of fighting it.
“Again,” I tell one of them. “You’ve got it. Just don’t overthink it.”
He nods, determined, and pushes off.
“See?” I say. “Told you.”
The kid lights up like I handed him something bigger than a correction.
And just like that, something in me settles.
This part is easy. It’s not something I have to think my way through.
I glance up and catch Whitney watching me from across the pool.
She looks away almost immediately, like she didn’t mean to get caught. But I saw it.
That pull between us, the one she’s trying to ignore and I almost ruined before it even had a chance to be real, is still there.
I can feel it in the way she looks at me when she forgets herself for half a second, in the way things shift when we get too close, like something underneath all of it refuses to let go.
I don’t need her to decide anything right now. I don’t need her to stop being mad. If anything, she should be. I gave her a reason to be, and pretending otherwise would just be another version of the same mistake.
So she can take her time with it. She can hold onto that anger as long as she needs to if it means she’s working her way back to trusting me instead of forcing herself past it.
I’m not going anywhere.
That’s the difference.
Before, I would’ve pushed. Tried to fix it too fast, smooth it over, say whatever needed to be said to get back to the easy version of things. But this—whatever this is between us—it was never supposed to be easy. It was supposed to be real.
And that means I wait. I show up, even when she doesn’t make it easy for me. I don’t get to skip ahead just because I know where I want this to go.
And I do know what I want. Not in some reckless, all-in, consequences-be-damned way, but in something steadier than that—something that settles in deeper every time I’m around her.
This thing between us isn’t done. It’s just unfinished.
And when she’s ready—when she decides I’ve earned my way back into that space with her—I’ll be right here.
Not trying to convince her. But making damn sure she never has to wonder again.