Chapter 17 #2
"You were quiet." His voice is different now. Lower. Rougher. The commander stripped away, leaving something rawer underneath.
"I was listening."
"And what did you hear?"
"People who know what they're doing. People who care about protecting what you've built."
"But?"
He sees too much. Always has.
"I already said my piece."
"You held back. I could see you thinking through half the meeting, deciding whether to speak." He pushes off from the table. Takes a step toward me. "What else?"
"Nothing that can't wait."
"I'm asking now."
The distance between us shrinks with each word. He moves around the table slowly, deliberately, like a predator who doesn't need to rush because he knows his prey isn't going anywhere. I should stand. Should put the chair between us, maintain some barrier.
I stand. But I don't retreat.
Now we're on equal footing. Barely three feet apart. Close enough that his scent reaches me. Old books and whiskey and something darker underneath, something that belongs to him alone. I breathed it in when he carried me that first night. I've been trying to forget it ever since.
My body doesn't care about what I'm trying to forget. My body remembers everything.
"You were exactly who you needed to be tonight," I say, and I'm surprised my voice comes out steady. "In the meeting. With them."
"That's who I am with them." His eyes search my face, lingering on my mouth for a fraction of a second before meeting my gaze again. "It's not who I am with you."
"Which version is real?"
"Both." The word is quiet. Heavy. "But only one of them terrifies me."
The admission hangs between us.
"Why?"
"Because I don't know how to do this." He gestures vaguely at the space between us, and I track the movement of his hand, imagine it touching me instead of air.
"I know how to command. How to strategize.
How to build systems and maintain control.
But this?" His jaw tightens. "I don't have a playbook.
I can't calculate the right move or anticipate every outcome.
You make me feel things I don't know how to manage. "
He stops. His throat moves as he swallows.
"And that's terrifying," I finish.
"Yes."
He takes another step. The distance between us shrinks to two feet.
I can see every detail now. The individual strands of dark hair that have fallen across his forehead.
The fine lines at the corners of his eyes, the only evidence of age on a face frozen at thirty.
The way his lips have parted slightly, like he's having trouble remembering he doesn't need to breathe.
Everything in me is drawn toward him. Gravitational. Inevitable. The space between us feels charged, electric, like the air before a storm.
"I'm still angry," I whisper.
"I know."
"I don't know if I can trust you yet."
"I know that too."
"But watching you tonight. In the meeting. At my door before." My hands are trembling. I curl them into fists at my sides, nails digging into my palms. "You're trying. I can see you trying."
"Is it enough?"
"I don't know yet. But I want it to be."
Something shifts in his expression. Not hope. He's too careful for that. But something adjacent to it. Something raw and wanting that makes the ache in my chest spread lower, settling into places I'm trying not to think about.
He takes another step.
One foot of space between us now. I can feel the cool energy radiating off his body. Can see the faint silver threads in his gray eyes. Can smell that scent, stronger now, making my head swim.
His hand rises. Slowly. Trembling slightly.
It stops an inch from my face.
I can feel the proximity like a phantom touch. The ghost of his fingertips against my cheek. The almost sensation of his palm cradling my jaw. My skin tingles with the anticipation of contact that hasn't happened yet, might never happen, and the wanting is so intense it nearly buckles my knees.
His fingers hover there, trembling. This close, I can see the restraint costing him. The way his whole body has gone rigid with the effort of not closing that final inch. His eyes are locked on mine, searching, waiting.
"Tell me to step back." His voice is strained. Barely controlled. The words seem to scrape out of him. "Tell me and I will."
I should tell him to stay.
Part of me wants to. The part that remembers his face when he found me in that alley, the raw terror in his eyes, the way he whispered I thought I'd lost you like the words were being torn out of him.
The part that remembers the firelit study and his centuries-old letters and the vulnerability he showed me that night.
The part that leaned into his touch and wanted more, wanted everything, wanted him in ways I've never wanted anyone.
His fingertips drift closer. A hair's breadth from my skin. I can almost feel them. Almost.
My whole body aches toward that touch. Every nerve ending screaming for contact. The want is a living thing inside me, clawing at my resolve, demanding I close the distance and take what we both need.
But I need to know something first.
Not whether he would kiss me.
Whether he would stop.
"Step back."
He flinches. Just barely. A fracture in the marble.
But he does it. Immediately. No argument, no negotiation, no pleading. His hand drops to his side, and he takes one step backward, then another, until there's a proper distance between us again.
Three feet of space that feels like miles.
The absence of his almost-touch leaves me cold. My skin aches where his fingers should have been. I want to call the words back, want to close the distance and press myself against him, and forget all the reasons this is complicated.
I don't.
I watch what it costs him instead. The tight jaw. The careful breathing he doesn't need but does anyway. The way his hands curl into fists at his sides, knuckles white with the force of his restraint. The way his whole body seems to strain toward me even as he holds himself still.
Everything in him wants to close that distance. I can see it. Feel it. The wanting between us is a tangible thing, a thread pulled taut, vibrating with tension.
But he doesn't move toward me.
"Goodnight, Celeste."
His voice is rough. Wrecked. Like I've destroyed something in him just by asking him to stop.
I don't trust my voice. I just nod.
I make it to the door before I hear him exhale. A shattered sound. Something breaking apart in the silence behind me.
I don't look back. If I look back, I'll go to him. If I go to him, I'll never know if he could have let me leave.
The corridor is empty. My footsteps echo against the marble as I walk, too fast, toward my room. My whole body is trembling. My skin feels too tight, too sensitive, like every nerve has been scraped raw by what almost happened.
I told him to step back to see if he would.
He did.
Part of me wanted him to refuse. To close the distance anyway, to take the choice out of my hands so I wouldn't have to make it myself. That would have been easier. Simpler. I could have stayed angry, could have pointed to his inability to respect my boundaries as proof that nothing had changed.
Instead, he gave me exactly what I asked for. Stepped back. Let me go.
Proved that my choices matter more to him than his wanting.
I reach my room and close the door behind me, leaning against it, breathing hard even though I don't need air. The phantom sensation of his almost-touch still lingers on my cheek. The space where his fingers should have landed burns with absence.
I press my hand to my face, covering the skin he didn't touch, and close my eyes.
Leaving was the hardest thing I've done since I died.
But I needed to know he could let me go.
Now I just have to figure out if I can stay away.