Zain
The preliminary fire report sits open on my kitchen table, but I have stopped pretending to read it.
The cabin is too quiet, and I am more aware of that than I should be.
Kaia said she was meeting Joyce after class. That should be the end of it. She is an adult, she has plans, and staying under my roof does not give me the right to wonder when she will come back.
Headlights move across the front windows, and I look up before I can stop myself.
A knock follows a few seconds later.
When I open the door, Kaia stands on the porch with the paper shopping bag from this morning looped over one wrist. Joyce is beside her, keys in hand.
“One fire survivor returned in mostly original condition,” Joyce says.
Kaia looks over her shoulder. “Mostly?”
“You complained about my driving the entire way here.”
“Because you treat road markings like suggestions.”
Joyce smiles at me. “Good night, Chief.”
“Night.”
She points her keys at Kaia. “Call me tomorrow.”
Her eyes flick briefly toward me, then back to Kaia.
“With details.”
Kaia closes her eyes. “Go home, Joyce.”
“I will.”
Then she heads back to her car.
Kaia watches her leave before looking at me.
“She is exhausting.”
“But you love her.”
“Unfortunately.”
I step aside. “Come in.”
She walks past me, and I close the door behind her.
For a moment, neither of us speaks.
Kaia sets the bag beside the couch, then pulls out her sketchbook and leaves it on the coffee table.
“How was class?” I ask.
“Messy.”
“Normal, then.”
“One child painted a purple dog with six legs.”
“Why six?”
“He said four was boring.”
I nod. “Fair.”
That earns the beginning of a smile, but it fades almost immediately.
“Any news about the house?”
The question tightens something in my chest.
“Nothing confirmed about the cause yet.”
“And the rest?”
“Still a total loss.”
She looks down.
“There was nothing salvageable?”
“Not that they could safely recover.”
Her fingers curl against her thighs before slowly relaxing again.
“Okay.”
I hate that word. I hate the way she says it as if she can make the loss smaller by accepting it quietly.
I give her space because I know better than to crowd grief.
After a moment, she draws in a breath.
“About last night.”
My shoulders tighten.
“All right.”
“I understand why you stopped.”
I wait.
Her eyes narrow. “Nothing to say?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I do not know. Something.”
“I thought you understood.”
“I do.”
“Then I am not sure what we are arguing about.”
“We are not arguing.”
“We are about to.”
Her mouth tightens, but after a moment some of the fight leaves her face.
“I understand why you stopped,” she says again. “I just wish you had not kissed me back like that in the first place.”
I frown. “Why?”
A short laugh leaves her.
“Because it made the part after confusing.”
Something inside me goes still.
She looks away.
“I was already embarrassed enough.”
“About kissing me?”
“About everything. The nightmare. Throwing myself at you. Then hearing you explain why it should not have happened.”
I straighten.
“Kaia.”
“I know you were trying to do the right thing. But for a while, I could not tell whether you were protecting me from a bad decision or trying to let me down gently.”
The words hit hard.
She thinks I did not want her.
Christ.
I cross the room and stop in front of her.
“That is not what happened. I stopped because you had just woken from a nightmare. You were shaking, and if I had kept touching you, I was not sure I would stop where I should.”
Her lips part.
I hold her gaze.
“I wanted you too much to trust myself once I started.”
The room goes silent.
Kaia stares at me for several seconds before she finally says, “Too much?”
“Yes.”
Something shifts in her expression.
I force myself to say the rest.
“I wanted you before the fire.”
She goes very still.
Then, softly, “Good.”
I stare at her.
“Good?”
Her chin lifts.
“Because I wanted you before the fire too.”
My pulse hits hard.
Every excuse I built around her disappears at once.
Kaia looks down.
“I am still angry with you.”
“That sounds more familiar.”
Her mouth twitches.
“The part that hurt was you deciding what I felt.”
I nod once. “I know.”
“No, I do not think you do.”
I stay quiet.
“My family had opinions about everything. What I wore, what I ate, what I studied, how loudly I laughed. I left at eighteen because I was tired of seeing myself through everyone else’s eyes.”
She looks at me.
“So when you told me I might not know what I felt, it landed badly.”
“I’m sorry.”
Her expression softens slightly.
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
I look down at my hands.
“My reasons do not excuse it.”
Kaia says nothing, and I could leave it there.
Instead, I hear myself say, “I had men under my command die on a rescue.”
She stills.
“There was a fire. The structure was failing, and I made the call to push farther.”
The old memory tightens across my scars.
“I got some of them out. Not all.”
Her face changes.
“I survived. They did not.”
“Zain.”
“Since then, when something matters too much, I get distance before I can lose it.”
Kaia watches me for a long moment.
“That sounds lonely.”
The words land harder than comfort would have.
I look away.
“It works.”
“No. It functions.”
My gaze returns to hers.
She gives a small shrug.
“That is not the same thing.”
For once, I have no answer.
Her attention shifts to the coffee table.
The sketchbook.
She looks at me.
“You saved it.”
“Yes.”
“Did you look inside?”
“No.”
Some of the tension leaves her shoulders.
Then I add, “I saw the painting.”
Her entire face changes.
“You what?”
“It was hard to miss.”
“I covered it.”
“The cloth came off.”
She closes her eyes.
“This is horrifying.”
“It shouldn’t be.”
“You found a giant unfinished portrait of yourself in my burning living room.”
“Half finished.”
Her eyes fly open.
“You looked long enough to notice?”
“I had eyes.”
“You were rescuing me.”
“I can do two things.”
She stares at me, cheeks turning pink, and I almost smile.
“How long?” I ask.
Her eyes narrow. “How long what?”
“Have you been drawing me?”
“That is none of your business.”
“Probably not.”
“Good.”
I do not move.
She studies my face.
“That is not what you really want to ask.”
She is right.
“How long have you wanted me?”
The humor leaves her expression. She answers without looking away.
“Longer than you think.”
My pulse kicks.
She steps closer.
“Before you carried me out. Before I slept in your bed. Before I knew you wanted me back.”
I curl my hands at my sides.
“You need to stop.”
Her brows draw together. “Why?”
“Because I am trying very hard to stand over here.”
Her gaze drops briefly to my hands, then returns to my face.
“Maybe I do not want you over there.”
Every muscle in my body tightens.
“Kaia.”
“I wanted you long before the fire, Zain.”
That is the last warning either of us gets.
She is only a few steps from the wall beside the hallway. I cross the distance, catch her waist, and turn us in one movement, putting her back against it before either of us can pretend this is still a conversation.
She gasps softly.
One of my hands braces beside her head while the other stays firm around her waist, and I stop with my mouth inches from hers.
“Tell me to move.”
“No.”
“That was not the question.”
“I know.”
My fingers tighten at her waist.
She slides one hand up my chest.
“Closer.”
Fuck.
I kiss her.
There is nothing careful about it.
She opens for me immediately, and the sound she makes tears through what little restraint I have left. I pull her against me, feeling every soft curve as her fingers slide into my hair.
My hand moves over her hip and closes around her ass.
Kaia moans into my mouth.
I drag my lips along her jaw and down the side of her neck.
“You’re absolutely sure?”
“Yes.”
“Use more words.”
Her eyes meet mine.
“I want you. Badly.”
I lift her.
Her legs wrap around my waist, bringing her against my cock, and her breath catches when she feels how hard I am.
“Bedroom.”
I carry her down the hall.
She kisses me again before I reach the bed, and by the time I set her down, her face is flushed and her breathing uneven.
For a second, she looks up at me in the yellow shirt I bought this morning.
I pull my shirt off.
Her gaze moves over my chest, then catches on the scars crossing my shoulder.
The old instinct to turn away rises before I can stop it.
Kaia reaches for me first. Her fingertips trace the edge of one scar. They move lower, over the ink at my side, then back to the scarred skin at my shoulder, as if none of me is something to look away from.
“Does this hurt?”
“Not anymore.”
She leans forward and presses her mouth to the damaged skin.
My eyes close.
No one has ever touched me there like that.
When I look at her again, something in my chest feels too exposed, so I kiss her before I say something I cannot take back.
This kiss is slower.
Her hands move over my chest while mine find the hem of her shirt.
“Can I?”
“Yes.”
I lift it over her head.
For half a second, uncertainty crosses her face as her hands shift toward her stomach.
I catch them gently.
“Don’t.”
Her eyes lift to mine.
“You are gorgeous, sweetheart. Don’t hide from me.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were about to.”
Her mouth tightens.
I kneel in front of her and settle my hands on her waist, taking in the warm softness of her beneath my palms.
“I have wanted my hands here for months.”
Her breath catches.
I kiss her stomach, feeling the muscles tighten beneath my mouth before I work higher.
“Take it off,” she whispers.
I open her bra and let it fall away. The sight of her nearly empties my head.
“Fuck.”
Color rises across her face.
I cup one breast and brush my thumb over her nipple.
She arches into my hand.
I put my mouth on her.
Kaia gasps, fingers tightening in my hair as I suck gently and give the other breast the same attention with my hand. Her body responds to every change in pressure, every slow pull of my lips, every pass of my tongue over the tightened peak.
By the time I ease her back onto the mattress, she is breathing my name.
I hook my fingers into the waistband of her jeans.
“Can I take these off?”
“Yes.”
I pull them down with her underwear.