Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Alyssa
The day slips by in fragments.
The light has softened, curling around everything like a lover who doesn’t want to let go. The air clings, syrup-thick, threaded with lime and sea salt, smoke and sun. Everything feels dimmed but pulsing beneath the surface. Like the world’s paused just to see what we’ll do next.
Outside, the pool glows turquoise, dulled by the creeping dusk. Ripples drift lazily across its skin, like it’s still haunted by what we did there. The way we unraveled. Fell into each other with no map and no apologies. Wild. Breathless. Fucking gorgeous.
And I swear, my body still hums with it.
His hands. His mouth. The sound of my name on his tongue like it was the only one he wanted to say.
Like I meant something.
I keep thinking I’ll rinse it away if I stand under the shower long enough. But it’s in me now. Etched into every nerve. That low thrum of him—tucked into my skin like a secret I didn’t know I was keeping.
And I don’t want to give it back.
My fingers tremble when I touch the sundress I slipped into after that second shower. Pale yellow. Barely-there straps. The cotton is soft and thin enough to move with the air, but it clings in the wrong places—or maybe the right ones. Too much, not enough, all at once.
My hair’s still damp. I let my curls do what they want because I don’t have the energy to force anything into shape. Not when everything inside me feels unspooled and too close to the surface.
I tell myself that maybe I should stay in my room for the rest of the evening. Pull the covers over my head, pretend this villa doesn’t exist, that my body isn’t still aching from the way he touched it. That his voice doesn’t echo inside me like a hymn I was never meant to learn.
I’m not ready to see him again.
And it’s not a lie.
I’m not ready because if I face him, I’m going to beg him for more.
To take me.
To wreck me with those hands. To use that mouth like he promised he’d do next time. To whisper filth like it was prayer.
To bury himself so deep I forget who I was before him.
My legs press together, instinctively, like I’m trying to hold something in—like the memory of him might drip out of me if I don’t.
The dress feels thinner now. Too sheer. The fabric kisses the tops of my thighs as I move, no bra beneath, no panties either, because I couldn’t stand the thought of anything pressing against the places still pulsing for him.
The places he ruined. Blessed.
And God, I want him to do it again.
I picture the way his fingers curled when he slid them inside me—how he watched my face, how he listened for every twitch and gasp. Like he was learning me in real time and loving every second of it.
Like I was his favorite song and he was composing me with each thrust of his hand.
I lean against the wall beside the door, breath catching, pulse thudding like it knows what I’m about to do. There’s still time to turn back. To hide. To pretend I’m not already undone.
But then I smell it—grilled fish, roasted peppers, the faint sweetness of grilled pineapple.
Music.
Not loud. Just barely there, coming from the speakers in the living room.
I don’t even remember walking to the terrace. I’m just there, heart hammering like I’ve done something unforgivable and glorious all at once.
He’s barefoot by the grill, tongs in one hand. The ocean stretches behind him—brushed gold and velvet blue, the sun melting into the horizon in long, aching streaks.
He looks like sin and forgiveness rolled into one.
Shirt unbuttoned low, collar loose like it barely survived what we did earlier.
The edge of a tattoo teases just beneath the fabric, and I hate how much I want to trace it with my mouth.
His hair’s a fucking mess—wild in that way that says he’s run his hands through it too many times and never cared to fix it.
He glances over where I stand and smiles—quietly, like it’s just for me.
“Hey,” he says, his voice low and rough. “You hungry?”
I nod. But it’s not food I want.
Not really.
He turns back to the grill, lifting the snapper with a practiced hand, plating it beside roasted peppers and something else that smells like lemon and herbs.
His movements are calm, precise. But there’s tension in his shoulders, the kind you only notice when you’ve been close enough to feel them relax under your palms. I watch him slice limes, thumb brushing along the rim of the plate before setting it down like it matters how the dish looks, like this isn’t just dinner—it’s a peace offering.
He slides a plate in front of me without meeting my eyes. Then he takes the seat across the table and exhales—long and low—like he’s been holding it in since the second I stepped onto the terrace.
For a moment, we just eat. The only sound is the forks against the ceramic. The sun dips lower, casting everything in this hazy, gold warmth that softens the edges of reality. It would be easy to let it blur. To pretend this is just a late vacation dinner and nothing else.
But we promised to stop lying.
I cut into the fish. Take a bite. It’s tender, citrusy, perfect.
“This is really good,” I murmur, meaning it.
His mouth lifts into the faintest smile. “Cooking’s the one thing I do that’s not tied to music,” he says. “It’s one of the few things that grounds me. My grandmother used to say you should always know how to feed yourself and someone you love.”
I glance up. His eyes are still on his plate.
“Also, it keeps my hands busy when I’m spiraling through an existential crisis or I don’t know what to say.”
“So,” I say, nudging, “you didn’t know what to say.”
He scoffs under his breath. “We needed to eat. But yeah—I still don’t.”
He chews slowly. Sets his fork down like he’s making room for something that’s more pressing than the fish.
“You okay?” he asks.
Just two words. But they land in a place I didn’t expect. He isn’t asking if I’m fine now. He’s asking if I made it through earlier without cracking. If I came out the other side of it whole. If I want to do it again.
I stare down at my plate. “I don’t know,” I say quietly. “I mean, I’m not okay.”
He finally looks at me—and there’s no trace of retreat. No panic. Just something patient and deep. Something that could undo me if I let it.
“I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen,” he says. His voice is low, scraped with restraint. “Pretending’s never been good for my sobriety.”
“You did pretend though,” I say, gently. “You let me believe you were someone else.”
“I know.” He nods. “And it would’ve gotten worse if I hadn’t told you when I did.”
I know he’s right. Maybe too much to unpack in one night. But there’s also us. And that feels more urgent.
The air shifts between us again. Subtle. Electric. He leans in, elbows resting on the table, eyes steady on mine.
“Let’s not shove it under the rug,” he says.
I blink. “Now? Over grilled fish?”
He huffs a short laugh. “If we don’t talk about it now, we’ll keep avoiding it. And I—” He runs a hand through his hair, voice almost breaking on the next words. “I don’t want this to be some vacation fuck.”
He says it plainly. Like he doesn’t know how to sugarcoat, or maybe just doesn’t want to.
I study him for a beat. “Everything that’s happened since I met you has been . . .” I trail off, searching. “Unexpected?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Exactly. It’s surprising and new to me.” He swallows hard. “I’ve never been in a relationship. Not really. It was easier to just have a five-minute fuck and move on. For years. For too many years. Which, yeah, sounds pathetic for a man my age.”
He pauses. Breathes.
“With you . . . it’s not like that. You’re not a habit. You’re not something I’ll forget once this trip ends. You’re not forgettable.”
That’s when the air catches in my lungs.
He shifts, voice quieter now. “You make me want things I told myself I’d never get to have.”
The words reach somewhere fragile inside me. I don’t even mean to say it out loud.
“You make me want things I stopped letting myself want.”
He leans back like he needs the distance to breathe. But his eyes never leave mine. There’s reverence in them. Heat too—but quieter. Like he’s afraid if he touches this moment wrong, it’ll vanish.
“That’s the problem,” he says softly. “You make me want more.”
I flinch. Just a little. “A problem?”
His expression tightens—regret flashing quick and clear.
“Not you,” he says fast. “It’s not you. It’s who I am.
The baggage I carry with me. The addiction—I’ll always be a recovering addict with a craving that’s hard to control.
The headlines. The fucking cameras outside my apartment every time I so much as breathe wrong.
I’ve spent my whole life being a walking complication. ”
“But you’re not pretending now,” I say.
He shakes his head. “No. I’m terrified—but I’m not pretending.”
And there it is again. That soft ache in my chest that feels like hope trying to take root.
The music keeps whispering—low and aching.
We sit there, half-lost in silence and heat, the air thick with everything we haven’t said.
Undeniable.
Close.
Undone.
And still starving for the parts of each other we haven’t touched yet.