Chapter Nine #2
She tilted her chin up, that stubborn spark still alive even beneath the haze. “Where are we going, Professor Stone?” she asked, voice soft but baiting. “You planning to give me a lecture on bar etiquette now?”
I didn’t bother answering. I just shifted my hand to her waist, firmer this time, guiding her toward the exit.
She didn’t resist, not really. Her body followed mine, her weight leaning just enough that I could feel every movement through her dress.
She sighed under her breath, muttering something about “towering tyrants” and “birthday bastards,” and though the sound nearly made me smirk, I kept my face still.
Outside, the air hit us hard, cold and biting, scraping the heat from my skin and replacing it with something sharper. She folded her arms around herself, small and shivering, and before she could protest, I shrugged off my coat and laid it across her shoulders.
“I don’t need—”
“Take the damn coat, Edwina.”
The words came out rough, closer to a command than kindness, and when she looked up at me, her breath trembled in the space between us.
She didn’t move for a heartbeat, her face tipped up toward mine, the edge of her mouth parted as if she wanted to argue but forgot how.
I could feel the heat of her breath against my jaw, could see the way her lips glistened in the streetlight, and for one reckless second, I almost leaned in, almost closed the distance, almost tasted what I’d been starving for since the moment I saw her in that dress.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t.
She took the coat in silence, fingers brushing mine for the briefest second before she slipped her arms inside.
I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I led her to the car, opened the passenger door, and helped her in.
She didn’t look at me when I closed it, but her reflection in the window was enough, flushed cheeks, glassy eyes, the ghost of a smirk she probably didn’t even mean.
When I slid into the driver’s seat, my hands were already clenched too tightly around the wheel.
I didn’t turn the key right away. The cabin was quiet, filled only with the soft sound of her breathing and the faint thump of the bass from the club fading behind us.
I told myself I should have left her there, called someone, done the decent thing.
But I couldn’t. Not with the memory of her body still pressed against mine, not with those eyes looking at me like they didn’t know how to ask for help but hated that they needed it.
She leaned her head against the window as I finally started the car, her hair falling forward, the soft strands catching the light as her eyes fluttered half-shut.
She wasn’t asleep. I could tell by the way her fingers moved in her lap, restless, by the way her breath caught every few seconds, as though she was trying to keep it even.
The silence in the car was thick, not peaceful, not calm, just heavy enough to make every mile feel longer than it was.
The road ahead stretched dark and empty, headlights gliding over the wet asphalt. I let my focus fix on that, on the rhythm of the white lines slipping under the hood, anything to stop me from looking at her again.
“Where do you live?” I asked finally.
She didn’t answer right away, of course she didn’t.
Her jaw was locked tight, her lips pressed together, her gaze pinned to the blur of the city passing outside her window.
I waited, knuckles white against the steering wheel, telling myself it was about responsibility, about safety, not about the way her silence made me want to reach across the space between us and drag her attention back to me.
But every second she stayed quiet, every breath that passed without her looking at me, made that lie harder to believe.
“Edwina,” I said again, quieter this time, my voice scraping lower than it should have.
“I’m not drunk.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
The silence that followed felt drawn out, stretched thin across the small space of the car, filled only by the sound of her breathing and the low hum of the engine. Then, after a beat too long, she muttered, “You don’t need to take me home. I could’ve walked.”
“In those heels? In that dress?” I shot her a look, one quick, sharp glance that made her shift her gaze toward the window again. “You would’ve made it two blocks before collapsing or getting followed.”
She turned her head just enough for me to catch the fire still burning behind her exhaustion. “I’m not helpless,” she said, her tone tight, defensive, proud.
“I didn’t say you were,” I replied, the grip on the steering wheel biting into my palms. “I just don’t want to find out what happens if I leave you like this.”
Another pause. She pressed her lips together, shoulders sinking slightly as the fight started to bleed out of her. Then, softer, “West Nineteenth. Corner of Merrow Avenue.”
I nodded, said nothing, and let the city swallow the rest of the drive.
The only sound between us was the hum of the tires against the wet asphalt and the quiet rasp of her breath.
My coat still hung loose around her shoulders, the collar brushing her jaw, her legs folded beneath her as though she were trying to shrink into herself, a futile attempt at distance in a car already crowded with everything left unsaid.
After a long stretch of silence, her voice finally drifted through it, unsteady, words brushing together at the edges. “Why d’you care?” she mumbled. “Who even are you to me, huh?”
I tightened my grip on the wheel, eyes fixed on the dark stretch ahead. “What did I tell you before?” I said at last, voice low, the control in it fraying just slightly. “Dress for the cold.”
She blinked, slow, unfocused, her head tilting against the seat. “That’s… that’s not an answer, Professor.”
I let out a quiet exhale, something that wasn’t quite a laugh. “I don’t want my assistant and keynote speaker catching a cold before the conference,” I said, the words roughened by something between sarcasm and worry.
She gave a tired little smile, the kind that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Always so damn formal,” she murmured, the syllables slurring together. “You’re terrible at lying.”
Her breath hitched, and I felt it more than I heard it.
When I finally pulled up to the curb outside her building, I cut the engine, but neither of us moved. She reached for the handle, her fingers fumbling once before pausing midair.
“You don’t have to walk me up,” she said.
I didn’t bother arguing. I just got out, came around, and opened her door. She didn’t protest, didn’t try to pull away. Maybe she was too tired to fight. Maybe she knew I wouldn’t let her win.
The elevator ride was silent, heavy, her reflection beside mine in the metal doors looking too pale, too still.
She swayed once, barely, and my hand moved instinctively toward her arm before I caught myself and let it fall back to my side.
I stayed close enough to catch her if she fell again, far enough to keep from losing whatever restraint I still had left.
She slipped her key into the lock, pushed the door open, then turned toward me. For a moment, we just stood there, the hallway light spilling between us, her face soft and tired, eyes glassy with the weight of the night.
“Thanks,” she said quietly, almost a whisper. “For not letting me fall.”
I nodded once, throat too tight to answer.
“I should go.”
She nodded, then shrugged out of my coat and held it toward me, her fingers brushing mine for a heartbeat before letting go. “You’ll need this more than I do.”
I took it from her, the fabric still warm from her body, her scent tangled deep in the wool, smoke and perfume and the faint sweetness of her skin.
It hit me harder than it should’ve. I could smell her everywhere now, feel her in the fabric against my hands, in the breath still clinging to my throat.
I turned away before I could do something stupid.
She didn’t call after me. But I felt her gaze follow me down the hall, hot and electric against my back, something between a question and a warning I didn’t have the strength to answer.
I didn’t want to leave her that way, standing in the doorway barefoot, wrapped in my scent, but I couldn’t stay, not without burning.
The hallway swallowed the sound of my steps. The door clicked shut behind me, and I didn’t breathe until I reached the elevator. Even then, the air came slow, shallow, my lungs working against the tightness still coiled in my chest.
I hit the button harder than I meant to. The metal doors parted with a mechanical groan, the empty space waiting in silent accusation. I stepped inside, shoulders tight, hands buried in the pockets of the coat that still carried her scent.
What the fuck was I doing?
The question hit hard, bounced off the walls, came back sharper. She wasn’t mine to worry about. Not mine to follow home. Not mine to hold when she stumbled, or to wrap in my coat as if she were something fragile that needed saving. Not mine to want.
And yet, when the doors slid shut and the elevator began its slow descent, all I could think about was the feel of her pressed against me, the heat, the tremor, the sound of her breath when I caught her. It clung to me like sin. And fuck, I knew I’d chase it again.
But I’d done it anyway, and it sure as hell hadn’t been out of kindness.
There was no nobility in it, no fucking instinct to protect or redeem or pretend I was better than I am.
It was her, all of it came down to her, the way she looked up at me with that goddamn fogged-over defiance still burning behind her lashes, as if she couldn’t decide whether to bite me or beg me to stay.
The curve of her mouth when she tried to say my name, the small stumble of it on her tongue, the way it sounded when she was too drunk to filter the want out of her voice.
It wasn’t innocence. It was invitation. And she didn’t even fucking realize it.
The memory of her body against mine was still seared into me, the heat of her pressed tight to my chest, the shape of her hip under my palm, the faint tremor that rolled through her when she tried to pull away.
I could still feel it in my fingers, phantom and maddening, her softness burned into my skin until every nerve screamed for more.
She had no fucking idea what she was doing, standing that close, breathing that way, shaking in my arms as if she trusted me not to ruin her.
She didn’t understand what kind of man she’d let catch her.
By the time I hit the street, the night had cooled, but it didn’t touch the fire still crawling under my skin.
The air cut sharp through my lungs, but the heat didn’t fade.
It never fucking did. I shoved my hands deeper into my pockets, jaw locked, shoulders pulled so tight they ached, trying to bury the impulse that kept rising in me, a curse crawling through my veins.
I could still see her, that dress, that mouth, that look that didn’t know how to stop asking for trouble.
And then her voice. That fucking confession.
You’re in my head.
All the damn time.
She’d said it between breaths, between the noise and the pulse of the club, her voice unsteady but her eyes steady on mine, unflinching, unguarded, and it hit harder than anything she’d ever said to me before.
The words hadn’t been loud. They didn’t need to be.
They’d driven into me, sharp and unrelenting, leaving a wound that never learned how to close.
I wanted to go back. Christ, I wanted to go back so bad it hurt.
Just to see her face one more time, just to hear her open that door and tell me I was a bastard for not minding my own business.
I wanted to see the flush rise on her neck when I said her name.
I wanted to make her say mine the same way, half anger, half need.
I wanted to pin her to that fucking wall and feel her body arch against mine, to taste the words off her tongue before she could finish them, to see what she’d sound like when she stopped pretending she didn’t want this.
I stopped walking. The thought hit too hard, too real. I dragged a breath in through my teeth, eyes shut, letting the cold wind slap across my face until it bit. My pulse beat hard against my throat, my fingers twitching with the restless need to find her again, to feel her skin under my palms.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She was supposed to stay buried, a shadow, a mistake I’d learned to live with, a ghost I’d put to rest years ago.
But she’d walked back into my world and turned it inside out without even trying.
Every word she said, every fucking glance she threw my way had been unspooling me, pulling threads I’d thought I’d tied off for good.
And tonight, of all nights — my fucking birthday — I couldn’t walk away. Not from her. Not from the sound of her voice, or the scent still clinging to my coat.
I kept walking, each step heavier than the last, the distance pulling me from the very thing that had already undone me. Because the truth was brutal. I hadn’t walked away at all. Not really. Not even close.