Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hayden
The room was still, washed in the pale light of morning, but I couldn’t close my eyes. Sleep was a mercy I hadn’t earned in years, and last night had stolen any chance of it.
Edwina lay curled against me, her breath slow and even, her hair spilling over my chest as ink across paper.
My arm was draped around her waist, possessive even in stillness, my palm spread across the same bare skin I had touched, kissed, fucking worshipped.
I should have felt satisfaction, triumph, even peace, but all I felt was the gnawing ache of obsession, threaded with guilt that refused to fade.
I had promised myself I would never take what wasn’t mine to claim. Yet here she was, warm in my bed, marked by my hands, her voice still echoing in my head. Hayden. The way she had said my name last night hadn’t just been a sound, it had been a surrender. And it had fucking ruined me.
I watched her lips part faintly in sleep, lashes resting on flushed cheeks, and the thought struck deep, sharp as a blade. What if she woke and regretted it? What if she looked at me not with that hunger but with shame?
My chest tightened, rage twisting deep, violent, but not at her, never her.
At myself. At the way I had let her crawl beneath my skin and tear through every wall I’d built.
I was supposed to keep her at a distance, to maintain control.
But the second she knocked on my door with that bottle in her hand and that fire in her fucking eyes, I was a goner.
I brushed a strand of hair from her face, my fingers trembling more than I wanted to admit. Mine. The word tore through me, dangerous and absolute. She was mine, whether she knew it yet or not.
Her body shifted against me, a soft sound escaping her throat, and my breath caught.
I wanted her to wake. I wanted her to whisper my name again, to remind me that last night wasn’t a dream I had conjured out of my hunger, but something real, something I had taken, claimed, and would never be able to give back.
When her lashes fluttered and her eyes finally opened, dark and still heavy with sleep, I let my thumb drag over her lower lip before she could speak. “Careful,” I murmured, my voice rough, “you’ll make me believe you’re real.”
The weight of sleep still clung to her, and I should have envied it, the way she surrendered so easily while I remained awake, trapped in the claws of thought.
But envy never came. Instead, I watched.
I traced every line of her face with my eyes, memorizing her in this quiet hour when she was untouched by the chaos that followed me like a curse.
I had no right to keep her here, pressed against the wreckage of my life, where ghosts still whispered my name.
My family. My past. None of it was meant for her.
She deserved the light, not the rot buried inside me.
The thought of her ever stepping too close to that truth terrified me more than any nightmare I’d ever endured.
I slipped carefully from beneath her, slow enough that she only murmured in protest. The sketchbook waited on the desk, the one I hadn’t touched in months. My hands, restless and fucking traitorous, reached for it before reason could stop me.
The pencil moved without command, driven by that old compulsion that seized me whenever control slipped.
Her hair bled across the page in dark strokes, her mouth soft in sleep, her lashes scattering shadows.
Each stroke I made carried the weight of a confession I had no right to voice.
My hand stilled at her mouth, the curve of her lips, still carrying the ghost of last night’s whispers.
A sound escaped me, rough and fractured.
She was the one thing in this world untouched by my decay, and still, I was dragging her into it, immortalizing her with the same hands that had already ruined too much.
The pencil caught, cutting across the page harder than I meant.
A jagged stroke split the quiet sketch. My jaw clenched.
No matter how much I wanted to believe I could protect her, the truth was merciless, people near me ended up in graves.
And still, when she shifted and whispered my name in her sleep, I nearly tore the page from the book just to press it against my chest.
I hadn’t meant to fall asleep at the desk. The sketchbook lay open, graphite smeared across my fingers, her face staring back at me in light and shadow. Edwina. Even on paper, she haunted me. Drawing her hadn’t lessened the obsession clawing at my chest, it had fed it.
Morning light bled through the blinds, pale and unforgiving. I forced my eyes open, my back aching from the chair. Then I heard it, the faintest rustle of sheets. I turned.
She was there, curled beneath the covers, her hair spilling over my pillow, her breathing soft, rhythmic. The sheet had slipped from her shoulder, revealing the bare line of skin I had kissed hours ago.
For a moment, I just watched. Every instinct screamed to keep her safe, and to push her the fuck away. But there she was, in my bed, in my life, wrapped so tight around me I couldn’t remember who I’d been before her.
I closed the sketchbook, setting it aside with care. If only she knew what she was asking for by being here.
Rising, I moved to the kitchen. The faint clatter of a pan, the hiss of butter melting, it all felt obscene after the night we’d had.
My hands worked on instinct, pouring batter, flipping pancakes, pretending the act could ground me.
It didn’t, every thought found its way back to her, and with every heartbeat, her name reverberated through me, a pulse I could no longer live without.
She was my calm. My ruin. My goddamn salvation and my sin.
I was reaching for another plate when I felt it, soft arms circling my waist, small hands pressing against my chest, warmth seeping into my back. My whole body went still.
“Hayden,” she murmured, voice husky with sleep. Hearing my name on her lips nearly fucking undid me.
I turned my head slightly, catching her reflection in the kitchen window. My shirt hung loose on her frame, too big, swallowing her completely, yet not enough to hide the bare curve of her thigh where the hem ended. My jaw locked, control thinning to a thread.
“You shouldn’t sneak up on a man holding a hot pan,” I said, deep and unhurried, though the amusement in my tone was rough around the edges.
Her lips brushed my shoulder, a ghost of a kiss through the fabric. “And you shouldn’t look this good while cooking,” she whispered. “It’s distracting.”
I set the pan down before I did something reckless, a dark laugh catching in my throat.
“Distracting, huh? You walk into my kitchen, wearing my shirt, smelling of me, and you’re calling me the distraction.”
I caught her wrist, lifted her hand, and pressed my mouth to her knuckles. “Eat first,” I said softly, though the words burned in my throat. “Then I’ll give you every distraction you can handle.”
Her lashes fluttered. She looked up at me, eyes dark and questioning. “And what about your breakfast?” she asked, her voice barely holding steady.
A slow grin curved my mouth. I didn’t let go of her hand. Instead, I turned it over, tracing the inside of her wrist with my thumb, feeling the wild pulse under her skin. Then I lifted her palm and kissed it—once, twice—before my lips brushed the soft spot at the base of her fingers.
“My breakfast?” I repeated, dragging out the words, savoring the way her breath hitched.
“My breakfast is you.”
Her lips parted, her chest rising in a shallow breath, but no sound came out. I let the silence stretch. I fed on it, on her, on the heat flushing her cheeks and the way her gaze fell to my mouth.
“You,” I whispered, my voice rough with hunger. “Every damn morning, I want to wake up starving for you. To taste your lips before anything else. To feel you melt against me before the world even starts moving.”
I kissed her knuckles again, slower this time, then lowered my mouth to her wrist. My tongue traced the delicate vein there, and she gasped, her fingers curling into my shirt.
“My Little Flare,” I murmured, the words a low growl against her skin. “You’re the only meal I’ll ever crave.”
Her eyes darkened, caught somewhere between protest and surrender, and it made something feral in me stir. I leaned in, my breath hot against her ear, my voice nothing but a husky confession.
“Coffee can wait. Food can wait. The only thing I want to devour this morning is you. Every sound you make. Every shiver you give me. Every inch that’s mine.
” I brushed my nose against hers, lips barely touching, my voice dropping to a rasp.
“Eat, if you can. But don’t think for a second I’m leaving this table hungry. ”
And just like that, breakfast was forgotten.