Chapter 10 The Calm #2
“Halo.” Her voice follows me like a heat-seeking round.
“Halo is the man who keeps his hands to himself. Who builds pillow walls and pretends he doesn’t watch me sleep.
” Closer now. Heat radiates against my back.
“Halo is the man who’s about to go jerk off in the shower because he’s too disciplined to take what he actually wants. ”
My hand tightens on the doorframe. Knuckles bleaching white.
“But that kiss?” Her voice drops, soft and lethal. “That wasn’t Halo. That was Diego—and he wants me so bad he’s shaking with the need for me.”
My jaw locks. Molars grinding. Teeth ready to crack.
“Too bad.” The words scrape out like broken glass. “Diego doesn’t exist anymore.”
A beat. Two.
“Liar.” The word lands like a bullet. Quiet. Precise. Dead center.
I close the door harder than necessary.
Her laughter filters through the wood—warm and real and entirely too pleased with herself.
The water is hot. I let it pound against my shoulders like punishment. I think of last night. Of the line I crossed. Of the way it felt to stop fighting myself.
I tell myself it won’t happen again.
I tell myself a lot of things.
But my body isn’t listening. I look down. I’m hard. Painfully, undeniably hard. It’s an ache that runs from my groin to my chest, a physical demand for release.
It’s just biology, I tell myself. Friction. Stress. Adrenaline.
I wrap my hand around myself.
I stroke, fast and efficient. Rough. The friction is good.
But it doesn’t work. I close my eyes, and I don’t see blank darkness. I see her. I see the way she looked in the woods, wild and dirty. The way she looked in the bed this morning, soft and sleep-warm.
I groan; the sound lost in the steam. I stroke faster, desperate to purge the need, desperate to get back to zero.
Click.
The bathroom door opens.
My eyes snap open.
Awareness hits first—pure instinct. The shift in the air. The change in pressure. The quiet certainty that I’m no longer alone.
Steam curls around her as she steps inside the bathroom, already stripped of hesitation, hoodie gone, jeans undone. Her gaze flicks once—to my face, to my hand, my cock—and something feral sparks in her expression.
She sees me. Exposed. Needing.
“Cassie,” I warn. My voice is wrecked.
The shower roars. She ignores me. She pushes her jeans down, kicks them away. She’s naked.
Gloriously naked.
I close my eyes, lock my jaw, and brace against the tile like it might hold me together if I lean hard enough. My hand is still wrapped around my cock, throbbing, leaking, betraying me.
“Cassie,” I say again. Sharper this time. Command, not plea. “Go.”
Silence.
The glass door to the shower slides open, and the sound slices through me.
“I said go,” I snap.
She steps into the shower. My eyes snap open.
The water beads on her skin, tracing lines I can’t follow without losing what’s left of my control.
“No,” she says. One word. Calm. Absolute.
“Cassie—”
“I’m not leaving.” She steps closer, steam blurring the edges of her, but not the intent in her eyes. “You don’t get to order me away and pretend this isn’t happening.”
“You don’t understand what you’re doing.”
“I understand exactly what I’m doing.” Her hand comes up, fingers closing around my wrist—not stopping me, grounding me. “You’re the one pretending.” Her fingers are inches from my cock. So close. So achingly close.
My breath turns shallow. Too fast. My body betrays me again, tension coiling tighter with every second she stays.
“Look at me,” she says.
I don’t.
Her fingers slide up my arm, slow and deliberate, mapping muscle and restraint and the places I’ve been holding too tight for too long.
“Look. At. Me.”
I do. I take her in. The water slicks her hair back. The drops running down her throat, over her breasts. The hunger in her eyes matches my own.
Her chin lifts. Defiant. Unafraid. Choosing this.
“Tell me to leave, if you can,” she challenges softly. “But if you do, say it like you mean it.”
I open my mouth.
Nothing comes out.
She steps into my space. Steam. Heat. Her body so close I feel it before I touch it—feel the pull, the gravity, the inevitability of what I’ve been fighting since the kiss.
“That’s what I thought,” she murmurs. She reaches down, her fingers curling around mine.
I grab her waist—hard enough to bruise, desperation clawing its way out.
“You need to stop.”
Her other hand fists in my wet hair. She pulls my head down.
“Make me.”
That’s it.
The last thread snaps.
I haul her up against me, the kiss crashing in rough and hungry, all restraint burned away in the collision. Her gasp is sharp, startled—and then she’s kissing me back just as fiercely, mouth opening, breath breaking between us.
“Fuck,” I breathe into her mouth.
Her legs wrap around me instinctively, like she’s been waiting for permission I never meant to give. I lift her without thinking, her body fitting against mine like it knows exactly where it belongs.
The water beats down around us, loud and relentless. I press her back against the wet tiles, my forehead dropping to hers as I fight for breath. I grind my hips against hers, the friction unbearable.
“This is a bad idea,” I say, even as my hands roam over her slick skin, memorizing the curve of her spine, the swell of her hips.
“Then stop,” she challenges, breathless. “Right now.”
I don’t.
I carry her out of the shower instead.
Water drips from our bodies, soaking the carpet as I carry her across the room to the bed.
We fall onto the mattress, a tangle of limbs and heat. I’m over her, pinning her wrists to the pillow, needing to see her face. Her eyes are blown wide, dark green, and wrecking me.
The heat between us burns brighter now that there’s no space left to pretend this isn’t happening. My hands frame her face, forcing her to look at me.
“This doesn’t fix anything,” I warn, voice wrecked. “This makes everything worse.”
Her hands slide up my arms, anchoring me, steady and sure.
“I don’t want fixed,” she says softly. “I want you.”
The words land harder than any order.
I kiss her again—slower this time, deeper, like I’m finally allowing myself to feel everything I’ve been denying. Her breath stutters against my mouth. Her fingers dig into my shoulders, holding me there like she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she lets go.
And just like that, Halo is gone.
There’s only heat, need, and hunger.
And neither of us is backing down.
“We compromised the perimeter.”
She laughs, a soft, tired sound. “The door is locked, Halo.”
“The internal perimeter,” I correct. “My head.”
She looks up at me. “Is that a bad thing?”
“Ask me tomorrow.” I kiss her forehead.
But right now?
Right now, it feels like the only right thing I’ve done in years.