Chapter 39
Chapter
Thirty-Nine
FALLON
I'm trying to stay awake, trying to hold onto this moment for as long as possible, but exhaustion pulls at me with relentless force. My eyes drift closed despite my best efforts to keep them open.
The bed dips behind me, and then strong arms wrap around me, pulling me back into solid warmth. His chest presses against my spine, one leg sliding between mine, surrounding me completely.
God, I don't want this to ever end.
"Stay with me."
The words voice my own desperate thoughts, and fresh tears burn behind my closed eyelids.
"Don't go back."
The tears spill over, hot tracks down my cheeks onto his pillow.
This is perfect—being here in his arms, in his bed, in this house where I feel safe and wanted and alive.
But it's not real. Not my real life. My real life is a nightmare waiting for me back home, and there's no escaping it.
Daniel will kill me if I try to leave. He has all the power—the money, the connections, the control. I have nothing.
"I can't." The words break on a sob that I can't quite suppress. I wipe at my tears with shaking fingers, trying to pull myself together and failing miserably.
"I'll figure out a way." His arms tighten around me, pulling me so close I can feel his heartbeat against my back. Like he's trying to pull me inside of him, make me part of him where nothing can reach me.
I turn in his arms, needing to see his face even in the darkness. My leg wraps around his hip as I burrow into his chest, breathing him in. I press a kiss to his collarbone, then his jaw, then finally his lips—soft and gentle, nothing like the brutal passion from the shower.
"Thank you," I whisper against his mouth.
"For what?"
"For everything." More tears fall, but I don't try to stop them anymore. "Bringing me here, making me feel comfortable in your home with your friends. Making me feel good." My voice drops to barely audible. "This has been the best week of my life."
The confession hangs between us, heavy with truth and impossible longing.
I don't want to wake up tomorrow and have to leave this perfect bubble.
I press my face into his neck, hiding from the reality that's waiting for me.
I know he wants to find a way out for me.
I can feel it in how tightly he holds me, hear it in his voice when he says he'll figure something out.
But there is no way. I know it. And soon he will too.
"I love having you here. In my house. In my bed." His hand slides into my hair, fingers threading through the damp strands with gentle possession. "I want to keep you."
The words make my chest crack open.
"He doesn't deserve to have you." His voice goes rough with anger and something else I can't name. "Shit, I don't either, but he definitely doesn't."
More tears fall—silent, unstoppable. I tighten my hold on him, wrapping myself around him like I can somehow absorb this moment into my bones, carry it with me when I have to leave.
I breathe him in, memorizing everything—his scent, his warmth, the way his heart beats steady and strong under my palm.
"Just hold me," I whisper, already drifting. "Please just hold me."
His arms become steel around me, protective and possessive and everything I've needed for so long.
I drift off wrapped in safety I know I can't keep.
My bladder pulls me from sleep, insistent and uncomfortable—an unwelcome intrusion into the cocoon of warmth and safety I've wrapped myself in.
I'm still tangled in Kade's arms, held against him with an intensity that hasn't loosened even in sleep.
His chest rises and falls beneath my cheek, steady and strong.
One of his hands rests at the small of my back, possessive even now.
The other is buried in my hair, fingers curled slightly as though he's afraid to let go.
Which, if he knew what I'm planning, he would be.
The thought makes fresh tears threaten, hot and insistent behind my closed eyelids.
I force them down and burrow deeper into his chest instead, pressing my face against the warm skin above his heart.
Just a few more minutes. That's all I need.
I breathe him in slowly, memorizing that sweet, masculine scent that I can't get enough of—cotton candy and something uniquely him, clean and male and intoxicating.
My bladder protests the delay with increasing urgency, but I ignore it stubbornly.
This discomfort is nothing compared to what's waiting for me when I leave.
This is probably the last time I'll sleep in his arms.
The reality of that hits me like a physical blow, sharp and devastating.
I close my eyes tighter, trying to burn this moment into my memory—the weight of his arm around me, the heat of his body, the way I fit against him like we were designed for each other.
Five more minutes. That's all I'm asking for.
Just five more minutes of pretending this life could be mine, that I could wake up like this every morning instead of in that cold, perfect house where everything is exactly where it belongs except me.
But my bladder has other plans, making itself impossible to ignore.
Carefully, so slowly I'm barely moving at all, I begin to extract myself from his embrace.
His arm tightens reflexively when I shift, and my heart stops—but then he makes a soft sound in his sleep, something between a sigh and a murmur, and rolls onto his stomach.
His hand reaches blindly for where I'd been lying, searching, before claiming my side of the bed and pulling my pillow beneath him.
He buries his face in it immediately, breathing in deeply even in sleep.
The sight makes my chest physically ache, a sharp pain right behind my sternum.
I stand there frozen for a long moment, watching his back expand with each breath, the way the early morning light filtering through his curtains casts shadows across the planes of muscle.
The sheet has slipped to his waist, exposing the long line of his spine, the breadth of his shoulders.
He looks so young in sleep—peaceful in a way I rarely see when he's awake.
That hard edge he carries constantly has softened, making him look closer to eighteen than the old soul I know him to be.
I pad quietly to the bathroom on bare feet, the cool hardwood shocking against my skin after the warmth of his bed.
I handle my business as quickly and quietly as possible, hyper-aware of every sound—the flush of the toilet, the running water, the click of the door latch.
When I ease back into the bedroom, he's still sprawled across the mattress exactly as I left him, one muscular arm extended across the space where I'd been lying, his face buried in my pillow.
I stand in the doorway watching him sleep, drinking in details like a woman dying of thirst—the rise and fall of his bare back with each breath, the way his dark blonde hair falls across his forehead in complete disarray, those soft lips slightly parted in total relaxation.
The morning stubble shadowing his jaw. The tattoo on his shoulder blade that I traced with my fingers last night while he held me.
Everything about him is beautiful and young and everything I shouldn't want and will never have.
I should wake him. Should do this properly—tell him I have to leave, thank him for this week, say goodbye like an adult instead of sneaking away like a thief.
But I can't.
If I try to leave while he's awake, he'll stop me.
I know this with absolute certainty. He'll use those strong arms to hold me in place, use that deep voice to convince me to stay, use those green eyes to break down every defense I've built.
He'll argue and persuade and make promises neither of us can keep, and this will become so much harder than it already is.
And if Daniel finds out somehow—if he discovers that I spent an entire week with my student instead of at home where I'm supposed to be—
I can't finish that thought. Can't let myself imagine what Daniel would do to Kade if he knew or what Kade would do to Daniel, god this is such a mess.
So I move around the room as quietly as physically possible, each step measured and careful.
My scattered clothes get gathered from the floor, the chair, the bathroom—panties I'd lost track of, the shirt he'd practically torn off me last night.
I stuff everything into my overnight bag with shaking hands, trying not to think about how I'd packed these same items just days ago with such hope, such desperate need for escape.
I grab my bathroom products from his counter—toothbrush, face wash, moisturizer.
The evidence of domesticity, of playing house, of pretending I could have this life.
The book I never finished reading sits on his nightstand, bookmark halfway through.
Each item I pack feels like a piece of my heart being physically ripped out of my chest and stuffed away, hidden from view like it never existed.
This week happened. These feelings are real.
But I have to pack them away with my clothes and toothbrush and pretend I can return to normal, to that carefully controlled life where I'm Mrs. Reid instead of the woman who fell in love with her student.
One last glance at him sleeping peacefully in his bed, completely unaware that I'm leaving.
I want to kiss those soft lips one more time, just once more.
Want to memorize the exact way he tastes in the morning, all sleep-warm and relaxed.
Want to feel the way his breath catches when I touch him, the way he makes that small sound of pleasure in his throat when I kiss the spot on his neck that makes him crazy.
Want to whisper the words I can't say—thank you for seeing me, for making me feel human again, for showing me what it's like to be wanted.