Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Noelle
It’s the quiet that wakes me.
Not noise, just stillness.
The kind that hums under your skin, full and heavy, like the whole world is holding its breath and waiting for you to mess it up.
I don’t open my eyes right away. My body feels too good, too warm, suspended somewhere between a dream and reality.
Cal’s arm is draped low across my stomach, his hand splayed over my ribs like he’s claiming territory. His palm is rough, calloused in a way that makes me ache.
I can feel the weight of him—solid, certain. Each slow exhale against the back of my neck seeps into me, warm and steady, until my pulse starts syncing with his.
My skin prickles, and my thighs tighten. There’s a low, lazy throb still humming deep inside me from the night before, the kind that comes from being touched all too well.
I should regret this. I should be panicking.
Instead, my chest rises in a slow, careful breath, and it feels like I’m expanding against his arm.
His scent is everywhere. Clean soap, a hint of cedar. Underneath, the warmth of skin and something darker—musky, salt-edged, addictive. I breathe it in, and it goes straight to my head, fogging every rational thought.
Last night floods back in fragments, flashes that hit like aftershocks.
The scrape of stubble against my inner thighs. The rasp of his voice when he said, use me however you need.
My own voice, breathless and pleading. The sharp edge of the counter biting into my back while his hands held me open.
I swallow hard, and my whole body clenches with the memory. Heat spills low and molten, curling through my belly.
God.
I remember how he looked up at me from between my legs, pupils blown, reverent and wrecked. How he kissed me after, slow and careful, like he was trying to put me back together.
My fingers twitch against the sheets. The air feels thick and humid, every breath dragging over nerves that refuse to calm.
I should be cataloging mistakes right now, running damage control like I always do.
But all I can think is how right this feels.
And how terrifying that thought is.
I shift slightly, and his thigh presses tighter against the back of mine. His fingers flex where they rest against my stomach, and a shiver races up my spine. My nipples pebble under the thin cotton of his shirt, the fabric suddenly too soft, too thin.
He murmurs something in his sleep, a low, gravelly sound that vibrates against my shoulder blade, and every muscle in my body tenses. My pulse kicks in my throat.
Move, Noelle. Get up. Before you forget that this isn’t yours to keep.
I slide my hand beneath his and lift gently. His skin is warm—too warm. My fingers tremble as I ease out from under his arm. The cold air hits my bare legs immediately, sharp enough to make me gasp.
I sit on the edge of the bed for a beat, clutching the blanket in one fist. My body still feels heavy from him—inside, outside, everywhere. There’s a dull ache between my thighs and a deeper one in my chest.
I glance back.
He’s sprawled across the sheets, one hand stretched toward the empty space I just left. His hair’s a mess, his mouth soft, his jaw shadowed. There’s a peace to him that shouldn’t exist—not for someone who looks like he was born with the world’s weight on his shoulders.
He looks breakable. Human.
And I hate that my body aches to climb back in beside him. To press my face into his chest and listen to that steady heartbeat until the world starts again.
I stand instead. The floor is cold, the kind of cold that bites at your heels and keeps you from forgetting where you are.
I pad toward the doorway, every nerve aware of the distance stretching between us.
I tell myself I’m leaving the room because I need to breathe.
But the truth curls deep and traitorous in my gut.
I’m leaving because if I stay another minute, I’ll crawl back in that bed and forget that I’m supposed to walk away.
I quietly pad through the apartment and into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee.
It strikes me that this young guy has an old style coffee pot and not one of the new by cup type of machines.
Cal Reid is one big conundrum to me.
The coffee finishes brewing just as I hear the quiet shift of movement behind me.
The floorboards creak slightly, and I hear his footfalls just before I feel his heat.
Every inch of skin tightens with awareness, like he’s already touching me.
I stare into the mug as I pour, trying to act like I’m not trembling. Like I didn’t wake up with his arm slung heavy across my waist, his breath against the back of my neck, and the memory of his mouth between my thighs still echoing through my blood.
He comes up behind me, bare feet whispering against the floor. Then stops—close enough that the warmth of him prickles across my shoulders.
“Morning,” he murmurs, voice still gritty with sleep.
I feel it more than I hear it. A rasp of sound that lands low in my spine.
“Didn’t mean to wake you,” I say, barely above a whisper.
“You didn’t.” He’s closer now. I feel the shift before I register the touch.
His hand slides around my waist. Not possessive. Not rushed.
Just warm and certain. Like it belongs there.
And then—his mouth brushes the side of my neck.
My knees go soft, and my heart stutters.
He doesn’t linger, doesn’t deepen the brush of his lips on my skin.
But the scrape of his stubble and the heat of his breath combined with the way his thumb moves in a slow circle just beneath the hem of his shirt I’m wearing…
Well, it’s almost worse than anything he did to me last night.
Because it’s slow and intentional. Domestic, even. Like we’ve done this before.
Like we’ll do it again.
I lean into him for half a second before I remember why that’s a bad idea. Why this can’t be real.
He senses it. Pulls back slightly, but not far. His hand stays on me.
“Coffee for both of us?” he asks, voice lower now.
“Yep,” I say. “Apparently a habit I just picked up.”
“I like this habit.”
His fingers tighten just a little at my waist, and I swear I feel it between my legs. Like my body’s already rewired itself to respond to him.
I grab a mug and hand it to him without turning around, afraid that if I look at him, I’ll forget how to breathe.
“You okay?” he asks.
I nod, then shake my head. “I don’t know.”
There’s a silence that says everything he doesn’t.
He waits.
I finally turn toward him, coffee clutched between us like a shield.
He looks like temptation. Hair mussed, jaw shadowed, that sleepy smile tugging at the corner of his mouth like he already knows what I’m thinking.
I lick my lips.
His eyes drop to my mouth, causing heat to coil low in my belly.
“Last night wasn’t a mistake,” he says quietly.
My breath catches. “I didn’t say it was.”
“You didn’t have to.”
The tension stretches between us again, thick and sharp. I feel it in my throat. In the way my nipples tighten under the oversized shirt. In the way my thighs press together, slow and instinctive.
“I’m not sorry,” he adds.
I find it impossible to lie to this man because while I’m scared shitless, I have no regrets. “I’m not sorry either.”
Cal shifts first, slow and deliberate, reaching around me to pour coffee into his mug. His hand grazes my hip when pulls back.
He just lingers close enough that I feel the heat of his chest, the press of something unspoken between us.
“But you keep looking at me like you’re waiting for the awkward part to hit,” he says.
I blink up at him. “Because I am.”
That earns a small smile. Crooked. Soft. “And?”
I hate how much I like that smile, how warm it makes my chest feel. I shrug, trying for light. “Still waiting.”
His gaze sharpens—not teasing now, but intent. He tilts his head. “Why is that?”
The breath sticks in my throat. My fingers clench around the edge of the counter.
“Because it always happens. At least for me,” I admit. “After…after a night like that, it’s usually all awkward. You wake up, the vibe’s weird, someone bolts, or someone talks too much, or you pretend it didn’t happen and hope nobody brings it up.”
He watches me. Doesn’t say anything, but the weight of his attention grounds me.
And unravels me.
I exhale slowly, trying to tamp down the knot building behind my ribs. “I don’t usually stay. Hell, I don’t usually do this type of thing. Or let myself…” I trail off, throat tightening.
“Let yourself relax?” he finishes for me. His voice is low, gentle in a way that cuts deep.
I nod. My fingers feel numb. “I’m the one people go to. I fix the problems, handle the chaos, smooth the mess. That’s what I do. If something breaks, I patch it. If someone falls apart, I pick up the pieces. I’ve always been that person.”
My eyes sting, but I keep my chin high. “Even when I don’t want to be.”
There’s a long pause.
“Why do you feel like you have to do it all? Fix everything?”
I shrug, keeping my gaze away from his so I don’t burst into tears. “I’m a fixer. Maybe it’s the eldest daughter syndrome. Or because my mother was busy making plans, and sometimes she forgot about her kids. Who knows?”
Another long pause.
Then he says, “You ever ask someone to do it for you?”
A hollow laugh slips out. “Who has time?”
His hand lifts. For a second, I think he’s going to touch my face. Instead, his knuckles brush the inside of my wrist. It’s featherlight. But it zings through me like a pulse.
“I would,” he says quietly. “If you asked.”
My throat aches. “Why?”
“Because I want to. And I know how to help.”
“What do you mean you know how?”
I turn to face him fully now, and the look in his eyes is nothing short of devastating.
“My mom,” he says, voice rougher now, staring into the near distance. “It was just the two of us. I never knew my dad. He took off before I could walk. She worked two, sometimes three jobs to make ends meet. And I could see where she needed help at home. I hated seeing her so tired.”
He’s quiet for a moment before a sad smile lifts his beautiful mouth, then he meets my gaze. “She loved Christmas. She was the only person who ever made it mean something. We didn’t have much, but she made everything feel big. Magical. Safe.”
I don’t breathe.
“She died two days before Christmas when I was fifteen. Heart attack. No warning. One minute she was there and the next—” His voice breaks off. “I was shipped off to an aunt and uncle in New Hampshire I barely knew. And everything that felt like home was just…gone.”
I reach for his hand without thinking, fingers curling tight around his.
He doesn’t pull away. Just looks at me like he’s seeing too much and doesn’t want to stop.
“Every year since, I try to ignore it. Act like it’s just another week. But sometimes it still hits like I’m fifteen again, standing in that hospital hallway, waiting for someone to tell me they made a mistake.”
I slide closer, our shoulders brushing now.
“I’m sorry, Cal,” I whisper. “That’s—God, that’s awful.”
He nods but doesn’t speak again. Just holds my gaze like it’s the only thing tethering him to this moment.
The air shifts.
Something slow, heated. Tangled in grief and honesty and all the things we’re not supposed to feel.
He’s not touching me, except where our fingers are entangled. But I feel every inch of him—his breath, his pulse, the ache between us growing louder.
I swallow hard, voice cracking. “I haven’t told anyone that about me. About the fixing.”
“I’ve never told anyone about my mom either. Not how she died and when.”
“But you told me.”
“And you told me.”
He lifts our joined hands and kisses the back of mine, his gaze holding mine.
I can barely breathe for all of the tension between us. The space around us hums like a live wire.
And for the first time in my life, I just go with it.
Come what may.