23. Chapter Twenty-Three - Breaking Point
Today, I kept telling myself I was going to buckle down and get some real work done, maybe crank out something decent and feel like a normal person for once without all the bullshit weighing me down…
Even though lately, any plan I tried to stick to slipped right through my fingers before I could get a proper hold on it.
“Hey, Ma,” I called when I spotted her near the front door, tugging her coat into place while adjusting her scarf like she already had a checklist running through her head. She always carried that brisk efficiency right before she left, like a switch flipped her straight into mom-business mode.
“Hey, sweetie,” she answered with a soft smile that creased the corners of her eyes. “I’m heading out for a bit.”
I blinked, tilting my head. “You’re leaving?”
“Mr. Scarbrough mentioned they’d be returning soon,” she said, smoothing the sleeve of her coat like she’d already rehearsed the explanation. “I need to get a few things sorted before he arrives.”
“Oh,” I replied, trying to sound casual even as my voice caught slightly. My chest tightened.
Returning soon. Which meant Culver.
The thought hit me square in the gut, sinking in slow and heavy.
I stood there blinking, trying to keep my expression from cracking while my insides twisted tight, my pulse kicking up in the most ridiculous way.
He was actually on his way back. Really coming back, and I had no clue how to handle that rush without falling apart.
He hadn’t been gone long, just a week. Nothing that should’ve mattered much, but damn if it didn’t feel like some quiet part of me had started unraveling the second he left.
But who was counting? I’d gone out of my way to scrub him out of my system, figuring if I hooked up with Carter—let him touch me, let him slide inside—maybe my body would snap out of whatever hold Culver had on me.
But even then, all I felt was an empty drag in my chest and between my legs.
Hell, I’d even whispered Culver’s name against Carter’s skin while he was breathing heavy on my shoulder, my stupid mouth giving me away completely.
“I’ll see you tonight,” my ma called as she slipped out, pulling the door shut behind her.
I stood there a moment after she left, pressing a cold water bottle against my cheek like it might calm me down.
It didn’t.
Eventually, I made my way to the content room.
It was my space, the one part of the house that actually felt like mine, every light angled just right, every mirror polished.
Sunlight poured through the tall windows, spilling across the wide wooden floors.
It had taken days to get it right: lighting, angles, sound, mirrors…
and now it was the closest thing I had to a sanctuary.
I shut the door behind me, stretched my arms overhead until my spine popped, and rolled my shoulders until some of the tension loosened. My body felt restless, jittery, aching to move. I folded forward, fingertips brushing the floor as my breath slowed and my muscles began to warm.
This was how I found balance again, even if only for a little while.
I hit play, and the music swelled around me, wrapping over my skin like an old friend I could count on.
I slipped into the movement easily, letting my body take over the way it always did when my head finally quieted enough to step aside, hitting the sharp beats cleanly and flowing through the transitions without overthinking a single count.
I’d been grinding away at this routine for weeks now, just one in a stack of them all chasing a perfect edge.
When the rest of my world kept twisting into knots from everybody else’s choices and hidden agendas I couldn’t even begin to read, dancing was the one place I felt steady inside my own skin.
Especially with the group chat for the collab lighting up nonstop.
It was full of props and notes and an edge of rivalry that had us all sharpening our game.
It pushed me to show I had a real spot there, not just riding in as the cute one who could shake it okay, but as somebody they’d actually think about later.
Somebody worth hitting rewind on when they scrolled through.
I was halfway through the routine when the door slammed open.
The sharp bang of it smacking the wall jolted me hard enough that my heart slammed into my throat, freezing me in place. Adrenaline prickled beneath my skin, my breath snagging in the middle of the beat as my eyes whipped toward the door.
Culver.
Relief washed over me first—thank God it wasn’t some intruder or a nightmare straight out of a podcast episode—but that eased fast when his expression sank in, pulling the air right back out of me.
His eyes were cold. Violent in a quiet, concentrated way that sent a jolt of warning straight down my spine.
He was already moving toward me, his footsteps clipped and sharp, echoing across the floor with a pace that didn’t waste a single breath. Fury lived in every line of him, all contained and polished like someone had screwed a lid onto a boiling pot.
“Culver, what the hell are you doing?” I demanded, disbelief bleeding through my voice as instinct pulled me backward. I tried to put some distance between us, but he was already crossing the space with too much speed, too much intention.
“Why’re you back from vacation so early?” I tried again, hoping for something logical, anything that might explain the storm in front of me, but he didn’t answer. He didn’t even blink at the question.
His body crashed into mine, pinning me against the cool mirrored wall with enough force to rattle it behind me.
I was trapped against him, leaving no room for imagination about how hard his body felt.
His hands slid beneath the backs of my thighs, gripping hard, cool fingers digging into the sweat-slick skin as he yanked my legs up and around his waist in one motion that gave me an intimate press of his rigid pelvis against me.
I gasped, my breath fractured between shock and a sharp spark of electricity that pulsed through all the wrong places.
My hands flew to his chest, pushing against the unyielding wall of his body, but it was pointless. My hips were already pressed tight against him, my pussy grinding over the hard bulge of his cock through his pants.
The pressure between us was embarrassingly familiar, as though his body remembered mine even if we hadn’t actually done this before.
Then his scent hit me… mint and cinnamon with something dangerously clean underneath, and the way I’d missed it over the past few days clicked into place, leaving me pulling in a ragged breath that felt desperate and hungry.
I fought not to let it pull me under, but deep down, I knew it already had.
His nostrils flared, like he was angry or like he was smelling the air around me for something specific. I silently prayed I didn’t smell like pure gym-rat disaster. I’d been dancing for over an hour. Sweat clung to my skin, and my body was damp with exertion.
The last thing I needed was to smell like a locker room or fish, but he didn’t make a face. His attention had already locked onto something else entirely.
His hands glided up my thighs slowly, his thumbs brushing the edges of my hot pants and nudging the fabric aside just enough to make my breath stutter.
I should’ve been yelling at him to back off, shoving him away with everything I had left, but instead my body lit up with a warm, slippery pull deep in my gut that spread right down between my thighs.
I was barely dressed. A cropped shirt clung to my sweat-slicked torso, exposing my stomach and the slight swell of my cleavage.
My hot pants were practically glued to me, soaked through from the workout, hugging my ass and hips to the point of embarrassment.
My ponytail slapped the mirror behind me while strands stuck to my neck, clinging to the sweat still rolling down my spine.
“Culver—” I breathed, the word breaking in the middle as the coolness of his fingers swept across my heated skin.
My back arched instinctively, pushing my chest harder into my shirt as my body decided to play for the other team, the traitorous one.
His fingertips traced the bruises on my thighs.
Dark, ugly marks Carter had left from gripping hard during sex.
Each time his cold fingers brushed one, pain flared with heat, my stomach knotting as a heavy flush stained my cheeks.
I didn’t want Culver seeing those. But I also didn’t care. It was a conflicting feeling.
But instead of disgust, something far fiercer flickered across his face.
“You still haven’t answered me,” I whispered, my voice trembling around the edges as I tried to regain some sort of footing. “Why are you here?”
His hips rolled forward, pressing the thick length of his cock against my outer lips through our clothes. Every nerve below my waist lit up like I’d been zapped, my clit throbbing under the friction, heat darting through my core so fast I forgot to breathe.
He was pressed against me, reminding me in the most explicit way that whatever this was, it wasn’t friendship. If Culver had wanted to give off platonic energy, he’d chosen the worst possible method.
I forced myself to look up at him, to meet his eyes, to say something that might drag us both back into sanity, but he wasn’t looking at me. His focus locked instead on the bruises again.
The way his gaze lingered on every mark made it feel like he was taking them on as his own personal wounds, like they weren’t just stupid reminders of a hookup but something invasive that had no right touching what he saw as his.
The intensity in his stare unnerved me enough to send an uneasy shiver racing down my spine, mixing fear with a pull I was starting to realize was excitement.
“Who did this?” he asked finally.
His voice was low and ragged, like he’d been grinding the words between his teeth. The question sounded like a threat wrapped in cotton. Soft in volume, heavy in implication.