CHAPTER 13 — THE PLACE WHERE HE STOPS PRETENDING #4
“Breathe with me.” His voice was right against my mouth, and I almost made a joke, almost refused anything that felt like method, but my body obeyed before pride could. I breathed. He did too. The intimacy of it shook me more than the movement.
When Cael began to move, there was no hurry.
Each thrust was deep, controlled, a rhythm that seemed to ask if I was still there and find its answer in the way my hands climbed his back, in the way my hips met his, in the way I said his name without turning it into a plea.
The room became nothing but rain, skin, and breathing.
The guilt didn’t disappear. Neither did the fear.
But in that space, neither one commanded.
He kissed my mouth when the pleasure began to rise again, and his tongue caught my moan as if I’d spoken a full sentence.
I felt the tension in his body, the restraint growing harder to hold, the strength of his arms beside me, the care he took not to put his weight on me.
I touched his face so he’d look at me, and when his eyes met mine, there was a surrender so naked I had to wrap my legs around his waist to keep from feeling alone inside what I saw.
“It's not the past.” The words spilled out unplanned, fractured by his movement, by the pressure, by pleasure building again. “I'm not the past.”
Cael lost his rhythm for an instant. Then he went deeper, not brutal, but overtaken by an emotion that had finally slipped free. “No. You're now.”
That opened me in a way sex alone couldn't have.
I came holding his face, looking at him, feeling my whole body clench around him as pleasure rolled through me in dense waves, almost painful in its intensity.
Cael followed right after, his body tensing over mine, his mouth against my shoulder, my name spoken against skin without grand promises, without pretty phrases, just presence.
We stayed there until our breathing settled into something resembling normal life.
He pulled away carefully, came back with a towel and water, and this time I accepted without turning the gesture into judgment.
I put on his shirt afterward, not because I lacked clothes, but because I wanted to, and that small want felt almost more intimate than the sex.
Cael didn't comment. He just lay beside me on the sheet, in sweatpants with his chest bare, leaving space between us until I decided to rest my head on his shoulder.
“I should leave.” The words came out without enough force to lift my body. “Sera's going to decide I was murdered by romanticization of trauma or by an omelet of suspicious origin.”
“Text her before she calls in anesthesia, security, and maybe Mira armed with a box of medical records.” His hand stayed still near mine, waiting, and I laced my fingers through his because I was too tired to pretend I didn't want to.
I texted Sera my location, proof of life, and the phrase “wasn't murdered, ate, back soon.” The response came almost immediately: If you come back wearing his shirt, I don't want details before coffee.
And drink water. I showed Cael. He read it and went too serious for a second before laughing quietly.
The sound caught me off guard, settling somewhere in my chest. Maybe he hadn't laughed in too long.
Maybe I liked hearing it. Both things were dangerous.
I didn't sleep. I didn't leave right away either.
We stayed in the bedroom a few more minutes, then went back to the office to photograph specific pages from Celia's notebooks.
Physical intimacy didn't erase the investigation; in some strange way, it made it more concrete.
I didn't want to be saved by Cael. I wanted him beside me while I learned to read a dead woman who might have predicted the method before anyone else.
He finally seemed to understand the difference.
When I grabbed my coat by the door, dawn had already turned Boston into a wet reflection.
Cael called the car, rode down with me in the elevator despite my protests, and didn't touch my hand in the cab.
The silence between us wasn't empty. It was full of things that couldn't be said yet because the hospital, Bram, and Odette already had too many words about us.
In the lobby, the doorman was absent for some reason, and the waiting area seemed darker than when I'd arrived. I took two steps out of the elevator, adjusting the folder against my chest, catching the smell of rain drifting in through the revolving door. Then I stopped.
Bram Hawthorne sat in an armchair near the exit, ankle crossed over knee, suit too impeccable for that hour, consultant badge missing, face lit by his phone screen. When he saw us, he stood slowly, as if he'd known exactly how long we'd take.
“I almost called to check on you, Lu.” His gaze traveled over Cael's shirt under my open coat, over the folder against my chest, and finally to his father's face behind me.
The smile that followed was small, deliberately wounded, ready to become evidence.
“But I see my father is still excellent at offering shelter to women who've just discovered too many problems. Maybe that's the only Hawthorne tradition he's never managed to abandon.”