Chapter 15 Violet
Violet
We step back into the house, the warm air from the lived-in kitchen wrapping around me like a blanket. I lead the way, my pulse still fluttering from… well, everything.
“I should check the food,” I say quickly, because if I don’t give my hands a task, I might start hyperventilating into a decorative plant.
Jason laughs low behind me, and it trips over every nerve ending I have.
I open the oven, and my cooking rises up to greet us, honey warming into caramel at the edges, rosemary blooming in the heat, buttery salmon giving off that rich, savory perfume that make kitchens feel like home.
I did this. I made this.
“Smells…wow,” Jason says behind me, the awe in his voice unmistakable. “Violet, this smells incredible.”
Heat billows over my face as I lean in. “I… hope it tastes like food.”
“Food?” he echoes, stepping closer. “It smells like a restaurant. A fancy one. With a waitlist.”
I laugh, half disbelieving, half embarrassed. “I may have followed the recipe using, uhm… excessive enthusiasm.”
“What does that mean?” he asks, amused.
“I poured the honey with my heart instead of my measuring cup.”
He laughs this warm, startled sound, like he wasn’t prepared to be amused by me.
“Well,” he says, voice still smiling, “I’m sure your heart did an exceptional job.”
My face feels like it’s on fire.
I reach into the oven the way I practiced earlier, hovering my hand above the salmon until the steam brushes my palm. “Feels done…”
“It’s perfect,” he murmurs closer now, close enough that I can feel the warmth of him at my shoulder.
My breath wobbles.
“You’re hovering,” I whisper.
“No,” he says, lower, thicker. “I’m appreciating.”
My knees forget their job description entirely.
I straighten, closing the oven carefully. “We should, uhm… plate.”
“Lead the way,” he says. But his voice, God, his voice, holds something new. Something warm and careful and a little reverent.
I move along the counter, fingers gliding over the plates I laid out earlier. I know where everything is, where I placed each dish, each utensil, each piece of garnish that I hope doesn’t look like stir-fry.
Jason moves with me, close enough for heat to brush my arm but far enough not to touch. Damn, I wish he would touch.
But the restraint feels like a touch all on its own. The kitchen feels smaller, the air charged and electric. Dinner is ready. But I am absolutely not.
God, he smells good.
Clean soap first. Crisp and bright. Then something spicy underneath, warm and subtle, that I just can’t put my finger on.
A little sweat from rushing over, purely human and somehow comforting.
And cedar, faint, barely there, but grounding.
He smells like safety and temptation wrapped together, like everything I shouldn’t want and everything I suddenly ache for.
My chest tightens, the air going thick.
“You okay?” Jason asks. His voice is deep tonight, warm honey poured over gravel.
That voice could unravel me.
I swallow, the truth stuck in my throat. “Yeah,” I manage. “Just… catching up to myself.”
I feel him noticing me, the awareness thick between us, like we’re attached by an invisible cord.
“Good,” he murmurs. “You looked a little breathless.”
If only he knew.
“Mm-hm,” I manage, leaning against the counter.
He moves closer.
I don’t see it but damn, I feel it. The shift of air. The soft scrape of his shoe against the floor. The quiet exhale he releases right before his fingers find mine.
His thumb brushes over my knuckles.
It’s such a small touch, but it’s like a spark from an exposed wire. His skin is warm, and it elicits a confidence in me that I haven’t felt around another person in so long. He doesn’t fumble. Doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t treat me like I’m delicate or unpredictable.
He touches me like he knows exactly where I am. Where he is.
My breath stutters, caught somewhere between a gasp and a prayer.
The warmth of him travels up my arm, spreading across my chest, melting places I thought were frozen for good.
For a moment, I’m suspended. No fear, no noise except the rhythmic thud of my own heart and the soft, unhurried stroke of his thumb. Like he’s memorizing me.
“Violet…” he murmurs, and somehow my name in his voice is another touch altogether.
“Yes.”
“I think we should eat. I don’t want your efforts to go to waste.”
Something in what he says makes me wonder why it would go to waste, but then he pulls out the barstool at the kitchen counter.
“M’lady.” His voice is teasing but there’s something more under the words. Restraint?
“Thank you, kind sir.”
Dinner is perfect. Warm, seasoned, rich, but I barely taste it. All I can think of is the way he laughs under his breath, and the way his knee keeps brushing mine under the table, sending sparks through me each time. The tension grows by the minute, thick enough to breathe it in.
After dessert, a sweet, zesty, and citrusy cake he brought, he sets his fork down. The sound is quiet but final. I’m loading the dishwasher, when suddenly he’s right behind me. Not touching, just radiating heat.
“Violet,” he says, voice low.
My heart jumps, an actual physical jolt, sharp enough to steal a breath. “Yes?”
He inhales slowly, like he’s steadying himself, like saying the next words costs him something… or risks something.
“You look…” He pauses, then moves even closer. “You smell incredible tonight.”
Heat floods my cheeks so fast I swear he must feel it through the air between us. “Jason…”
His name slips out softer than I meant it to, too revealing, giving away every nervous flutter in my chest.
He doesn’t move away.
If anything, he leans in again, enough that I feel that heat travel the last inch between us. Enough that I hear the quiet catch in his breath when my own brushes his collarbone.
For a moment, everything feels suspended—the kitchen, the food, the night outside, even my doubts.
All that remains is the scent of cedar and spice, the touch of his fingers wrapped around mine, and the low, steady hum of something dangerous and gentle blooming between us.
I swallow hard, my lips parting. “You’re very close.”
“You noticed,” he murmurs. “Sorry. I shouldn’t say that. Not with… everything.”
The words hang in the air between us. Everything? Is he talking about my sight?
“People refer to me seeing things, or looking at things, or noticing things all the time. It’s natural. I don’t want you to worry about that.”
I turn around before I can talk myself out of it. There’s hardly a whisper’s breath between us. I raise my hand, finding his jaw. His rough stubble scrapes along my fingertips.
The solid line of a man holding himself painfully still.
He inhales sharply, like the touch sliced through him, and he’s learning how to breathe again.
His breath ghosts over my lips. And then…
I kiss him. Soft. Testing the hope that maybe I’m allowed to want something again.
His lips are warm. Surprised and still. For half a heartbeat, my heart catches in my throat. What if I’ve made a mistake and crossed a line? I’m about to pull away when suddenly, he’s not still at all.
His mouth moves with mine, heat pouring into me so fast I gasp against his lips. But just as suddenly as he claimed my lips, he pulls back, breath shuddering against my cheek. I feel the absence of his mouth like a cold draft.
“Violet… this isn’t—I shouldn’t—”
His voice fractures, caught between want and something heavier. Something he’s been carrying alone. My heartbeat stumbles. My stomach drops. My fingers curl against nothing.
“If you don’t want this,” I whisper, swallowing hard enough that it hurts, “I’ll stop.”
The silence that follows isn’t empty. It’s thick with something…
The air is so perfectly still, as if it’s holding its breath with us.
He’s still so close that his ragged breath brushes my lips. “I don’t want you to stop,” he says.
A tremor rolls through me, soft and violent all at once. “I don’t want to stop either.”
That’s all it takes.
The space between us collapses like he’s been holding himself back for so long that the moment he let go, everything else followed.
His hand finds my waist. Mine rises instinctively to his chest. Our breaths tangle. And then we’re kissing again.
I’m lost. He’s lost. He pulls me closer, then scoops me up, cupping my ass.
The kiss turns ravenous, as if he’s starved for my lips.
It’s all heat and breath and want. My fingers curl in his shirt, clutching at muscle and warmth and the faint, intoxicating scent of his skin.
The world narrows to the slide of his mouth on mine, the steady strength in his hands, the soft, helpless sound he makes when I pull him closer still.
“Violet,” he groans against my lips, voice strained and wrecked, “tell me what you want.”
“You,” I whisper, breath trembling. “Just you.”
He turns me and places me on the kitchen counter, the marble cool beneath me. His palms glide to my thighs, strong and certain, guiding me open just enough that he can step between my knees. His forehead presses to mine, like he’s at war with himself, and that alone unravels me.
His scent wraps around me, and this time it’s wilder. Something hums under his skin like a secret trying to break free. Every nerve in my body lights up.
“Violet,” he breathes, his nose brushing mine as if he can’t stay away even for the space of a heartbeat. His thumb strokes along the inside of my knee, and everything in me falls into him without hesitation. It’s heat and recognition. A pull I don’t understand but can’t resist.
I lift my hands, finding his jaw, the curve of his cheek, the tension there like he’s holding himself back from… everything.
He shudders.
“Tell me if this is too much,” he whispers, voice low and frayed at the edges.
“It’s not,” I murmur. “Jason… it’s not.”
He exhales like he’s been underwater.
For a moment, we stay suspended on the edge of something neither of us knows how to name but both of us feel.