Trent
“Iforgive you.”
Her words play on a loop in my head as I devour her, needing desperately to consume every part of her. The taste of her, the sound of her soft gasps—they flood through me, drowning out every thought except her.
Kissing her feels like breathing again for the first time in months. Like my lungs have been starved and she’s the only one who can fill them. Her lips are oxygen, her touch the spark that jolts my heart back to life. Without her, I’ve been fading—just existing, not living.
She presses a hand against my chest, gentle but firm, and I force myself to pull back, though it feels like tearing away from gravity itself. I rest my forehead against hers, both of us breathing hard, the air between us trembling with everything unsaid.
“This doesn’t automatically fix everything,” she murmurs, her breath mingling with mine.
“I know,” I say. “But I promise you, you won’t regret giving us another chance. I’m all in, Bree. It’s me and you. It’s always been me and you.”
Her eyes flick to mine, searching, cautious. “What about the rules?”
A shaky breath leaves me as I meet her eyes, my voice cracking under the force of everything I feel. “Fuck the rules,” I whisper, more plea than defiance. “This isn’t like before. This is different.”
She studies me for a long moment, her fingers tracing the edge of my jaw—soft, steady, thoughtful.
“But I think…” Her voice trails off, quiet but certain. “I think we need some.”
I nod slowly, hands fisting at my sides, my stomach twisting. “Okay…” I murmur, my voice tight with anticipation, eyes locked on hers.
“I want to keep this between us for now.”
The words hit harder than I expect. Disappointment flashes across my face before I can stop it. “You want to go back to being a secret?”
Her eyes flick away for a second, then back to mine. “I want us to figure this out without the input or drama from everyone else. If things don’t work out—”
“They will work out,” I cut in, too quickly, too certain.
She gives me a look—gentle, but laced with that quiet strength that always disarms me. “But if they don’t,” she continues softly, “I don’t want to have caused a mess between us and my family for nothing. You said this time is different…”
“It is,” I insist, the words sharp with conviction.
“I need a chance to see that,” she says. “To feel that. To be able to trust you again with my heart. I can’t do that while I’m fighting Kade’s reaction or everyone else’s opinions.”
Her hand falls from my jaw, and the space where her touch was feels colder than it should.
“But you’ll be mine, right?” I ask quietly, my voice rougher than I mean it to be. “We’ll be together? Even while we keep this quiet?”
She hesitates, her gaze flicking to my chest before meeting my eyes again. “I don’t think we need labels.”
That hits something raw inside me. “I need the label, Bree,” I say, stepping closer, my hands flexing at my sides before I reach for her.
“I need to know you’re mine—that when you say we’re giving this a chance, you mean it.
I know I have a lot to make up for, and I’ll do anything—everything—to fix what I broke.
But I need to know you’re in this too. That we’re together. ”
I find her hand and hold it, not tight, just enough to feel her there—to ground myself before I fall apart completely. My thumb brushes over her knuckles, my heart pounding in my throat.
She studies me, eyes soft but steady. “We’re together,” she says finally. “But I need to protect myself, Trent. You have to understand that just because I forgive you doesn’t mean everything that happened before doesn’t exist.”
I nod slowly, swallowing hard. “I understand that.”
Silence settles between us, heavy but not uncomfortable—just full of everything we aren’t saying. I don’t let go of her hand. It’s the only thing keeping me grounded, the only proof that this—us—is real again.
Guilt presses down on my chest, thick and relentless. I can see how guarded she is now, how her eyes hold back pieces of herself she used to give so freely. She says we’re together, but I can feel the walls around her heart—and knowing I’m the one who built them makes mine ache.
Then her hand comes up, soft and warm, sliding along my jaw. She tilts my face toward hers until I have no choice but to meet her eyes.
“I don’t want you torturing yourself with the past though,” she says quietly. “We both know it’s there. But we can choose to move forward—to work on rebuilding what we had.”
I exhale shakily. “I just hate that I did this to us.”
“Stop.” Her thumb strokes my cheek. “We can’t change anything from then.”
“I wish I could.”
A faint smile ghosts across her lips. “Kiss me,” she says.
My brows pull together. “What?”
“Kiss me until you forget.”
A laugh catches in my throat. “That might take a while.”
“Then we’d better get started.”
For a beat, we just stare at each other. Her eyes flicker between mine, searching—maybe for hesitation, maybe for permission. There isn’t any. Not anymore.
I cup her face, my thumb tracing the edge of her jaw, the soft line I used to know by heart. When she leans into my touch, something inside me unravels.
I press my mouth to hers, slow at first—testing, tentative. She tastes like peppermint and something sweet I can’t name. The kiss deepens when she sighs against me, her fingers curling into my shirt, pulling me closer until there’s no space left between us.
It isn’t the desperate, hungry kind of kiss we shared before. It’s something different—softer, steadier, like we’re both learning how to breathe again, one heartbeat at a time. Every brush of her lips feels like a promise I don’t deserve but ache to keep.
Her hand slides up to the back of my neck, fingertips grazing my skin, sending a shiver through me.
I tilt my head, deepening the kiss just slightly, savoring the warmth that spreads through my chest. The world outside of this moment doesn’t exist—there’s only her, only us, suspended in something fragile and real.
When we finally pull apart, she keeps her eyes closed, her forehead resting against mine.
“Fuck, I’ve missed you so much,” I breathe, my hands roaming over her like I’m trying to memorize every inch, to make sure she’s real and not some cruel dream I’ll wake from.
Her fingers tighten against my arms, her voice barely more than a whisper. “I’ve missed you too.” She pauses, swallowing hard. “More than I want to admit.”
That admission hits me hard, knocking the air from my lungs. She opens her eyes then, and the way she looks at me—vulnerable but steady—nearly undoes me.
Her hands slide up my arms, a soft exhale slipping from her lips as I trace the curve of her waist, the familiar shape of her hips beneath my palms.
It takes everything in me to slow down—to remind myself that this can’t be like before.
I force my hands to still, to simply rest against her, feeling the warmth of her skin through the thin fabric of her shirt. I need this to be different. I need her to know it’s different.
I don’t ever want Aubrey questioning my motives or thinking this is just about sex—because it’s not. Not anymore. I want to show her what we can be before that ever comes back into it.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m desperate for her. The ache low in my body, the hard press of my dick behind my sweats, makes that painfully clear. But right now, this—her—the quiet, the closeness, the way her heart beats against mine—this is all I need.