33. Chapter 33
Chapter 33
T hey lay in bed, sheets twisted, her small body curled into his like she always belonged there. Her breath was soft against his chest. One of her legs was thrown over his hip. She was warm, skin smooth, bare, trusting.
And he was choking on it.
Isaac stared at the ceiling, his arm locked around her back, fingers resting just beneath the swell of her shoulder blade. He hadn’t moved in twenty minutes. Couldn’t.
He could still feel the weight of his knuckles. The ache in his ribs. The metallic smell of Troy’s blood under his nails, even after three hand washings and a goddamn shower. But none of it compared to the ache behind his sternum.
That fucking alley.
That fucking man.
The things he said.
The things he’d done.
Isaac’s stomach turned again just thinking about it.
Rosie shifted slightly in her sleep, exhaling a little sigh, her hand tightening in the fabric of his T-shirt. She’d thrown it on after the shower. Something about how she liked the smell. Something about how it felt safer.
She had no idea. No idea he now knew… the truth about what she’d survived. What kind of monster had been in her life. And Isaac—
Isaac had known something was wrong all those years ago. The bruises. The way she wouldn’t talk. The way she shut down. He’d felt it in his bones, even as a dumb twelve-year-old kid who didn’t know how to articulate trauma, or speak up, or make any real difference.
But he should’ve done more.
He should’ve done something.
Instead, he’d been her escape. Her friend. The boy cracking jokes at lunch. And then, the boy walking her home when she had no ride home. Then, the boy she leaned on, and he hadn’t even known what she was leaning away from.
Guilt curled deep in his chest, heavy and black.
She’d been right there. Right fucking there. And he hadn’t seen it. Not all of it. Not the worst of it. And now, years later, after everything she’d clawed her way through to get here, he was the one lying beside her like he deserved her.
He didn’t.
He didn’t deserve this softness. This safety. Her trust. Her heart.
And still… he tightened his grip on her, curling her even closer to his side. Because if there was one promise left to keep—it was this:
He wasn’t letting anything happen to her again.
Not now. Not ever.
He didn’t care what it cost him.
He buried his nose in her hair, breathing her in. His stomach still felt sick. His eyes stung, dry and irritated. Pressure was building at the front of his face. For the first time in God knows how long, he felt the heat of tears pooling in his eyes.
He was thinking. Reflecting. Maybe even starting to drift into sleep and dream.
One night when they were kids—she’d been maybe seven, crying outside his house at midnight after her parents had some screaming fight—he’d given her his hoodie, told her she could sleep over if his mom said it was okay, and walked her home at dawn the next morning before anyone noticed. They’d only lived a street away at the time—before foster homes came into the picture.
He hadn’t realized it then, but that night had changed him. This one would too. He just didn’t know how to tell her yet that he now knew things she never told him. The depths of the abuse she took. The horrors of her childhood.
He didn’t know how to say: I should’ve saved you sooner.
So instead, he kissed her temple. Pulled her close.
And promised himself again—
This time, I won’t fuck it up.
Not one more goddamn second.
* * * * *
It started like most of his bad dreams did—quiet.
Too quiet.
The kind of silence that didn’t belong. The kind that hummed just under the skin.
Then came the shadows—stretched too long, the edges of the dream smeared and warped like something rotting at the seams.
He was in a warehouse. He knew this warehouse. Cold cement floor. Dim, stuttering lights overhead. A rusted pipe dripping somewhere behind him.
He was tied to a chair.
Again.
His wrists burned against the zip ties. His ribs ached—old pain, familiar pain—but none of it compared to what was in front of him.
Rosie.
She was on the floor.
Not Isabel this time. Not the mission.
Rosie.
And she was crying.
No—screaming.
Her voice was hoarse, panicked, shattering.
She was crawling backward, bruised knees scraping concrete, trying to escape the figure advancing on her. A man. A shadow. No face. Just presence—looming, heavy, wrong. The same way Diaz had looked at Isabel, all those months ago. The same way that monster had touched her.
But this wasn’t the same.
This was worse.
Because this was Rosie.
Isaac’s pulse surged, his breath ragged. “Coco,” he rasped, his voice shredded.
She turned to him. Her blue eyes locked on his. Wet with fear. Wide with pleading.
“Isaac—please,” she whispered.
He struggled, the chair groaning under him. “Fight, Coco. You hear me? Fight. Claw his fucking eyes out. Don’t let him—”
Her lip was split. Her hair matted. Her arms covered in old, haunting bruises he’d seen before. Ones she never explained.
Ones he should have asked about.
The dream shifted. Reality with it.
Suddenly, he was back there—twelve years old, Rosie walking into school with sleeves too long and a silence too sharp. And he hadn’t said a word. Hadn’t asked.
Now, he was paying for it.
He thrashed harder, the chair tipping sideways. The wood cracked on impact. He twisted, dragging his hands against the jagged edge.
Friction.
Burn.
Snap.
He was free.
The faceless man turned. Rosie scrambled back again, chest heaving, cornered now, nowhere to go.
Isaac exploded forward.
His fists connected with flesh. The man crumpled.
But Isaac didn’t stop.
Over and over, he hit him. Until the man was just a blur of red and sound and rage.
And then—he was pulling her into his arms. Shaking. Breathless.
She clung to him.
“Why didn’t you stop him?” she whispered, broken against his chest.
“I didn’t know,” he whispered back. “I didn’t know.”
And just before he woke up, she looked up at him. Calm. Quiet. Her voice full of something he hadn’t expected.
“You were supposed to protect me, Isaac. You promised.”
Isaac jolted upright, breath ragged, sweat clinging to his skin. The sheets were tangled around his waist, the pillow damp beneath his back. The room was dark except for the moonlight slicing through the blinds, casting fractured shadows across the walls. His chest heaved as he rubbed a hand over his face, trying to push the images out of his skull.
Warehouse. Screaming. Rosie. Her eyes.
Fuck.
Rosie was asleep beside him—curled on her side, peaceful.
Real.
Alive.
Safe.
He stared at her in the darkness, throat raw with guilt.
You were supposed to protect me.
He had.
But not soon enough.
And now, he didn’t know how to live with that.
Beside him, she stirred—bare skin warm against his. He felt her shift, felt her reach. Her fingers traced along his chest, slow and gentle, like she was trying to ground him.
“You okay?” she whispered, voice thick with sleep, concern laced beneath it.
He swallowed hard. “Yeah.” His voice came out hoarse. “Just a bad dream.”
She didn’t buy it. He knew she didn’t. But she didn’t push—yet.
“Babe…” she said, pressing closer. Her hand slid over his chest again, down to his stomach, curling lightly there. “I know something’s up. I just wish you’d talk to me.”
Isaac stared up at the ceiling, jaw clenched. The fan creaked overhead. The weight in his chest hadn’t let up. He dragged both hands through his hair, sitting forward just slightly. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
It wasn’t nothing. And he wasn’t fine.
But the words wouldn’t come. Not yet.
Behind him, she shifted again, her palm now sliding lower, skimming across his abs. He felt her pause when she brushed over the hardened length of him beneath the sheets.
He sucked in a breath through his nose, dragging a hand down his face.
Her fingers stilled, resting there. “You’re… okay, huh?” she asked gently, a teasing edge under the concern.
He let out a slow, bitter breath. “My brain’s fucked. But the rest of me’s clearly still functioning.”
She smiled against his shoulder, her lips brushing skin. “I noticed.”
He didn’t move for a second. Then he turned, just enough to look at her. Her hair was tousled. Her mouth still soft from sleep. She was looking at him with something he couldn’t name—patience, maybe. A kind of softness that killed him.
His hand slid up to her face, fingers tracing the line of her cheek.
“I don’t know how to talk about it,” he admitted quietly. “And I don’t want to fuck this up.”
“You won’t,” she said. Simple. Sure.
But he didn’t believe it.
Still, when she leaned in and kissed his collarbone, when her lips moved lower—he didn’t stop her. When she whispered his name and slipped her leg over his hip, he pulled her close.
He kissed her like she was the only thing that kept him tethered to the world.
Because maybe she was.
He didn’t mean to kiss her like that.
Didn’t mean to take her mouth so hungrily, like he was starving for something deeper than skin, deeper than sex. But there she was, beneath him, fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him closer. Holding him like she didn’t care what monsters he dragged behind him, what memories he refused to name.
Isaac groaned low in his throat as her hands moved—sliding down to the base of his skull, massaging slow, gentle circles into the tension that never left his neck. Her nails scratched lightly up the back of his head, combing through his damp hair. The way she touched him… it wasn’t lust. It wasn’t just desire. It was something else. Something dangerous.
It was care.
It was love.
Fuck.
He braced himself, pressing his forehead to hers for a second. His breathing was uneven. Her skin was warm beneath his hands—one of her thighs over his hip, her chest pressed against his, her body soft and trusting and completely his.
She kissed the corner of his mouth, then his jaw, slow and deliberate. Her lips found the edge of his temple. Her fingers skimmed across his chest, kneading over his shoulders, smoothing the knots there with patient, intuitive touch.
It broke him.
Not violently—but slowly, a dismantling from the inside out.
She kissed him again, deeper this time, her tongue dancing with his, coaxing, tender. His hand gripped her waist, pulling her tighter, like he needed her closer than skin-on-skin. Like he wanted to crawl inside her and hide from the weight pressing against his ribs—memories he didn’t know how to share, pain he didn’t know how to bleed.
And then she whispered it.
Right there, into the space between his breaths.
“I love you.”
He froze.
“I love you,” she said again, softer now, her fingers running along the line of his jaw. “Don’t forget that.”
His eyes burned. He didn’t know why. His throat locked up and he hated that it did. He didn’t do this. He didn’t know how.
But she just kept touching him. Gentle, steady. Like she knew he couldn’t say it back yet. Like she didn’t need him to.
Her hand cupped his face and he leaned into it instinctively.
“I’ll love you forever,” she whispered, brushing her lips over his cheek.
Isaac buried his face in the crook of her neck, inhaling her like a man desperate to ground himself. He didn’t say anything. He just held her tighter. Pulled her closer. Pressed kiss after kiss into her skin.
And prayed she knew how much that meant.
How much she meant.
She kept touching him. Over his shoulders, across his chest. Her palms warm and soft, steady. She traced the dip of his collarbone, the slope of his pecs, the old scar on his side from a mission that had gone sideways years ago. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t ask questions. Just kept touching.
It made his throat tight. His stomach knot. Fuck, he didn’t deserve this. Her.
She kissed him softly, once on the lips, then deeper. With tongue, with heat, with every ounce of quiet fire she had.
And then—against his mouth, barely audible—“I love your cock, too.”
The words undid him.
He closed his eyes. Bit back the wave of arousal. Cock immediately hard as fuck.
His hands found her hips, her back. His body reacting on instinct. His cock thumping against her thigh. He didn’t want to want this. Not like this. But she knew.
She always knew.
She kissed down his neck, slow and deliberate, her hair brushing against his chest as she moved lower. Her lips over his sternum. His abs. His breath hitched, fingers tightening in the sheets.
“Rosie…” he warned, voice rough, low.
She didn’t stop.
She didn’t say a word.
She just kept kissing him. Worshipping him. Telling him without speaking that she knew how to love him through his silence. Through his pain.
And he let her.
Isaac’s hands gripped the sheets, knuckles straining, his jaw locked tight as Rosie moved down his body like she knew every damn nerve ending. Every place he held tension. Every place he broke.
Her mouth—God, her mouth.
She wasn’t in a hurry. No rush. No show. Just purpose.
She kissed down his chest, soft lips and slow breath. Traced her fingertips through the ink across his ribs, over old scars, until he flinched—not from pain, but from how deeply she saw him.
His throat bobbed as he exhaled, fists still clenched at his sides.
“Rosie,” he warned, voice hoarse. “You don’t have to—”
“I want to,” she whispered, her eyes flicking up to meet his, full of intent, full of heat. “Let me.”
And he couldn’t say no. Not when she touched him like that. Like she was claiming him. Like she was healing him.
“Fuck, baby—” He hissed through his teeth, the sound turning guttural as she kept going.
Everything in him wanted to hold back. To slow this down. But she was wrecking him with every kiss, every soft scrape of nails down his thighs, every second she looked up at him like he was something worth worshipping.
He wasn’t.
Not even close.
But with her?
With her, he could pretend. Just for tonight.
Isaac couldn’t breathe.
Not properly. Not when she kissed him like that—slow and certain, like she knew exactly how close he was to coming undone. Rosie was on a mission. Not just to make him feel good. But to make him feel… known. Like his body was hers to take care of. To worship.
She pressed another kiss just below his navel, her breath warm on his skin.
“Rosie,” he ground out, his voice already fraying. His hand fisted in the sheets, the other tangled in her hair. “Jesus—”
She didn’t stop.
Her lips brushed the ridge of his abdomen, tongue tracing a path lower. She knew what she was doing. She was slow about it, maddeningly slow, kissing each inch like it deserved its own kind of reverence. Like she could taste the tension pulsing through him.
Isaac’s hips jerked just slightly, instinctive. His muscles locked down tight, his jaw clenched.
“Fuck. You’re trying to kill me.”
Rosie glanced up with that wicked glint in her eyes—blue, sharp, hungry—but her touch stayed gentle. Careful. She nuzzled against his hip bone, breathing him in, and he swore the earth shifted under the bed.
Every nerve in his body lit up.
Then her hands slid to his thighs, parting him a little more, grounding him with her palms before her mouth moved lower again, warm and slow. Her tongue flicked lightly—exploring, tasting, teasing—just enough to drag a desperate, low groan from deep in his chest.
“Rosie,” he warned, but there wasn’t an ounce of protest in his voice. Just need.
She was everything—soft lips, clever hands, deliberate heat. She kissed the base of him, then up the length in a way that made his whole body tense. The kind of slow burn that crawled up his spine and made his eyes roll back.
He glanced down, hand tightening in her hair again, and what he saw nearly undid him.
Rosie, naked and kneeling between his legs, completely focused on him. On making him lose his mind.
His best friend. His girl.
His.
That word slammed into his chest and settled there, heavy as hell.
Her lips wrapped around him, warm and wet, and Isaac let out a ragged breath. His fingers trembled where they gripped her hair. His head fell back against the pillow, a string of curses muttered through clenched teeth.
She hollowed her cheeks, moved slow at first, like she was savoring every inch. Like she had all night. He could barely take it.
“Goddamn, baby,” he gasped, breath hot, broken. “You’re gonna make me lose it.”
And still, she didn’t stop.
Didn’t rush. Just watched him. Touched him. Took him deeper. Loved him like it meant something. Like he meant something.
Isaac’s body arched toward her, hips straining, eyes squeezed shut. His hand caressed the back of her head now, no longer gripping—just stroking, reverent, full of something he couldn’t say yet but felt in every fucking part of him.
She moaned softly against him, and the vibration sent heat shooting down his spine.
He was right there. On the edge. A breath away.
“Rosie—fuck—I’m—” He couldn’t even finish the sentence.
He didn’t need to.
She knew exactly what she was doing.
And God help him, he never wanted her to stop.
Rosie. His Rosie. Her lips wrapped around him, her hands steady on his hips, her tongue moving like she knew exactly how to pull every last shred of control from his body.
It was her. That’s what wrecked him.
Not just the act, but who was doing it. This wasn’t some random girl in a hotel room, some blur of skin and sweat who wouldn’t even remember his name in a week. This wasn’t part of his usual pattern—fast, hard, forgettable.
This was Rosie.
The girl he’d grown up with.
The girl who used to scribble in sketchbooks on the curb outside her busted-up duplex, while he tossed baseballs with his little brother across the street. The girl who had lived through hell and clawed her way out with paint under her nails and fire in her chest.
And now she was here.
Naked between his legs.
Loving him with her mouth like it was her idea. Like it gave her something too.
Isaac’s heart thundered in his chest. He dragged a hand down his face, trying to get a grip. His other hand still threaded gently through her hair, holding her like she might vanish if he let go.
Every slick glide of her mouth, every swirl of her tongue made his muscles tense harder. Made him feel—not just arousal, but grief. Need. Wonder. Something bigger than all of it. Something that had been buried for years but was clawing its way to the surface now.
He gritted his teeth, eyes locked on her. On the curve of her back. The way her lashes fluttered as she focused. The soft, eager little sounds she made—like she wanted him to know how good this was for her, too.
Fuck.
He felt it building fast—tight and urgent, coiling in his gut like a wave that was going to swallow him whole. And it wasn’t just the physical edge. It was the emotional one too. The kind of high-wire tension that came with realizing he could fall—hard—and he might never recover if she walked away.
“Rosie…” His voice cracked low in his throat, gravel and need. “God, baby—please—”
He didn’t even know what he was asking.
To stop? To keep going? To save him?
She looked up at him as she moved, lips slick and eyes impossibly blue, and Isaac saw it—all of it—in her face.
Devotion. Desire. Love.
It ripped through him like a goddamn bullet.
His hips jerked once, involuntary. His abs locked. His hand tightened in her hair, not pulling, just holding on—because he didn’t know how else to stay grounded.
“You have no idea,” he breathed, head falling back against the pillow, “how long I’ve wanted you.”
She hummed around him.
And Isaac Rayleigh—SEAL, survivor, badass—broke apart in the hands of the only girl who ever really had him.
Isaac came undone with a low, feral growl—his body locking, unraveling in a pulse of heat so strong it punched the air from his lungs.
“Fuck—Rosie, goddamn—that’s it, baby. Just like that,” he rasped, his fingers fisting the sheets, the crown of her head, the only anchor in a storm of sensation. “You’re gonna fucking kill me.”
He spilled into her mouth, and she didn’t stop—not even a little. She took every last bit of him, soft hands steady on his hips like she wanted to keep him there. Like she wanted to take care of him.
Jesus.
He was gone.
Every part of him.
Gone.
He lay there, panting, ribs aching from the sheer tension of release, heart hammering against his chest like he’d just been dropped from a plane without a chute. He reached for her—instinct, need, something—and the second she crawled up into his arms, he wrapped himself around her like she was the last soft thing in a brutal world.
“Come here, Coco,” he said, hoarse. “Get in here.”
She did. Quiet. Warm. Her face tucked under his jaw, breath feathering against his throat.
The room was still. Only the sound of the ocean said through the open window, a faint breeze lifting the curtains like breath.
She was curled against him now, her cheek pressed to his shoulder, fingers trailing absently along the line of his ribs. Each slow sweep of her touch felt like both balm and burn—soothing his skin, setting something deeper inside him on fire.
His hand came up, threading into her hair, drawing her even closer. He kissed the top of her head—soft, lingering.
He felt her fingers trace his ribs gently, brushing where he still hurt from the dive accident. Her hand paused, like she remembered he was breakable. Isaac tugged her tighter into him anyway.
“You okay?” Rosie asked softly, breaking the silence. Her voice vibrated against his skin.
Isaac swallowed, tightening his grip around her waist.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, voice rough. “You’re making me feel things I don’t know how to fucking feel.”
She lifted her head to look at him. Her blue eyes locked on his, sharp and warm all at once.
Silence settled between them—thick, charged. Not awkward. Not quite.
More like… too much.
His body was loose now, spent in the best fucking way, but his head?
His head was a fucking wreck.
Because something had cracked wide open in him just now—something terrifying and ancient. Something he’d kept under lock and key for years, maybe decades. And it had her name all over it.
Rosalie.
She curled into him, her hand flattening against his chest, and he thought she could probably feel it—everything pounding against his ribcage. Every word he couldn’t say.
I love you.
Nope.
Not yet. Not ready. Couldn’t do it.
But God, it was sitting there. Lodged in his throat. His bones. It was all over him, heavy and thick, and it wasn’t going anywhere.
He looked down at her in the dark, at the woman who had known him longer than anyone, who had survived more than most, who could bring him to his knees with a look or a kiss or a whispered promise.
And she was still here.
In his bed.
In his life.
In his arms.
Isaac closed his eyes. Let out a long, quiet breath. Pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
Then whispered into the dark, “What the fuck is happening to me…”
He didn’t expect an answer.
So he held her tight until they both fell asleep again.