Chapter 32
JADE
The storm is still raging, but it's lost some of its fury.
Through the window, I can see the trees now, their branches bending under the weight of snow, swaying in the wind. The white-out conditions from yesterday have faded into something slightly less apocalyptic, but Phoenix checked the road this morning and came back shaking his head. Still impassable.
I should be climbing the walls. Instead, I'm curled up on the sofa with a book I'm not actually reading, watching the fire and trying not to watch him.
He's restless too. I can feel it in the way he moves around the cabin, picking things up and putting them down, checking the windows, stoking a fire that doesn't need stoking. We've barely spoken all day, the air between us thick with something neither of us wants to name.
By evening, the tension is unbearable.
He's sitting in the armchair across from me, staring into the flames. The firelight plays across his face, highlighting the sharp line of his jaw, the shadows beneath his cheekbones. He looks tired and worried.
"What are you thinking about?"
His voice startles me. I look up from my book and find his dark eyes fixed on my face with that intensity that always makes my stomach flip.
“Nothing.”
"Liar." But he says it gently, without accusation. "You've been somewhere else all day. Tell me."
I close the book and set it aside. The fire crackles. Snow taps against the windows.
"I'm thinking about the last time I trusted someone," I say quietly. "And how badly it ended."
Phoenix doesn't respond. Just waits, giving me space to continue.
"His name was David." The name tastes bitter on my tongue, even after all this time. "David Chriton. We were together for three years. Two in college, one after."
"What happened?"
I pull my knees up to my chest, making myself small. The memories are sharp even now, edged with a pain that never quite faded.
"Everyone loved him. He was charming and funny and attentive, and I thought he was perfect." I laugh, but there's no humor in it. "I thought I was going to marry him."
Phoenix is very still, his eyes never leaving my face.
"He cheated on me," I continue. "For six months. With my roommate. The whole time, he was telling me he loved me, making plans for our future, talking about moving in together after graduation. And every time I left for class or went to work, he was in our apartment with her."
"How did you find out?"
I close my eyes. The memory is still vivid, seared into my mind.
"I came home early from work one day. Wasn't feeling well." My voice is steady, but my hands are shaking. "I walked into our bedroom and found them together. They were in our bed, the one we'd picked out together at IKEA, the one he'd complained about assembling for hours."
Phoenix's jaw tightens. I see his hands curl into fists on the armrests of his chair.
"What did you do?"
"I left." The words come out flat, emotionless. “I didn't scream, didn't cry, didn't throw things. I just turned around and walked out. Packed a bag while they scrambled to get dressed, and I left. Moved in with my mom that night."
"Did he try to explain?"
"He tried everything. Called me a hundred times.
Showed up at my mom's house with flowers.
Sent long emails about how it didn't mean anything, how he still loved me, how we could work through it.
" I shake my head. "Like I was supposed to just forgive him.
Like three years together meant I owed him another chance. "
"You didn't owe him anything."
"I know that now. But back then, I felt like such an idiot. Everyone kept asking what I did wrong, what I could have done differently. Like it was somehow my fault he couldn't keep his dick in his pants."
The bitterness in my voice surprises even me. I thought I was over this. Thought the wound had scarred over and healed. But sitting here, in this cabin, with this man who's lied to me in his own ways, it all comes rushing back.
"I crashed on my mom's couch for three months," I say. “I couldn't afford my own place, couldn't bear to stay in the apartment we'd shared. I just existed for a while. Got up, went to work, came home, cried myself to sleep."
"I'm sorry." Phoenix's voice is rough. "That you went through that."
"I swore I'd never let another man make a fool of me again." I finally meet his eyes. "I promised myself that I'd never be that stupid, that naive, that trusting."
Silence stretches between us. The fire crackles. The storm howls.
"And then I met you," I whisper.
Something shifts in his expression. Pain, maybe.
"I'm not him," he says.
"How do I know that?" The words come out sharper than I intended. "You lied to me too, Phoenix. About the dinner, about why I was really here. Everything between us started with a lie."
"I know."
"So how am I supposed to trust you? How am I supposed to believe anything you say?"
He leans forward, his elbows on his knees, his eyes locked on mine. "Because I'm telling you the truth now. All of it. No more secrets, no more manipulation. Ask me anything."
I study his face, looking for the crack in the armor, the tell that will reveal this is just another game. But all I see is raw honesty, the kind that costs something to give.
"Do you regret it?" I ask. “Reading my writing. Watching me for years. Any of it?"
He doesn't hesitate. "No."
The answer should make me angry. Should confirm everything I fear about him.
"I regret not having the courage to reach out sooner," he continues.
"I regret the way you found out about the dinner.
I regret that I hurt you, that I gave you reasons to doubt me.
" He pauses. "But I don't regret finding you.
I don't regret a single moment I spent reading your words, learning who you are.
Those years of watching you from a distance are the reason I knew, the second I met you, that you were everything I'd been waiting for. "
My throat tightens. "That's honest, at least."
"I'm trying, Jade." His voice drops. "I know I fucked up. I know I went about this all wrong. But I'm trying to be the man you deserve, even if I have no idea how."
The fire pops, sending sparks swirling up the chimney. Outside, the wind moans through the trees. We're suspended in this moment, balanced on the edge of something neither of us can take back.
I don't make a conscious decision to move. My body just rises from the sofa and crosses the space between us. He watches me come, his dark eyes tracking every step, but he doesn't reach for me. He doesn't push or pull or demand.
He lets me come to him.
I stop in front of his chair, looking down at him. He looks up at me, and what I see in his face makes my chest ache. Desire. Need. Fear. Hope. Everything I'm feeling reflected back at me.
"Phoenix," I whisper.
"Yeah?"
"I don't know if I can trust you."
"I know."
"I don't know if this is real or if I'm just making the same mistake all over again."
"I know that too."
"But I can't stop." My voice breaks. "I keep trying to hate you, and I can't. I keep trying to pull away, and I can't. What is wrong with me?"
He reaches up and takes my hand, pressing it flat against his chest. Beneath my palm, his heart beats hard and fast.
"Nothing is wrong with you," he says. "Nothing has ever been wrong with you."
I sink down onto his lap, straddling him, my knees on either side of his hips. His hands come up to rest on my waist, gentle in a way he usually isn't. We're face to face now, breath mingling, foreheads almost touching.
"I'm scared," I admit.
"So am I."
"You're not supposed to say that. You're supposed to be the confident one."
"I'm confident about a lot of things." He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. "But not about this. Not about you. You terrify me, Jade. The way I feel about you terrifies me."
I kiss him.
It's different than before. Softer. Slower. A question instead of a demand. He answers it with a tenderness that breaks something open inside me, his hands sliding up my back, his lips moving against mine like he has all the time in the world.
We undress each other slowly, piece by piece, with none of the urgency of the other time. Each revealed inch of skin is explored, memorized, worshipped. When he finally lays me down on the rug in front of the fire, I'm trembling, and not from the cold.
"Jade." He hovers over me, his body blocking out everything but him. "Look at me."
I do. And what I see in his eyes makes tears prick at the corners of mine.
He enters me slowly, never breaking eye contact. I gasp at the stretch of him, at the intimacy of this position, at the way he's looking at me like I'm something precious.
"I've got you," he murmurs. "I've got you."
He moves in long, deep strokes, his rhythm unhurried, his focus entirely on me. Every thrust hits something deep inside me, not just physically but emotionally, cracking open walls I've spent years building.
The tears come without warning. They spill down my temples and into my hair, and I'm crying, actually crying while he moves inside me. He doesn't stop. Doesn't pull back. Just shifts his weight onto one arm so he can wipe my cheeks with his thumb.
"It's okay," he whispers. "I've got you. Let go."
So I do.
I let go of David and the betrayal that still haunts me. I let go of my mother's warnings and my own stubborn pride. I let go of every reason I've been fighting this, every wall I've built, every fear that's kept me locked up tight.
I let myself feel all of it. The pleasure and the pain and the terrifying vulnerability of opening myself to someone again.
When I come, it's not an explosion. It's a wave, rolling through me in slow, endless pulses that leave me shaking and sobbing in his arms. He follows me over the edge with a groan, burying his face in my neck, his whole body shuddering against mine.
We stay tangled together on the floor for a long time, neither of us speaking. The fire crackles beside us. The storm howls outside. And I cry until I have nothing left.
Eventually, my tears slow. My breathing evens out. Phoenix shifts, pulling me closer, arranging us so that my head rests on his chest and his arms wrap around me like he's afraid I'll disappear.
"I think I'm falling for you," I whisper into the silence. The words feel dangerous. Reckless. True.
He's quiet for a moment. Then his arms tighten around me.
"I already fell," he says. “A long time ago. Before you even knew my name."
I should be terrified. A man who watched me for years, who orchestrated our meeting, who brought me here against my will is telling me he loves me. Every alarm bell in my head should be screaming.
But I don't pull away.
I press closer, letting his heartbeat steady mine, letting his warmth seep into my bones.
Outside, the storm begins to quiet.
Inside, something new begins.