Chapter 22
Alexander
Her Apartment
Morning
The smell hits me first. Coffee. Eggs. Something warm. And cinnamon—soft, unassuming, the kind of scent that belongs to a life without shadows. Then I hear it. A voice. Low. Unpolished. Warm like the sun through winter glass.
She’s singing.
I blink, still half-wrapped in her duvet, still half-convinced I’m dreaming. The morning light sneaks through the tiny window, painting everything in a softness my world has never known.
There’s a chipped mug on her bedside table. A dying succulent is fighting for its last chance. Books in uneven stacks. A little ceramic cat standing guard near the closet like a sentry. This isn’t a room. This is her. And somehow, impossibly—I’m in it.
I sit up slowly, muscles sore in ways that have nothing to do with how hard I took her last night and everything to do with the raw, frightening exposure of letting myself sleep.
My shirt hangs over her chair. My watch glints beside her lamp.
I don’t stay. I don’t ever stay.
I don’t sleep in someone else’s bed, in someone else’s life, wrapped in someone else’s scent. Not anymore. But with her…I stayed. And I slept without bracing for the nightmares.
Her voice carries from the kitchen—light, imperfect, achingly human. A pan sizzles. A drawer opens. A knife scrapes across toast. Domestic sounds. Ordinary sounds. Sounds that feel more dangerous to me than any knife pressed to my ribs.
I stand—barefoot, shirtless, completely unarmored—and step into the doorway.
And I stop breathing. She’s at the stove, wearing one of my shirts and nothing else.
The hem hits her mid-thigh. Her hair is a chaotic halo.
She’s swaying absentmindedly as she flips pancakes, singing under her breath like I’m not ten feet away, fighting the urge to drop to my knees. Like this—us—is normal.
I clear my throat, but my voice still comes out rough, sleep ruined. “Good morning.”
She jumps slightly, then turns, spatula still in hand. Her eyes widen—then warm. Not fully. Not recklessly. Just enough. “You slept in,” she teases.
“I don’t do that,” I answer, stepping toward her like gravity has a personal vendetta against me. “Ever.”
“Well…” She shrugs, stirring the pan. “You’re in my world now. We do slow here.”
Something in my chest pulls tight. Not pain.
Not fear. Something else. Something I refuse to name.
I close the distance. Take the spatula from her hand.
Set it aside. My fingers graze hers, and she stills—not in fear.
In awareness. Then I kiss her. Not with hunger.
Not with dominance. With something far worse.
Something tender. Just one kiss. Slow. Grateful.
Fatal. When I pull back, my forehead rests against hers.
“Don’t stop singing,” I murmur. Her smile blooms soft as dawn. And in that moment, in her tiny kitchen with burnt pancakes and sunlight brushing her cheek, I know I am not returning to cold sheets. Not now. Not ever.
She’s rewriting me. And I’m letting her.