Forty-Seven
Nathan
Sienna sleeps on her stomach, tangled in the sheets, her breath deep and steady. The rumpled bedding barely covers her. It’s just enough to shield the curve of her ass, the dip of her spine, leaving the smooth expanse of golden skin exposed to the early sunlight slanting through the curtains.
I rake a hand through my hair, leaning back against the headboard, trying to latch onto something other than the raw ache rattling around in my chest. This was a mistake. A brutal, perfect mistake, but still a mistake. I know better. I know how I work. I don’t stick around. I don’t get attached.
But last night…fuck.
My gaze drags over her again, lingering on the faint indentations on her thighs. It’s marks I left with my teeth. I remember exactly how she sounded beneath me, on top of me, wrapped around me. How she gasped my name like it meant something, like I meant something. And I let her, over and over, until we collapsed in a pile of limbs and sweat, spent in every possible way.
Now, in a few hours, I’ll be gone. Back to my life. Back to deals and flights and a never-ending schedule that, for the first time, feels pretty fucking meaningless. I’ve spent my entire life on the move. One city, one deal, one conquest to the next. Ask me where I’ll be in a month? Couldn’t tell you. A year? Not a damn clue.
Commitment?
Never been on the table.
Not because I won’t, but because I can’t.
Yet here I am, sitting in bed, watching Sienna shift in her sleep like I might want to stay. The thought scares the hell out of me. It scares me more than any gamble I’ve ever made.
She stirs, body stretching, a soft sigh escaping her lips as she blinks into the light. Her lashes flutter, those beautiful blues locking on mine.
We don’t say a word. We just look.
That pull is still there, strong as ever.
She doesn’t bother covering up when the sheet slips down her body. She doesn’t shy away. Instead, she gives me a lazy, half-awake smile that lands in my chest like a punch.
“Morning,”
she murmurs, her voice heavy with sleep.
I hum, letting my fingertips drift along her spine. They’re slow, reverent strokes I have no right to make. She shivers but doesn’t pull away.
The silence is too thick, the air suffocating. She feels it, too. Her smile falters just a little, her fingers flex on the sheets like she’s not sure if she should reach for me or get the hell out.
Before I can figure out how to stop it, she asks the question I’ve been dreading. “What time is your flight?”
There it is.
Our unspoken deadline.
My throat feels tight as I clear it. “Three o’clock.”
She nods once, and I fucking hate it. Hate the look in her eyes, the acceptance that this was always just borrowed time. That I was never going to stick around. She’s putting those walls back up, right in front of me, and I can’t blame her.
She throws the sheet off, climbing out of bed, her movements too brisk, too controlled.
Tiny shorts, that damn tank top. She forces them on, her body coiled tight with tension, not meeting my eyes.
I can sense her mind already jumping ahead: Check-out is in a few hours, flight at three, let’s not dwell. She’s too busy gathering her stuff, throwing random items into her suitcase, lips pressed together in a line.
“Sienna,”
I say quietly. She keeps moving, ignoring me. “Sienna,”
I repeat, a warning creeping into my tone.
Nothing.
She’s determined to keep those walls up.
“Sienna.”
She whips around, fists clenched at her sides like she’s ready to fight or flee.
“Thank you,”
she whispers, her voice quivering.
“For what?”
She drops her gaze to her hands, knuckles white from twisting the fabric of her shorts. “For this. For…coming here with me. For dealing with the insane idea I cooked up on the plane. Most men would’ve run the second I said ‘fake date to my brother’s wedding.’ But you stayed. You were there for me.”
The breath she blows out is shaky. “I mean, I roped you into being my lifeline, and you did it. So…thank you, Nathan.”
My chest seizes because she sounds so final. She’s already filed this under Memories that end. But this isn’t done. Not for me. Not yet, at least.
I shake my head. “No.”
“No?”
I swing off the bed and grab her hand, pulling her onto my lap before she can argue. She gasps, palms slamming into my chest as I tug her against me. My hands clamp around her thighs, refusing to let her squirm away.
“Don’t do that,” I say.
Her brows knit. “Do what?”
My hands slide up her waist, settling at her hips, holding her firm. “Don’t thank me for this.”
Her lips part, but I press on. “We’re not fucking idiots, Sienna. We both know this is going to hurt like hell.”
That’s the truth. Raw and unfiltered, and it’s hanging between us like a live wire.
She doesn’t move, doesn’t deny it because it’s too late to deny anything.
And yeah, maybe we can’t do a damn thing about the heartbreak waiting for us, but I’ll be damned if I let her walk out of here thinking she was just a fling, just a headache, just a week-long arrangement.
My grip tightens.
Her cheeks are flushed, hair wild, lips swollen from last night.
Christ, how am I supposed to walk away from this?
I brush a thumb over her jaw. “I don’t want you acting like this was some chore. You were never an obligation.”
“It was supposed to be a transaction. Right?”
“Fuck transactions,”
I say, voice gone rough. “Maybe it was at first, but then you…”
I swallow hard. “You turned it into something else.”
Sienna’s eyes glisten, a flicker of hope or heartbreak or both. My mind spins with words I should never say, words like stay, don’t let me leave, I need you in ways that terrify me, but I can’t speak them because I am who I am, and commitment isn’t in my vocabulary, right?
For this moment, at least, I can hold her. So I do. Sliding a hand up her spine, burying it in the messy strands of her hair, pressing her against me.
We stay like that, time stretching, the morning sun drifting higher, each tick of the clock a reminder of how little is left. She grips my arms like she’s bracing for a crash, and I realize that’s exactly what this is.
It’s a slow-motion wreck.
Finally, she tips her head back, eyes searching mine. “Nathan.”
Her voice trembles.
I slide my hand along her jaw, letting my fingers slip behind her ear. “Yeah?”
Her lips move, but no words come out. Instead, she just exhales, leaning in, mouth brushing mine in a slow, tentative kiss. It’s different from last night—no desperation, no rough edges—just pure, quiet longing that says everything we can’t say.
I kiss her back, letting her taste me, letting me taste the finality in her trembling sigh. The world shrinks to just us, hearts pounding in sync, bodies clinging to a moment that can’t last.
When we part, her eyes gleam with tears she won’t shed. I press my forehead to hers, forcing out a breath. “We still have a few hours.”
She nods, swallowing thickly. “A few hours.”
Neither of us says what we both know.
A few hours to pretend we’re not leaving each other.