Chapter 5 #2
Twelve hours stretched in front of her, then collapsed behind her without warning. The work didn’t change. The space didn’t change. What sat under her skin did. Every time he moved close, she felt it. Every time he didn’t, she felt that too.
By the time the lights cut out, she was already running on the edge of something she didn’t want to name.
The kitchen went black without warning. Kyla froze with both hands on the prep table, her breath caught halfway in.
The noise from the gym dropped into a stunned quiet, broken only by a child’s cry and the scrape of movement in the dark.
Emergency lights failed to kick in. Only the red glow from exit signs gave the room shape.
Kyla moved on instinct, turning toward the supply closet where she’d seen a flashlight earlier. Her hand slid along the wall, counting steps, mapping the space from memory. The kitchen felt wrong without light, distances shifting just enough to throw her off.
She reached for the door and ran into him instead. Her chest struck his. Solid. Unyielding.
“Titus—”
“Stay still.” His voice cut low through the dark.
Her hands came up to push him back, palms flat against his chest. He caught her waist before she could create distance, fingers locking in with a certainty he hadn’t shown all night.
“Let go,” she said.
He stepped forward instead. Her back met the shelving behind her. Metal pressed through her clothes, cold and unyielding. His body followed, closing the gap until there was no space left to negotiate.
The dark stripped everything down. No room for deflection. No distance to hide inside.
His mouth found hers. No warning. No pause.
Kyla grabbed his shirt, twisting the fabric for leverage as he pulled her in. His teeth caught her lip. She answered without thinking, biting back, matching the force he brought into it. Their hips collided.
She moved first this time, grinding into him once, hard enough to feel the response in his body. He made a low sound against her mouth, the vibration of it sending a sharp pull through her center.
His hand slid under her shirt. Her breath broke. Callused fingers traced her side, slow enough to register every inch. Her body reacted before she could shut it down—arching into the contact, pulling him closer when she should have pushed him away.
He didn’t pull back. His hands tightened at her waist, not gentle, but not rough enough to stop. Just enough to keep her exactly where he wanted her.
She stayed.
That was the problem.
Kyla stayed pressed against him, breath uneven, hands fisted in his shirt. For a moment, neither of them moved. His grip tightened at her waist, not enough to bruise, but enough to keep her from slipping away. His forehead brushed hers as their breathing tried to find a rhythm that didn’t exist.
She felt it first. The shift. Not in him...in herself.
Too much. Too fast. Too public, even in the dark.
She shoved him back.
Hard.
The shelving rattled behind her as the pressure broke. Something metal clanged to the floor, but she didn’t look down to see what it was. She wiped her mouth with the back of his hand, the taste of him still there, sharp and impossible to ignore.
“Don’t,” she said, voice low, steady enough to pass for control.
He didn’t reach for her again.
That almost made it worse.
Kyla turned, found the door by memory, and pushed through it into the gym. Noise rushed back in: voices layered over each other, children crying, someone calling for more blankets. The red exit lights gave just enough shape to keep her from running into the nearest row of cots.
She walked fast. Too fast for it to look casual, not fast enough to draw attention. Her legs didn’t feel steady. Her breath refused to settle. Every step reminded her of where he had been, what he had taken without asking and what she had given without stopping him.
She didn’t look back.
Not once.
Her cot sat near the locker rooms. A thin mattress stretched over a frame that protested when she dropped onto it. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, face in her hands, forcing air into her lungs in measured pulls.
It didn’t help.
Her body stayed on edge, awareness sharpened to every place he had touched. Her mouth burned where his teeth had caught her. Her hips still carried the echo of that single, reckless movement.
Someone coughed nearby.
Kyla dragged her hands down her face, pressing hard as if she could reset something that had already gone too far. She pulled her knees together, trying to contain the reaction that refused to fade. It only made her more aware of it. She swore under her breath, low enough that no one heard.
Across the gym, the kitchen doors stayed closed. He didn’t follow. Of course he didn’t. Titus Brooks didn’t chase. He waited.
That thought settled in her chest and stayed there.
She leaned back on the cot, staring up at the ceiling she couldn’t fully see in the low light. As much as she wanted to run, she had to stay until the storm ended. Her pulse beat high and steady, refusing to slow, refusing to give her even that small piece of control.
Tomorrow, she would call it a mistake. She would say it had been the heat, the long shift, the way the night pressed too close around everyone in that building. She would build a version of it that fit inside something manageable.
Tonight, none of that mattered.
Her body already knew the truth.
She turned her face into her arm, blocking out the glow of the exit signs and the movement of people settling in around her. Sleep didn’t come. It stayed just out of reach, replaced by a restless awareness that tracked every sound, every shift, every imagined step that might have been his.
It never was.
Kyla lay there anyway, eyes open in the dark, carrying the aftermath with her because she didn’t know how to put it down. And somewhere in the space between anger and want, she understood one thing with a clarity she couldn’t argue with.
If he stepped into that dark again and reached for her, she wasn’t sure she would stop him.