Her grip on my shirt tightens. “Don’t let go.”
My throat constricts. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She’s shaking. Not delicate trembles or soft shivers, but full-body, bone-deep tremors that tell me this nightmare wasn’t a fleeting shadow—it was one of the real ones, the kind that sticks its claws in your ribs and doesn’t let go even after you’re awake.
“Come here,” I murmur, pulling her fully into my lap, letting her bury her face in my neck. “Breathe with me. Slow and deep.”
She tries. Her breath catches. She tries again.
I hold her tighter, the way I used to hold Aria when she was little and woke up crying from night terrors. Except this is different. This is Ella. And every inch of me is wired to protect her, soothe her, pull every nightmare out of her head and scatter them across the goddamn wind.
“I didn’t want you or anyone to see me like this,” she whispers against my throat, voice raw. “I hate this. I hate that I can’t stop it.”
“You don’t have to stop it,” I tell her quietly. “You just have to let yourself breathe.”
She shudders again, tears wetting my shirt, her fingers curling tighter into me like she’s trying to anchor herself in the real world.
I stroke her back until her breathing evens out. But her body stays molded to mine—soft, warm, and trembling—her thighsover mine, her chest pressed against me, her lips so close to my pulse I can feel every shaky exhale.
“Cole,” she mumbles eventually, voice thin and scraped hollow. “I hate being scared.”
I close my eyes. “Yeah,” I whisper. “I know the feeling.”
Her head lifts from my shoulder slowly, her charcoal-grey eyes locking with mine, still wet, still glowing in this heartbreaking, vulnerable way that makes something primal and protective rise up inside me.
“You make it stop,” she says. “I don’t know why. I don’t know how. But when you’re here, I can breathe again.”
I swallow hard. “Shiloh… Do you want to talk about it?”
She shakes her head. “Not really.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Help me forget.”
My eyes widen for a second. “What?”
“Please,” she whispers, and that one word hits me straight in the chest. “Please… help me forget.”
She lifts her hand to my face, and her thumb brushes the corner of my mouth. It’s a soft touch, barely there, but my body reacts like she just grabbed me by the spine.
“I need you,” she breathes.
Ah, fuck.
This is the line I said we wouldn’t cross again. The boundary I told her we needed. The distance I’ve been trying like hell to maintain so I don’t ruin everything.
But she’s looking at me like I’m the only solid thing in a room full of ghosts, her fingers in my hair, her breath quivering against my lips.
She leans in first. The kiss is barely a brush, more of a question than a claim. I should pull back, remind her of every promise I made, every inch of restraint I’ve been clinging to like a lifeline. But then she whispers against my mouth, broken and honest—
“Please, Cole. I don’t want to feel alone right now.”
And I snap.
My hand slides to the back of her neck, guiding her mouth back to mine, the kiss turning deep and hungry in a single heartbeat. She tastes like tears, want, and something so sweet it aches.
She gasps into my mouth like she’s been starving for this moment, and then her fingers slide into my hair, tugging me closer, pulling me deeper.
