His truth leaves me speechless. A shiver travels my spine.
“I’ve never brought a woman here before. That says something about this. Aboutus.”
“Then why me?” I ask. “Why bring me here? To this private space?”
He tugs lightly on my hair, guiding my eyes to his. “I don’t really know,” he admits. “But I wanted to find out where this could go.”
“Find out I’m not your type?”
“Oh, Penn,” he groans, twisting the strand tighter until I look at him. A soft smile curls my lips at the playful glint in his eyes. “You’reexactlymy type, baby girl. Don’t ever doubt that.”
He cups my chin between his fingers, brings my face to his. His lips hover near mine, the scent of red wine laced between our breaths.
“I want nothing more than to taste you forever, Penn. You’ll be the first and last woman I bring here… the only one who’ll ever see therealme.”
“The real you?”
“The me no one else sees, the me I hide.”
He murmurs it against my lips, low, velvety, and the words curl around my chest, tight and scorching. My heartbeat spikes, erratic, desperate, as his lips trace the line of my jaw, teasing beneath my ear, the hollow where nerves coil into fire. Goosebumps bloom across my skin. Each featherlight brush of his lips is a strike, a temptation, a promise.
“I like the privacy I’ve created,” he whispers, pulling me impossibly closer, weight and warmth pressing into me like gravity rewritten. My tongue stumbles over a half-formed reply, a breathy murmur, half asleep, half unravelling. My body remembers every storm I’ve ever carried, and yet here it is, melting, surrendered, desperate to fold into him.
“I like that it’s safe here… that no one knows I’m here,” I whisper, pressing closer, teeth grazing the slope of his neck. Hislaugh is soft, a rumble that shakes through my chest and settles into my bones. He lifts me effortlessly, and I feel lighter than air, tethered only to the heat of him, carried along the hallway, shadows dancing across skin and tattoos and muscles.
“Where are we going?”
“Where are we going, bed Penn?” he teases, voice low, dangerous, playful. I mumble incoherently, and he laughs, a sound that reverberates, rich and alive. My body responds, helpless, betraying me with heat that blooms from my core.
He sets me on the bed, white covers draped over my trembling form, and slowly, deliberately, he peels off his shirt. The sight steals my breath.
Tattoos etched in black and whispering pastels over arms and chest. Muscles sculpted like stone, alive, hard, impossible. Abs that deserve worship, a chest that demands touch. And the piercing sharp, teasing, a glint that makes my pulse spike. My little wicked voice purrs in my head:yes, yes, all of this. All for me.
His sweatpants slip down, deliberate, slow, teasing, revealing the promise beneath. I bury myself deeper in the covers, peeking just enough to see the amusement in his eyes.
“Like what you see, Penn?” he murmurs, low, silk and fire.
“Um… shit… um,” I stammer, heat rising, chest tight, breath caught somewhere between want and surrender.
He throws his head back in laughter, a deep, intoxicating rumble, and leans down, kissing the tip of my nose with soft, deliberate playfulness. “I’ll stay on the outside of the covers,” he murmurs.
But I need him closer. Always. My hands slide beneath the waistband of his sweats, brushing skin, tracing lines, feeling heat and pulse, the promise of more. I tug the fabric down, kicking itaside. “Please… I want to feel you next to me,” I murmur, cheeks burning, voice tremulous and low.
“You don’t have to ask me twice, Peach,” he says, sliding under the covers. Heat presses into me, every inch of him alive, tangible, dangerous. Our legs tangle instinctively, fingers intertwining. I feel him everywhere at once. The restraint in his eyes only makes it worse, the pull, the want, the edge of danger that makes my pulse spike and my thoughts scatter.
“This is as far as we’ll go tonight,” he whispers, lips brushing mine, soft, teasing, impossible. My chest rises and falls as I nod, surrendering, letting my body melt into him, exhale after exhale. His presence anchors me, fills the empty spaces grief left behind, and for the first time in twenty days, I feel safe.
The stars outside wink through the window like distant promises, cold and brilliant, and I allow myself to be pulled into the orbit of him. Dane’s eyes find mine, burning into me, and my chest shudders.
“I feel lightheaded when I’m with you,” I murmur, voice trembling, fragile.
“And I feel hypnotised by your presence… by your scent. I miss you when you’re not with me,” he admits, voice low, unguarded, leaving me raw. Loving him will be inevitable. Loving him could swallow me whole. Not loving him? Impossible.
Memories slip in like ghosts, Blake’s voice, the echo of footsteps down the hallway, the hollow ache in rooms that we spent time in. “Sometimes…I still hear him. Will it ever fade?” The words tumble out before I can stop them, bitter and raw.
“That’s normal, Penn,” he says, his voice a velvet anchor around me. “But you will fall in love again. His voice will be replaced by one that chooses you. One that finds your side of the bed in thedark and kisses your sleeping lips. The definition of a man is the woman he’s falling for.”
My eyelids grow heavy, weighted with sleep, with surrender, with the pull of him. His warmth is my tether. My body loosens, ragged and raw, grief sliding into the soft dark beneath the covers. Here, in the only safe place I’ve known, twenty days of torment and longing, I let him hold me. I let him claim me in this quiet, in this dark, in this small universe where we exist alone.
