Wes finally looks at me, confusion flickering across his face. "What's that supposed to mean?"
I study him for a moment—the shadows under his eyes, the way his hands shake slightly where they rest on his knees. The careful distance he's maintaining even though every line of his body screams for contact.
"How long have you been starving, Wes?"
He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t need to. The truth is written all over his face.
"Take what you need," I say quietly.
He goes rigid. “I don’t even know how.”
"I know." I shift slightly, close enough for him to feel the warmth between us. "That’s not what I’m offering."
He blinks. “Then what?”
"Permission." I let the word settle between us. "To stop fighting it. To stop hating yourself for something you never asked for. To figure this out… with someone who isn’t afraid of you."
Something flickers across his face—hope mixed with terror. "I don’t know what I am. What I need. What any of this means."
"Doesn’t matter." I meet his eyes, steady. "Bree wouldn’t want you to starve. And I’m not going to let you do this alone."
The mention of her name hits him hard. His breath catches, and for a moment, I see through the careful walls he's built. See the guilt, the fear, the bone-deep certainty that he's becoming something dangerous.
"She's not here," he whispers.
"So?"
"So how can I—" Wes stops, his throat working around the words. "How can I want this when she's not here? When I don’t even understand what the hell I’m becoming?"
There’s something unraveling in him—not fear exactly, but grief twisted into guilt.
"And because," Wes says, voice rough, almost bitter, "I'm scared."
He swallows, like the words hurt to say.
"Scared I’ll lose control. Scared I’ll take too much. Scared that just...wanting from hermakes me dangerous. After everything she’s already been through."
His voice breaks—just slightly.
"Gods, Gray." A whisper. A confession.
"Gods, how I want her."
It lands like a punch to the chest. Not because it’s new. But because he finally said it.
Finally said what we've all been afraid to say.
I let the silence breathe between us. Let him feel it, instead of running from it.
"That’s not weakness," I say. "It’s restraint."
He shakes his head. “But what if it’s not enough?”
"Then you get better. Youlearncontrol. You do the work now—so when she’s ready, you’re not afraid of yourself."
He stares at me, raw and exposed. And I know that look, because I’ve worn it.
"You think I don’t feel it too?" I say quietly. "You think I haven’t imagined what it would be like to touch her and not have her flinch? To kiss her without holding back?"
