And I don’t pull away.
I wake slowly,heavy with sleep, blinking as the low amber glow begins its gradual climb across the ceiling.
The lighting system is already shifting, easing towardmorning. It’s unsettling how convincing it is. Without windows, without clocks, my body has learned to trust it anyway. I haven’t seen actual daylight since Wednesday, but the rhythm still finds me.
I turn my head and stop.
Ridge lies on his back beside me, the light catching just enough of him to soften the hard lines I’ve come to expect.
His shoulders are broad even at rest, his jaw relaxed beneath the weight of a full beard, lashes dark against his skin.
Ink covers both arms and spans his chest. The tattoos stretch and shift as he breathes, the steady rise and fall of him anchoring the space between us.
I don’t move.
This version of him seems borrowed. Temporary, even, like something I’m not supposed to witness.
The glow traces the edges of the black lines, ink curving over muscle, stories I don’t know and haven’t earned. It catches in the rough shadow of his beard, softening the severity I usually associate with him. In sleep, the control slips just enough to reveal the man beneath it. Not weak. Just unguarded.
A persistent ache settles low in my chest.
I tell myself this was never meant to be anything more than strategy. Sleeping with him was survival. Leverage. A way to stay alive long enough to find an exit.
I repeat it like it’s a fact I can anchor to.
But watching him like this, the certainty of that becomes fuzzy.
The man beside me doesn’t look like my captor in sleep. His body is heavy and still, breath slow and even, one arm flung loose where it fell sometime in the night. The tension he carries when he’s awake has eased out ofhis face, leaving something unguarded behind. It’s unsettling how much that softens him.
Every touch between us has taken something I meant to keep intact. Not all at once, or dramatically. Just a steady erosion. A hand at my back that lingered a second longer than necessary. The way he watches me when he thinks I’m not looking. The care he doesn’t comment on.
His arm shifts, brushing mine.
The contact is barely there. Skin on skin. Incidental. And still my breath catches like I’ve been caught doing something wrong.
His jaw stays loose, his mouth relaxed, lashes dark against his skin. This is the version of him no one is meant to see.
I should turn away. Put space between us. Remind myself who he is to me.
Instead, I let myself watch the slow rise of his chest. The way his fingers curl slightly, as if even in sleep he’s holding onto something. The warmth of him bleeds into my side, steady and grounding, and for a moment, I don’t want to be careful.
The light shifts, warming, catching along the lines of his skin. I’ve learned enough in our short time together to know how this usually goes. Morning comes. He goes with it.
His eyes open slowly.
For a split second, there’s no armor, only quiet awareness. His unguarded gaze finds mine and locks onto my eyes. It’s like he’s orienting himself to where he is and who he’s with.
“Hey,” he murmurs, voice rough with sleep.
Before I can overthink how we are going to navigate this moment, the two of us waking up together in his bed, he leans in and kisses me.
It’s soft. Unrushed. Nothing like the hunger that drove the other times. No question in it, no edge. Just steady and deliberate contact, like he’s choosing to be here instead of managing the moment.
The intimacy of it unsettles me more than any rough touch ever could.
This is the part I didn’t plan for.
When he pulls back, I laugh softly, nerves threading through the sound. “You’re not leaving.”
