It's not peace or absolution, but a clarity that wasn't there before. This time, it's something real. It's something we can't justify away.
The simulated lightsin the bunker ease on slowly, not enough to jar me awake, just enough to pull me out of sleep.
Pale bands of light creep along the concrete, stretching shadows across the room. The effect is muted and controlled, a reminder that this place exists outside the rhythm of the real world. Time behaves differently here.
The first thing I register is what I need to do. My father leaves early on Mondays. Coffee in Lafayette. Same place, same hour. If I move carefully, he will not know I was gone.
Then I register one of Ridge’s legs between mine.
His body is pressed against my back, heat and weight and solidity. His arm lies heavy across my waist, not loose, not careless. Anchored. As if even in sleep, he expects me to be there.
My spine fits against his chest with unsettling ease, my body curved perfectly into the hard line of him. The contact is intimate in a way that has nothing to do with romance and everything to do with instinct.
I stay still, breathing shallowly so I do not disturb him.
The warmth of his skin seeps into me, spreading slowly and indulgently. His thigh is thick and hard between mine, and I squeeze lightly as pleasure throbs at my core.
His hand rests low on my hip, fingers relaxed butpossessive, thumb tucked into the hollow of my waist like it belongs there.
My body responds before my thoughts catch up, a low awareness humming under my skin that blurs the line between waking and the memory of last night.
He shifts behind me, a low sound leaving his throat as his arm tightens and his beard brushes against my back. Still asleep, he draws me back into him, his forearm sliding from my waist to across my stomach, pulling me flush against his chest.
The hold is instinctive.
I stay still for a beat, listening to his breathing even out again.
Then I lift my hand and trace a finger along the ink on his forearm, following the lines slowly, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath the markings.
I shift within his hold, turning my body slightly, and then my head, until his face comes into view. He doesn’t move. His breathing stays deep and even, steady enough that I let myself keep exploring without fear of waking him.
His expression is relaxed, stripped of the vigilance and restraint he wears like armor when he is awake. Seeing him like this makes him human in a way I am not prepared to handle.
Thick lashes rest against his cheeks, unfairly long, softening the sharp planes of his features. It gives him an almost deceptive calm, like someone used to waiting.
I know better than to confuse this for gentleness. his man is controlled, deliberate, and built for pressure.
His lips are slightly parted. I fight the urge to kiss him, to test the weight and warmth of his mouth against mine.
Everything about him pulls at me. The hard line of his jaw. The quiet strength in the way he holds me, even insleep. The unspoken familiarity in the placement of his hand.
My body recognizes it as safety before my mind can intervene, and that realization unsettles me more than fear ever did.
He took me in the night, held me against my will. Worse than that, he crossed my father. That makes him dangerous. Laurent made that very clear after I came home.
Nothing about waking up like this changes that truth.
My father would never approve of this, of me with him. Of me choosing him, this quiet intimacy that feels earned in ways I cannot justify. By every measure I was raised with, I should hate Ridge Stone.
I don’t.
Anger tightens in my chest, sharp and reflexive. I press my lips together, forcing it down, like if I give it air it will tear through something I am not ready to look at yet.
It’s a betrayal, not of my father alone, but of the version of myself I thought I understood. I press my lips together, holding the emotion in place. This is not confusion. This is clarity I don’t want.
The lines between us are blurred beyond recognition. The man who tied me to a bed and the man whose arm holds me now exist in the same body, and my mind keeps trying to separate them even as my body refuses to cooperate.
I press my forehead briefly to his shoulder, careful not to wake him, and breathe him in. His scent is familiar now. Too familiar. It settles low in my chest and belly, stirring awareness I should not indulge.
