The raw vulnerability in her voice, the trust implicit in that request, hits me square in the chest. It’s a responsibility I don’t take lightly. “Slow,” I promise, my voice thick. “Tell me if anything hurts. Tell me to stop. Any time. Okay?”
She nods, her gaze locked on mine. “Okay.”
I kiss her again, softer this time. Reassuring. I remove her dress gently. My hands slide down her back, finding the clasp bra between her shoulder blades. It gives way easily. The flimsy fabric falls. And there she is. Completely bare to me.
My breath stops. She’s beautiful and perfect. Real. Soft curves, pale skin dusted with faint freckles across her shoulders, breasts full and heavy, tipped with dusky pink nipples already pebbled tight from the cool air from the AC… orfrom anticipation. My gaze travels down the gentle swell of her belly, the flare of her hips, the blond triangle of curls at the junction of her thighs.
She’s utterly exposed. Utterly trusting.
And she’s mine. At least for this moment.
“You’re… staring.”
“I’m memorizing,” I whisper, the words torn from me. “You’re stunning.” The words feel inadequate. Reverent.
A small, shaky smile touches her lips. “Flattery will get you everywhere, Prescott.”
I kiss her again, deeper this time, pouring everything I can’t say into it—the awe, the desire, the fierce protectiveness.
When I pull back, my eyes travel down once more.
That’s when I register it.
The mismatch. Dark up top—her hair, the brunette. And below, the hair there is light. Golden. Blonde.
Not brunette.
Not even close.
The detail lands like a blindside body check—sharp, sudden, rearranging everything after it.
She dyed her hair. The whole week. Every time I've looked at her, touched her, wanted her—the brunette was the costume, the part she played. The rest of her—the part that keeps undoing me—was never an act.
Her eyes track mine. She follows my gaze down, and then I watch it happen—the exact moment she realizes what I'm seeing. Her body doesn't flinch. Doesn't tense. It does something quieter than that. It goes still.
The way a person stops when they've been caught in something they can't take back and they know the only move left is to let it sit there.
Her eyes come back up to my face.
Not shy. Not apologetic. Just... watching. Steady and open and braced for whatever comes next, the way someone watches a referee make a call they can't argue.
She's waiting to find out if I still want her.
Not the brunette. Not the version she built for Blake. The blonde underneath.
The silence stretches.
I canfeel her scanning my expression—looking for the flicker, the shift, the thing that tells her this changes how I see her.
And I know if I say something now—anything too careful, too measured, too much like I'm choosing my words—she'll hear it as a line. And she'll shut down.
So I don't say anything.
Instead, I move my thumb. The one that's been resting on her hip. I drag it slow and deliberate across the skin there—not away from it. Not past it. Across it. Like it's nothing. Like it's just her.
Because it is.
Something shifts in her face. Not relief—not yet.
