“I—” He stops.
I wait.
The hand in my hair stills. I feel him consider it, feel the weight of the words he’s choosing between the ones he’s decided and the question of whether now is the moment. His chest expands on a slow breath.
He shakes his head, the smallest movement, as if he’s decided against the words. Instead, he brings his lips to my forehead and closes his eyes, and the thing he doesn’t say fills the room anyway.
I feel it in both hands still holding me, in the careful way he breathes, and in the adoration on his face, unguarded and unperformed. It’s the version of Reece Steele that exists only in this room, at this hour, with no audience, no cameras, and nothing to manage.
He looks at me as if I am the only thing worth looking at.
Like he has been waiting to look at me for longer than he can rationally account for.
Like whatever he almost said is so large he can’t find the right shape for it yet, so instead, he holds me with both arms and lets the feeling be the sentence.
I close my eyes and let it be enough.
Afterward, we stay tangled together in the amber light. His hand traces the line of my shoulder. My head is on his chest, his heartbeat slowing under my ear into something steady and reliable.
“You almost said something,” I say into the quiet.
A pause. “I did.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Timing.” His hand keeps moving. “I’ll say it when it won’t terrify you.”
“What makes you think it would terrify me?”
“Because you’d immediately think of twelve reasons it was too soon and build a whole case against it before I’d finished the sentence.”
I open my mouth.
Close it.
“That’s fair,” I admit.
He presses his lips to the top of my head. “I know,” he says it gently, without any of the usual amusement. “When you’re ready, I’ll say it. You’ll know it’s coming.”
The certainty in his voice does something to me I can’t name yet. I press my hand flat to his chest, breathe, and decide to stop cataloging this particular feeling and simply let it exist.
This is new for me.
It’s terrifying in the specific way good things are terrifying.
I close my eyes.
His phone buzzes.
The first time, neither of us moves. It’s a single notification, easily ignored.
The second time, I feel his chest tighten beneath my palm before the sound registers.
The third, fourth, and fifth times come in rapid succession, the specific staccato of multiple alerts arriving within secondsof each other, the pattern of something spreading rather than something singular.
I sit up.
Reece is already reaching for his phone on the nightstand, and I watch his face in the glow of the screen. He has excellent control over his expressions. I’ve noted this, cataloged it, and used it as information during sessions when I needed to know how he was handling pain. He doesn’t flinch visibly. He processes quietly.
