Wyatt finally lowered himself into the chair across from me. He didn’t crowd me. He didn’t talk. He just sat there with the kind of stillness that made my lungs want to work again.
“You don’t have to talk,” he finally said.
“I know.” My fingers tightened around the blanket. “I know.”
My hands trembled. The glass shook. I didn’t bother hiding it.
“You scared the hell out of me,” he said. Not accusing. Not angry. Just truth.
“I know.”
“You don’t get to do that again.”
My gaze snapped up. His eyes were raw. Not watery. Not shining. Just torn open.
“I didn’t mean to,” I whispered.
“I don’t care,” he said quietly. “Meaning to or not, doesn’t matter.”
Something in my chest shifted. Loosened. Tightened. I didn’t know how to hold myself upright under that kind of intensity.
“I didn’t think you’d find me.”
His jaw flexed. His breath left hard and controlled.
“I was always going to find you.”
The certainty in his voice hit me somewhere deep and trembling.
My throat burned.
“Why?”
He didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t look away.
“Because you’re mine.”
The words crashed into me. Hot. Sharp. Terrifying. Alive.
My pulse spiked so fast my vision shimmered at the edges.
I felt it in my ribs. In my stomach.
He saw the effect immediately. His voice dropped to something rougher.
“Not like ownership, or control. Not anything he ever told you it meant. Mine like I couldn’t lose you and stay standing.”
My breath wavered.
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“I know.” He leaned forward just enough that I felt heat radiate from his body. “That’s why it’s mine to give.”
The room felt too warm.
Too alive.
Like every molecule shifted toward him.
