“He’s not coming,” someone says, close to my ear. Calm. Certain. “No one is.”
Jon.
The thought of his name hurts worse than the blow.
Then hands are on my face.
Not rough. Not claiming. Warm. Steady.
“Delilah.”
The voice cuts through the dark like a blade of light.
“Hey. Hey—look at me.”
I gasp awake, lungs dragging in air like I’ve been underwater too long. My sheets are twisted around my legs, my skin slick with sweat, my tank top clinging uselessly to my ribs. My heart is trying to claw its way out of my chest.
Hands cradle my face exactly like they did in the dream—but these don’t hurt.
They ground.
“Easy,” Jon says, low and firm. “You’re here. You’re safe. It’s just me.”
I blink hard, the room swimming back into place. The dim light. My bed. Him.
He’s kneeling beside me, bare-chested, hair mussed like he came straight from sleep. Boxers, nothing else. Like he didn’t stop to think—just came.
“You were yelling,” he says quietly. “Couldn’t wake you.”
My breath stutters. My hands shake. There’s too much adrenaline in my veins, too much leftover fear with nowhere to go.
“I thought—” My voice breaks. I swallow and try again. “I thought you weren’t coming back.”
His thumbs brush my cheekbones, gentle, anchoring. “I’m here.”
Something inside me snaps—not cleanly, not logically. Just a sharp break where fear turns into need.
I surge forward and kiss him.
It’s not graceful. It’s not planned. It’s heat and impulse and the desperate need to feelanythingother than panic.
For a heartbeat, he freezes.
“Delilah—” he murmurs against my mouth, hands still framing my face, not moving lower, not taking more. “Hey. Slow down.”
But when I don’t pull away—when I kiss him again, harder this time—he exhales, a sound that feels like surrender, and kisses me back.
It’s messy. All breath and mouths and hands finding each other like we’re making sure the other one is real. I’m dimly aware of my fingers curling into his shoulders, of his hand sliding into my hair, steady instead of frantic.
When we finally break apart for air, my forehead presses into his chest.
“Talk to me,” he says softly, his voice a careful thing. “Tell me this is okay.”
I nod, because words feel too small. Because for the first time since captivity, my body isn’t flinching. Isn’t remembering.
His lips trace my jaw, then my neck—slow, questioning, like he’s checking in with every inch of space he takes.
And somehow… it works.
