I must look ridiculous. I’m buried under three blankets, bundled like a bear in hibernation, only my nose and eyes peeking out. I even pulled out one of my winter hats and jammed it on my head to try to keep out the cold.
“You’re not fine,” he deadpans. “Come to my room right now.”
“W-what?”
“My bed. It’s warmer. The heat from my body, we can share it.” He says so simply. A pause then, “I’m cold too.”
“No, you’re not.”
He smirks. “You’re right, I’m not, but I thought that would make you feel better about joining me. Look, we don’t have tomake this weird.”
I want to make it weird. In fact, I want to roll on top of him and ask himwhat do you want?My body makes the decision for me, peeling me from the bed because—screw my pride. I’m not making it through the night like this. I follow him down the hallway, back to his room, the same one where just days ago he fucked me like I was his, only for us to agree that I absolutely wasn’t.
That night still lingers in my skin, the phantom feels of him pressing into me, the heat, the way I lost myself in him completely. The way he looked as he unraveled on top of me. And now I’m walking right back into that space hoping like hell I won’t get hurt, or hurt him, again.
Gabriel pulls back the covers, waiting for me to slide in first before he follows. His body is a furnace compared to mine and I instantly relax when his familiar smell envelopes my core.
Holy hell, he’s warm.
“I can hold you,” he murmurs against my ear, his voice low, a little rough. “If that’ll help.”
My breath is shaky. “Yeah… that’d help.”That’d help with everything.
I can feel the heat radiating off him before he even touches me, and when he does—when his arms circle my waist, his chest pressing solid and unyielding against my back—I practically melt.
His forearms rest on my hips, big, strong, dangerous. He’s so close to moving lower, to giving me what my body is already screaming for. Release. To be touched. To be held. For him to tell me that he wants me too. But he doesn’t. He’s holding still, frozen like a statue with either superhuman control or… something else. Polite distance? Indifference? I can’t tell.
And I am—soaking,throbbing, needing him so badly to act like he has in the past. To part my legs and sink inside me. To kissmy mouth and tell meI want more with you than what we’ve been doing, Alessia.
That pre-hormone surge that always happens right before my period kicks in is making me restless and desperate.
I want him to touch me. I need him to. But I get the feeling he’s not going to. At least, not without some coaxing and some open, honest, vulnerability from me.
“Will you… will you touch me?” I ask.
I hate how desperate I sound, but I am desperate right now. Warm, aching, tangled up in bed with him, his bare chest pressed against my back like a flame I can’t escape and don’t want to. He stills, his breath going quiet for a beat before he exhales, slow and steadily.
“No.”
I blink. The familiar burn of tears starts, and my throat gets tight. “Why not?” I ask, my voice cracking a little.
Silence. Just the sound of the wind howling outside, snow battering against the windows and the generator humming downstairs in the garage. Meanwhile, he’s holding me like some kind of saint while I’m over here, practically shaking with need. My thoughts aren’t pure. I want him back inside of me. Now. Or just a little touch. His fingers on me, rough and knowing. Something to take the edge off before I combust.
But he doesn’t want that. He’s telling me he doesn’t want to touch me, and suddenly my chest feels hollow, like something important just slipped through my fingers before I could grab hold of it. Now I’m terrified this is the moment everything unravels.
That tomorrow I’ll pack my things and move out of his house, back in with Natasha. That we’ll slowly become polite, quiet acquaintances. The kind who smile when we run into each other somewhere in town, who askHow have you been? Like we’re strangers instead of people who once stood this close tosomething real.
And ten years from now, I’ll catch a glimpse of someone who looks like him across a crowded room, and my chest will ache with the memory. Because he’ll be the one who got away.
“Because you need to date other guys,” he says finally. I can hear the pain in his voice. “Be with other guys to find out what you really want… You haven’t had the chance to do that yet. And I’m trying… like hell… to respect that.”
My stomach clenches. “How do you know what I need?”
He shifts his hips a little behind me but doesn’t let go. Then he lets out a heavy sigh and presses his face into my hair just a little away from my neck. “Because I’ve been there, Aly. I know how you’re feeling.”
I roll slowly, turning until I’m facing him. He’s lying on his back now, eyes closed, jaw tight, like hecan’teven stand looking at me anymore. Like he doesn’t believe what he’s saying either. I need to know that he doesn’t believe it before I tell him all the ways that I was wrong.
“You know that I went on a date?” I whisper because I see it now. He knows about Travis, and I was right to think that’s why he’s been avoiding me.
