“I’ll be here,” I said. My voice came out rougher than I intended.
“All night?”
“If you want.”
She held my gaze for another moment, searching for whatever it was she needed to find. I didn’t know if she found it. But eventually she nodded, and I stepped back into the hallway and settled against the wall beside her door.
The lock engaged with a click.
The sound should have been a barrier. Instead, I felt trusted. She’d locked herself in, yes, but she’d asked me to stay on the other side.
I adjusted myself through my pants, biting back a groan.
This was going to be a long night.
I sat there in the darkness and listened.
Her footsteps crossing to the bed. The creak of the mattress as she lay down. The rustle of sheets, the soft exhale as she tried to settle. I imagined her sinking into those pillows, her body going loose with exhaustion, my jacket still wrapped around her shoulders.
Silence followed.
Long enough that I thought she might have fallen asleep.
And then crying.
Soft at first. Muffled, as if she was pressing her face into a pillow to smother the sound. Then harder, deeper, the kind of crying that came when you’d been holding yourself together for too long and the seams finally gave way.
Every instinct I had screamed at me to go to her. To open that door and pull her into my arms and hold her until the tears stopped. Bury my face in her hair and breathe her in and tell her she was safe now, that no one would ever hurt her again, that I would dismantle anyone who tried.
But I didn’t move.
She hadn’t asked me to come in. She’d asked me to stay outside.
And she needed to know that when she asked for something, she would get exactly what she asked for. Not more, not less.Definitely not some man deciding he knew better than she did what she needed.
That was what Hudson had done.
I would rather cut off my own hands than become another man who ignored what she asked for.
Eventually, the crying stopped. Her breathing evened out into the slow rhythm of sleep.
I closed my eyes and let myself remember.
Day five of the forgotten week. The back room of her bookshop, the two of us surrounded by boxes of new inventory. She’d been trying to lift something too heavy for her, stubborn as always, and I’d come up behind her to help.
My hands had covered hers on the box.
“I can do it myself,” she’d said.
“I know.”
“Then why are you helping?”
“Because you shouldn’t have to do everything yourself.” I’d lifted the box easily, setting it on the shelf she’d been aiming for. “Because I want to.”
She’d turned to look at me. We were close, too close, her back nearly touching my chest. I could smell her shampoo. I could see the pulse jumping at her throat.
I’d wanted to kiss her back then. Wanted to press her against those shelves and taste her mouth and find out what sounds she’d make when I slid my hands under her shirt.
