“Can I take it off now?” I ask quietly.
“Not yet.” Her voice is soft, vulnerable. “Just... hold me like this for a minute.”
So I do. Hold her in my bed with the blindfold still on and the sun setting through my window and her body soft and trustingunder mine. I kiss her forehead, her cheeks, the corner of her mouth, and she tilts her face up to catch my lips.
This kiss is different. Slower. Deeper. Like she’s telling me something she can’t say out loud yet.
Eventually I pull out, deal with the condom, then settle beside her. She curls into my side immediately, her head on my chest, and I finally reach up and untie the blindfold.
She blinks in the dimming light, then looks up at me. Her eyes are bright, almost wet, and something in my chest clenches.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi yourself.” I tuck hair behind her ear. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She traces patterns on my chest, not meeting my eyes. “That was...”
“Yeah.”
We lie there quiet for a while. I can feel her thinking, can practically hear the gears turning in her head, but I don’t push. Just hold her and wait.
“I should probably go,” she says eventually.
My stomach drops. “You could stay.”
“I have an early shift tomorrow.” She sits up, looks around for her clothes. “And I need to... process some things.”
“Claire.” I catch her hand. “Talk to me.”
“I’m fine. I just—” She looks at me, and whatever she sees makes her stop. “I need some time to think. That’s all.”
I want to push. Want to ask what she’s thinking, if she’s running again, if this scared her. But I learned with Jenna that sometimes you have to give people space to figure things out on their own.
“Okay.” I sit up, find her sweater on the floor. “Let me at least make you dinner before you go. Real dinner, not just the taste test.”
She smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I really do have to go.”
We get dressed in silence. I walk her to the door, and she pauses on the porch, looking out at the valley where the sun’s almost gone and stars are starting to appear.
“Hunter.” She turns to face me. “Thank you. For tonight. For all three dates.”
The three dates. Right. The deal we made in St. Sebastian.
“So.” I lean against the doorframe, trying to look casual when my heart’s hammering. “Date four?”
She steps close, cups my face, and kisses me. It’s thorough and claiming and says everything she’s not saying out loud. When she pulls back, her eyes are dark.
“I’ll let you know.”
Then she’s down the steps and in her car before I can respond. I watch her taillights disappear down my drive, red eyes fading into darkness.
I stand there on my porch for a long time after, the night air cold against my skin, trying to figure out what just happened.
She’s falling for me. I know she is. Felt it in the way she kissed me, the way she asked to keep the blindfold on, the way she looked at me before she left.
But she didn’t say yes to date four.
Chapter 11
