There’s a line. I can live here, eat here, and exist here. But there are rooms I don’t enter, questions I don’t ask, and a world operating ten feet from my bedroom door that I am not part of.
I’m okay with that, for now.
I’ve spent my whole life on the outside of things. At least here, the walls are honest.
Day nine. Saber finds me in the bar.
I’ve been cleaning, because the bar was filthy. Not because anyone asked, but because I was losing my mind in that room, with nothing to do, no money, no job, and no way to earn my keep.
Saber sits there and watches me.
I’m wiping things down, then organizing the bottles by type. I’m on a step stool reaching for the top shelf because someone had shoved a half-empty bottle of whiskey behind a layer of grime.
My fingers close around the neck of the bottle. The stool shifts. My foot slides off the edge, and for one stupid second, I’m airborne.
Hands land on my waist. Big, rough fingers dig into the soft skin above my hips as Saber catches me and pulls me back against his chest.
My shoulders hit him first. Then my spine. Then the back of my head tucks under his chin, exactly the way I imagined it would, and his body is a wall of heat and muscle behind me. His hands are still on my waist, and neither of us is breathing.
His thumbs press into my back, just above my ass. His fingers span the front of my ribcage. I’m wearing a tank top, and the cotton is thin enough that I can feel the calluses on his palms through the fabric.
His cock is hard. Pressed against my lower back, thick and unmistakable, and the knowledge of it sends a pulse between my legs so sharp my knees almost buckle.
I turn my head. His jaw is right there. The stubble, the hard line of bone, and when I look up, his blue eyes are looking down at me, and everything in them is barely held back.
His hand comes up. His thumb traces my jaw. Tilts my chin. My lips part, and his eyes drop to my mouth.
The distance between us shrinks to nothing.
Then… he lets go. He steps back.
His hands drop to his sides, and his jaw goes tight, and he puts three feet of space between us.
“Don’t stand on that stool. It’s got a cracked leg.” His voice is raw. Scraped down.
He’s looking at the shelf behind me like the whiskey bottles are the most interesting thing in Arizona.
My skin is on fire everywhere he touched me. My waist, my jaw, and the strip of neck where his breath landed. I’m gripping the edge of the bar because I don’t trust my legs.
I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out.
What am I supposed to say?
That I want him to kiss me. That I love having his hands wrapped around my body. That I loved feeling his hardness through his pants.
I don’t say any of that.
“I’ll get you a ladder.” He’s already walking away. “A real one.”
He disappears through the kitchen, and I stand there in the empty bar with my pulse hammering and my hands shaking and the ghost of his thumbs pressed into my back.
He was going to kiss me. The second his control slipped, his mouth angled toward mine, and every inch of him wanted to close that gap.
Then he pulled back.
Not because he didn’t want it. I’d have to be blind to miss that.
But he put three feet between us, anyway. Because I can tell he thinks I’m broken.
