"Talking," he interrupted.
The single word landed heavy between us.
He swallowed once, throat working visibly.
"I'm not good at talking."
I stared.
Because that felt real.
Too real.
The kind of honesty that made my carefully constructed walls tremble at their foundations.
Gideon ran a hand through his damp hair, the gesture uncharacteristically uncertain. Frustrated with himself in a way I'd never witnessed before—not during arguments, not during punishment, not even in the rare quiet moments when his guard slipped just enough to remind me he was human underneath all that ruthless control.
"I came because I didn't like the thought of you being alone."
My entire body stiffened, spine going rigid against the counter's edge.
The admission settled between us like a live wire—dangerous, electric, impossible to touch without consequences.
"You shouldn't care." The words scraped out of me, raw and defensive and terrifyingly fragile.
He stepped closer. Not prowling. Not commanding. Just… moving toward me like I was gravity, and he'd stopped fighting the pull.
"I don't want to care."
My breath caught. Trapped somewhere between my ribs and my throat, refusing to move in either direction.
Because I believed him.
For the first time since he'd locked that contract between us, since he'd stripped away every illusion of choice and rebuilt my world in his image, I believed him completely.
The confession wasn't manipulation. Wasn't strategy. Wasn't another layer of control designed to break me down until nothing remained but compliance and surrender.
It was vulnerability.
Messy and unwanted and spilling out of him despite every instinct screaming at him to lock it away where nobody could use it against him.
He didn't want to care.
But he did anyway.
And that terrified him exactly as much as it terrified me.
His jaw worked, muscle jumping beneath skin as he searched for words that clearly didn't come naturally. Words he'd probably never spoken to anyone before—not teammates, not coaches, not whatever ghosts haunted the childhood photograph hidden in his study.
"I don't know how to do this," he admitted finally, voice dropping lower. Rougher. "How to want someone without…"
He trailed off.
But I understood exactly what he meant.
Without destroying them.
Without consuming them whole.
