“You don’t have to,” he murmurs.“You’re here.”
A beat passes.
Then, another.
Finally, Alec leans in with the quiet patience of someone who knows how much it costs to be touched when you’ve spent years learning how not to need it.His forehead finds mine.It’s a point of contact that feels impossibly intimate.Like he’s whispering be here without saying a word.
I exhale like I forgot how to breathe until now.As if my lungs were waiting for this—this closeness, this pause between all the things we don’t know how to say.
He doesn't press for more.Just stays there, close enough that I can feel the way his breath evens out against my skin, close enough that my fingertips ache with the urge to pull him in even though he hasn’t moved beyond that single touch.
It’s stupid, how much that does to me—The stillness before anything happens.The reverence.The knowing.
And I swear, it’s this that makes something in me unravel, thread by thread, in the exact place I’ve kept myself stitched too tightly for too long.
My lips part, unsure of what I’m doing until they’re already moving closer.
He waits.
His eyes flick to mine, asking even if his mouth doesn’t say the words.
Yes.
And when our lips touch.At the beginning it’s a whisper of a kiss, one that speaks in quiet promises and second chances.His fingers curl around my waist, not pulling me in, just holding—like I might leave but he’s giving me the choice not to.
I don’t want to move.For once, I just want to feel something good.
And right now, that something is him.
ChapterThirty-Nine
Alec
Her lips are soft against mine.
Careful.
Like she’s still deciding if she’ll let herself feel this—feel me.
And I swear, I’d wait all fucking night or a lifetime, if that’s what she needed.
Because I know what this is.I know what it means to be kissed like this, by her.It’s not some casual thing.It’s not just proximity.
This kiss crashes through years of pretending nothing hurts.Of swallowing grief.Of keeping still when all you wanted was to be chosen—to be enough.It pulls truths to the surface that neither of us has dared to speak—ones that live between breaths and beat louder the longer we stay here.
And fuck, I feel it.Every question she never asked, caught in the way her mouth moves against mine.Every almost we buried under silence.Every almost that never made it past the edge of hope.
My fingers twitch against her waist, desperate to pull her closer, but I don’t.
I can’t.
Because if I rush this, I might ruin it.I might ruin everything, even her.
I just hold her, like maybe that’s enough.Like I can convince my heart to keep its distance even while it’s already moving toward her like it never learned how to stop.
I’m kissing her, but I’m also falling.I’m falling and gliding and ...it’s terrifying.
Because I don’t know what I’m offering.
