He closes the distance between us, slow and deliberate, stopping just short of touching me. Close enough that I feel the heat radiating from him. Close enough that my pulse betrays me again, loud and reckless.
“I don’t want to keep you in the dark,” he says quietly, his gaze settling on my face like a weight.
I don’t look away. “Then tell me the truth.”
Something shifts behind his eyes.
A fracture. A fault line threatening to give way.
“I will,” he says at last. “Soon.”
Not yet. Not safe. The same answer, dressed in different words.
I nod anyway, even though every instinct in me screams against it. Because pushing now feels wrong. Because pushing now might shatter something fragile and dangerous, something neither of us wants broken.
“Fine,” I say. “But understand this.”
His attention sharpens instantly.
“I will not be kept in the dark forever,” I continue, my voice quiet but unyielding. “If I’m in this, whateverthisis, I’m in it with my eyes open.”
For a long moment, he just looks at me. Really looks at me. As if committing the words to memory.
Then, softly, “Okay.”
His hands find mine. Not hurried. Not possessive. Just there. They slide up my arms, sending a shiver racing through me, before he cups my face with a tenderness that feels almost at odds with the man in front of me.
He leans in, his lips hovering just over mine.
“It’s late,” he murmurs. “You should get some sleep.”
And then he seals the sentence with a kiss, soft, restrained, devastating.
One of his hands slides to the small of my back, firm but gentle, guiding me down the hall toward the bedroom. The touch is brief, controlled, just enough to remind me he’s there. Just enough to unsettle me.
When we reach the room, he steps inside with me but doesn’t close the door. He crosses to the bed, pulls back the covers, and gestures wordlessly for me to get in, as if this has already been decided.
I hesitate only a second. Long enough to look at him. Long enough to wonder what I’m agreeing to.
Then I climb into the bed.
“What about you?” I ask quietly. “Where will you sleep?”
He leans over me, drawing the covers up around my body, tucking me in with a care that feels dangerously intimate. His tongue drags over his bottom lip, and a slow smirk curves his mouth.
“Right next to you, Little Heaven.”
My breath catches.
He lowers himself further, bracing his arms on either side of my head, caging me in without touching. His presence is overwhelming, heat, restraint, promise.
“I’ve just got a few things to finish first,” he murmurs.
Then he kisses me.
Not softly. Not gently.
His tongue sweeps across my bottom lip, coaxing, testing. I start to open for him, and he pulls away. The restraint in his eyes is feral, barely leashed.
