* * *
Grant shut his door with more care than he felt, letting the latch catch soft instead of slamming it like his body wanted to.
The room was dark, the only light a thin wash from the porch spilling through the crack in the curtains. He didn’t turn on the lamp. He didn’t need to see the walls to feel how close they were.
He braced his palms on the dresser and bowed his head.
His heart was still going too hard. His mouth still tasted like her—wine and want and something he hadn’t let himself want in a long damn time.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
“Idiot,” he muttered.
The word didn’t even begin to cover it.
He’d made rules for a reason. No complications under his roof. No blurring lines with anyone sleeping under it.
And now here he was—pinning a woman against his hallway wall like some drunk kid who didn’t know what to do with his hands.
Her hands had been shaking on his shirt.
He saw it again, too clearly: the silk slipping off her shoulders, the sound she’d made when he touched her, the way she’d kissed him back like she wanted the ground to give way under both of them.
His stomach twisted.
You don’t get to leave me standing in it alone.
He pushed off the dresser and paced once, twice, the old boards creaking under his bare feet. The house was too quiet. No music now, no party, just the tick of the hall clock and his own ragged breathing.
She was down the hall with nothing between them but a stretch of floor and his own bad decisions.
She was only here for a little while. A guest. A favor to Caitlin that had turned into Izzy’s suitcase in his guest room, her mug in his sink, her laughter in his kitchen. Temporary, he reminded himself.
It shouldn’t have made her harder to resist.
It did.
That was the lie he tried to tell himself.
He could apologize in the morning. Blame the bourbon, the long week, the party. Act like it hadn’t meant anything.
Except it had.
He scrubbed a hand over his face.
Wanting her wasn’t the problem.
Wanting her was the easy part.
The problem was everything that came after. Izzy wasn’t a stray he could let pass through his life without leaving amark. She was Caitlin’s best friend—more sister than anything—Burke’s friend too, already threaded into the small, fragile balance of the only place he’d ever held on to.
If he reached for her and it went sideways, he wouldn’t just lose a woman he wanted. He’d crack straight through the middle of the people he cared about most.
Burke would feel it.
Caitlin would feel it.
He’d seen what happened when one bad choice turned into a fault line. He’d promised himself a long time ago he wasn’t going to be that man.
