I want him.
The specific gravity of him.
The terrifying way he makes me feel both completely safe and completely ruined at the same time.
I remember something I wrote in my old diary once. I'd come home a little tipsy, a little horny, and apparently very honest with myself. I wrote about how I wanted someone to lose themselves in me. To be rough because they can’t get close enough. I wrote about fear and desire so tangled, I won’t be able to tell which is which. How I want to be pinned down, not because I’m weak, but because someone needs me that much.
I've had all of that now.
I’ve had him.
And knowing exactly what it feels like, the way he looks at me when he’s inside me, the way his voice cracks when he says my name like a confession, makes going back to not knowing feel impossible.
I miss him so much it aches in places I didn’t know could ache.
And the truth is…the whole truth…
I don’t know how to miss him without falling apart.
12
SOPHIA
Iwake to the smell of apple and cinnamon, and it’s the familiarity that hits me first. For a second, I’m back in the mountain house, waking up in that cold room the first morning. So scared. Panicked. All my thoughts pointing in one direction. Escape.
It’s almost surreal how things have changed, how different everything is now.
For a long moment, I don’t move. I just lie there, cheek pressed to the pillow that still carries the scent of his skin, letting the ache in my body speak. My thighs are deliciously sore, my neck bears the faint sting of his teeth, and between my legs there’s a deep, tender throb that reminds me exactly how many times he took me apart and put me back together again. Every mark, every ache, every place he kissed like he was trying to memorize me… they all sing the same quiet truth.
I’m ruined for anyone else. And he’s insatiable.
I slip from the bed and pull his black shirt over my bare body. The hem brushes my thighs like a secret, and it smells like him—leather, smoke, and that faint trace of winter even in the middle of a Paris summer. I bury my nose in the collar, inhaling deeply as I pad to the bedroom door.
The kitchen is bathed in that soft, morning Paris light, the kind that feels like melted honey. Everything seems brighter, and I’m certain I’ve never seen this shade of morning before. Like the sun breaking through after months of rain.
Reth’s standing at the counter, sleeves pushed high on his forearms, flour dusting his knuckles, the buff back in place. My chest tightens at the sight of him—quiet, focused, baking like it’s the most natural thing in the world for a man who once told me he wasn’t capable of gentle things.
He doesn’t look up when I lean against the doorframe, but I know he feels me. He always does.
“You’re baking,” I say softly.
His hands still for half a breath. “Yes.”
I pad closer, bare feet silent on the cool floor. “It’s barely seven. Did you sleep at all?”
He measures sugar with the same precision he uses for everything else. “No.”
I stop right in front of him, close enough to feel the warmth radiating from his body.
“Why not?”
He sets the bowl down. For a moment, he just stands there, broad shoulders tight, then lifts those winter-blue eyes to mine.
“Because I’m too busy counting seconds with you.”
Well, shit. There goes my heart, my soul, and everything in between. I don’t have words for what that does to me, so I don’t try. I simply reach up, hook my fingers under the edge of his buff, and slowly drag it down below his chin, below that scarred, beautiful mouth I love so much.
He goes perfectly still.
