Page 43 of Breaking His Exile

“So when I say I’m not afraid of you,” she said, “I mean it. Not because you’re safe. Not because you’re healed or whole or any of the things you think you need to be. But because I know what the bogeyman looks like, and you aren’t it. The man who burns himself rather than hurt someone else? That’s not the same as my father. That’s not even close.”

He looked down at her hand on his shoulder. When he met her gaze again, his eyes were damp, moisture spiking his lashes.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he said.

“Neither do I.”

“I don’t know how to want something and not destroy it.”

“We’ll figure it out together.” She dropped her hand from his shoulder, giving him space, giving herself space. “But not tonight. Tonight, you sleep on the cot. I’ll take the floor.”

He shook his head. “Rainey⁠—”

“My ribs aren’t as bad anymore. And you need actual rest more than I need chivalry, so don’t argue. I’ve seen you sleep. You don’t. You lie there with your eyes open, waiting for something to go wrong. Tonight, you let go. Just for a few hours.”

He stared at her. The firelight danced over the scars, the tattoos, and highlighted the exhaustion written in every line of his face.

He shook his head, not in refusal but like a man trying to clear water from his ears. His gaze stayed on her, dark and raw, and for a long moment the only sounds were the rain easing off the roof and the stove popping as the new logs caught.

“Don’t take the floor,” he said.

Rainey frowned. “Evander, I’m not letting you sleep down there again. You’re the one who just burned himself to ash. You need rest.”

“I know.” His voice dropped lower, rougher, like the words had to scrape their way out of him. “Stay with me. On the cot.”

The cabin seemed to go very still. Even the rain held its breath. Rainey looked at him—at the bare chest rising and falling too fast, at the bandaged forearm, at the way his hands hung at his sides, not curled into fists, not reaching for anything. Just open. Waiting.

“You want me to sleep next to you,” she said slowly, testing the shape of it.

“Yeah.” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “If you’re okay with that.”

If she was okay with that. Like she hadn’t spent the last three nights listening to him breathe from across the room, wondering what it would feel like to roll over and find him there instead of the cold edge of the cot. Like her body hadn’t been quietly cataloging the exact distance between them every time he moved.

“You’re sure?” she asked.

“No.” The word came fast, honest. “But I’m asking anyway.”

That was the thing about Evander Cole. He never pretended to be anything other than what he was—a man terrified of his own wanting, standing in front of her asking for it regardless. It undid her more than any pretty words could have.

She crossed to the cot and pulled back the sleeping bag. The canvas was cool under her palms, the pillow still holding the faint indent from the back of her head. She sat on the edge and untied her boots, working the laces loose with fingers that had gone clumsy. Behind her, he moved through the cabin, checking the door, the window, the rifle where it leaned against the wall. The quiet rituals of a man who couldn’t sleep without first proving the world wouldn’t end while he did.

When she stretched out on the cot, her ribs gave a dull throb, then settled. She lay on her back and watched him bank the stove, the firelight moving over the tattoos on his chest, the names of his dead. He didn’t look at her until he reached the cot. Then he stopped, and she saw the hesitation flicker through him, there and gone.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

“You won’t.”

“Your ribs⁠—”

“I’ll tell you if it hurts.” She reached up and caught his hand before he could argue. His fingers were warm now, steady. “Lie down, Evander.”

He did. The cot complained beneath his weight, and then he was beside her, too broad for the narrow frame, his shoulder pressed against hers.

He was warm. That was the first thing she noticed—the heat of him seeping through the thin cotton of her borrowed shirt, the solid length of his arm pressed against hers, the faint tremor still running through his muscles like a current she could feel everywhere they touched. The cot was too small for two people, especially two people with reasons to keep their distance, but he didn’t pull away, and neither did she.

She turned onto her side, careful of her ribs, and the movement brought her face closer to his shoulder. Up close, the skulls on his chest were stark even in the dim light, the names beneath them a permanent ledger of loss. She didn’t ask about them. She already knew. Instead, she traced the edge of the bandage on his forearm with one finger, light enough that he wouldn’t mistake it for pity.

“I’m not fragile,” she said quietly.