Page 76 of The Ache That Stayed

“What the fuck was that?”

My room was still dark, the sun slowly lighting up the dark sky.

For a second, just one second—everything was quiet. Normal. But it wasn’t just the dream that stayed.

It was the feeling.

Memories crashed back like a tsunami—violent, sudden, impossible to outrun.

All of it. All at once.

His mouth.

His touch.

The way he held me—like if he loosened his grip, I’d slip right through his fingers and vanish. And the way my body reacted—

I pressed my palms into my eyes, hard, until I saw stars.

As if I could force the memory out and replace it with a more tangible reality.

It didn’t work. It only made it sharper. The heat of his mouth. The way he’d pulled me closer like there had never been space between us to begin with. The way my body had responded without hesitation before my mind could make sense of what was happening. Like I had been waiting for it, and it was just a matter of when, not if.

And worse, I didn’t stop him. Instead I moved against him, shameless, needy, like an animal in heat.

“Fuck…”

The word slipped out under my breath. I swung my legs off the bed, the cold floor grounding me instantly.

This was a mistake. That’s what I’d said. And it was. It had to be. It was a mistake letting him stay, going soft on him.

It was a mistake falling apart in his arms, not worrying for the consequences. Because anything else would mean I had crossed a line I couldn’t come back from.

And I wasn’t ready to look too closely at what that meant.

But my mind knew exactly what last night was. A boundary I should’ve held. A madness I should’ve stopped.

But my body—didn’t agree. It remembered him. Too quickly. Too easily. Before I could think. Before I could choose.

Like it had always known what he would feel like. And some part of me had recognised him before I ever gave myself permission to.

Ever since Santino had forced his way back into my life, I’d barely been sleeping well. I was always on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop—when he would walk out and never come back again.

That’s exactly how I felt yesterday. Until the kiss—

And now I didn’t know what to think.

I was raised not to want too much. To not be loud or careless, in ways that demanded unwanted attention. I learned early that attention wasn’t always a good thing. And I’d learnt early on that wanting came with consequences.

It was repeatedly drilled into me until it etched itself into my bones. Be good. Be grateful. Be satisfied with what you’re given. Anything more than that—invited trouble.

And for a long time, I believed it. Maybe I still did.

Marcello had been the first man who made that belief feel small. Irrelevant. He never asked me to shrink. Never asked me to be less. He steadied me in ways I didn’t even realise I needed. He held things together effortlessly—like the world couldn’t touch me as long as he was standing between us.

With him, I was safe. Not chaos. Not fire. Safe.

But safe didn’t mean free. Not completely.