Page 145 of Safe Word

‘I’m not who you think I am either,’ she whispered.

My thumb froze against her skin.

We stared at each other. Two fractured things, pretending we could breathe.

Don’t kiss her – I repeated it like words of a religion I had long abandoned.

Because I didn’t know how to kiss a woman without falling. And falling was how I destroyed everything I touched.

Scarlett had been proof of that.

But Christ – I was slipping.

My gaze dragged to her lips.

‘Don’t,’ she breathed.

And that single word… it bloomed through me like venom, spreading slow and sweet until it reached my heart and stopped it cold.

So I did the only merciful thing left.

I let her go.

TWENTY-SIX

He left. I kept cleaning and bandaging him, my hands moving on autopilot while silence dragged between us like a third presence in the room. The unease was so viscous I could’ve bitten out a chunk from it.

His gaze never lifted to mine after that. There was only the twitch of muscle when I brushed a bruise, a sharp hiss as the antiseptic burned.

And then – he walked out. Just like that – into the quiet dark. Left me blinking in the dim hallway light, the scent of him still clinging to the air.

I cursed my prey instincts for existing. Cursed the heat that had surged through me when I gripped him by the throat. I shouldn’t have done that. I should’ve just…

Nothing. I should’ve done nothing.

The phone buzzed not ten minutes later.

I ignored Gianna’s message that she was home, though I should’ve thanked her for dragging me to that god-awful place – otherwise Cain might’ve been hurt far worse.

I nearly didn’t answer. But of course, I did – it was him.

‘I’m sorry. I was out of line,’ he said, words tumbling out too fast.

My heart flipped.

‘It’s okay,’ I murmured. ‘We’re both a mess tonight.’

But he didn’t hang up. Just breathed, as if holding back secrets meant only for the dark.

And we started talking. About what we were. About what we wanted to be – as authors, as people.

It wasn’t until I yawned, dragging my eyes to the digital clock on the oven, that I realised—

‘It’s almost five in the morning,’ I murmured into the phone, my voice rough with exhaustion and something softer, more fragile.

Cain let out a long breath, the kind that carried more weight than words. I heard the sheets shifting from the other end of the line, heard the tension leaving his frame in soft exhales.

‘So it is,’ he rumbled back warmly.