Page 26 of His Asset

Reuben studied me, then let it drop.“Nothing that a good night’s sleep won’t fix.You go to bed, I’ll clean up.”

“Oh, that’s not fair,” I protested.“You cooked, I should clean.”

His eyes glinted faintly.“In case you haven’t noticed, I have my own processes, a regiment I don’t like breaking.Call it superstition or something worse, but it’s worked for me so far.”

I nodded before I stood.Ihadnoticed.If nothing else, I supposed living like I had for so long had made me observant.

By the time I climbed up into the niche that was Reuben’s bedroom, the long t-shirt barely covering my bare extremities beneath, the weight of the world was a little less on my shoulders.He switched off the overhead light, then settled on the two-seater couch below me, the faint creak of its cushions the only sound as we settled into our separate spaces.

Sleep came unevenly.The shadows behind my eyelids churned with images I couldn’t quite shake.Faces twisted in anger.Innocence soon after morphing into brutal endurance.Then the sharp sting of pain followed by blazing shockwaves of energy that burned through my body before the clinical coldness of the facility opposed all else.

Then Adam appeared.

His presence slipped into the edges of my dreams like smoke under a door.Unstoppable and uninvited.Not touching...but almost.That was the worst of it.It wasalwaysalmost.

His breath ghosted across the back of my neck.His voice low and patient, speaking my name like a promise.Like a claim.

I’d left before that had happened, before I could give into him in every way.

But now, in sleep, my body remembered what my mind tried to forget—how close I’d come to surrendering.How badly I’d wanted him to close the space between us.

In the dream, he finally did.His hands enclosed my waist.His mouth brushed mine, never quite kissing, but close enough that I was left aching.Desire curled low in my belly, a slow burn left behind by the man I’d escaped, but never quite erased.

I finally jerked awake, my breath catching and skin overheated.

The room was dark.Still.But I felt exposed, like the dream had reached out and touched me for real.

A soft rustle came from the couch.The ladder creaked as Reuben climbed it.

“Another nightmare?”His voice was low, rough, like gravel mixed with concern.It echoed somewhere deep inside me, stirring something I wasn’t ready to name.

I didn’t answer.Instead, I rolled over to the other side of the bed, pulling the sheet closer around me, trying to push the phantom of Adam’s touch back into the dark.

Without a word, Reuben climbed onto the bed, his weight depressing the mattress as he settled beside me.Close enough that I could feel his warmth.Close enough to ground me.

One of his hands found mine, his fingers brushing my skin with a static charge.“This is getting to be a habit,” he murmured, his voice soft but edged with something deeper.

I resisted squeezing his hand back.My body was tense, caught between fire and fear, though a flicker of warmth continued to move through me, reminding me I was still painfully human in many ways.

He leaned in, brushing a lock of hair from my face.His touch wasn’t demanding.It was simply...there.Steady.Anchoring.

Our breaths mingled, slow and shallow, a fragile truce in the darkness.

There was no rush.No questions.Just this moment, where no one owned me, and nothing was broken.

Not yet.

He brushed his hand down the side of my face, his rough, calloused skin making me shiver.Not with distaste, but with a stark need that was yet to be fulfilled.

His smile flashed in the darkness, a flicker my heightened vision managed to catch.But it faded when his hand drifted over my shoulder and began moving down my back, making me stiffen and push lower into the mattress, hiding the shape of my wings.

He drew back.“You’re an innocent,” he murmured huskily.“I understand.”

He moved his hand to my front instead, the back of his knuckles trailing over the fabric of my borrowed shirt, tracing the line of my collarbone, the curve of one breast.

I inhaled sharply at the electric response, wanting more, so much more.

If I couldn’t have Adam, then perhaps Reuben might fulfill the deep yearning within.