Page 68

CAL

It’s still dark when I wake. The kind of dark that hums with hush, with warmth, with something unseen but near enough to touch. Not cold or hollow, but heavy and full, like the whole night is holding its breath. Like it’s waiting on me to breathe it in.

She’s curled against me just like before, the way sleep left us: her body small and soft and warm against mine in every place I crave.

One of her hands is still fisted in my shirt—loose now, but there. Like her body didn’t mean to hold on. It just couldn’t help it. A reflex. A tether.

Her breath brushes the base of my throat, warm and steady. Each exhale whispering that she’s real. That she’s here. That we’re safe.

That we’re home.

And still—

Something in me won’t quiet. Like part of me’s still out there. Still crawling through ash and dark and blood. Still listening for the crack of bone. Still searching the chaos for the shape of her.

It lives under my ribs. A restless, prowling ache. Not adrenaline. Not lust. Not hunger.

Need.

Something older. Deeper. Like if I don’t touch her now—really touch her—I won’t come all the way back.

Not to the man she knows. Not to the man I’m trying to be.

I shift carefully. No rush. No sharpness. Just steady, like I don’t want to wake the ache. Like I want to anchor us both with the weight of this need.

My hand moves over her hip, a slow journey across her skin, warm and silken beneath my palm, the kind of softness that makes me feel like I’ve never truly touched anything until now. Her breath shifts at my touch, still heavy with sleep. I almost stop. Almost. But then I remember.

The yacht, a gleaming white specter on the sea.

Sending Lucian and his empire into the abyss.

The chill of sleeping in the truck for two nights, without her.

The sound of her voice, fragile and trying not to cry.

I can’t stay away another second. I need to be inside her.

To come home in the most primal, most sacred way there is.

My fingers spread wide over the small of her back, grounding.

Then lower, over the curve of her hip, the line of her thigh beneath the fabric.

Her skin is warm there.

Sleep-warmed.

Emmy-warmed.

And familiar in a way that stuns me every time.

I lean down, brush my lips to her hairline—start there, because it’s always the first place I seek when I need to remind myself she’s real. Where the softness lives. Where I first felt her breathe against me that night she truly let go. Where safety begins.

Inhale the soft scent of her; lavender and something sweeter.

The way safety would smell, if it had a name.

“Baby,” I murmur—just that. Not a demand. Not even a request. Just a thread I offer her in the quiet.

She stirs, barely. Her brows twitch, nose crinkling as that soft, kitten-like sound she makes slips from her throat and lands in mine. It’s so small, so instinctive, I feel it more than hear it.

I kiss her again, a little lower this time, right between her brows—slow, like I’m easing open the lock to something fragile.

Then, with my lips brushing her skin, voice no louder than breath, “I need you.”

That gets through. Not all at once, but enough to reach her somewhere soft and sleeping.

Her lashes flutter. Her breath catches. Then she blinks up at me, eyes glassy with sleep, soft and open. No walls. No fear.

Just her.

And I feel it—in my bones, in my chest, in the way my heart stutters like it’s been caught mid-beat. She’s it. The axis I turn on. The reason I found my way back.

The reason I made it back.

The only reason I want to stay.

She lifts her head a little, not fully awake, but present.

And I swear.

Even in the dark, her gaze sees me.

I cradle her cheek.

Brush my thumb beneath one eye where the skin is still faintly pink from earlier tears.

She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t look away, doesn’t ask what I need.

She knows. She’s already offering it.

Her trust undoes me. I whisper it again, rawer now: “I need you, baby. Let me in.”

This time, her lips part—not in surprise, but in invitation. Her breath trembles. Her hand tightens in my shirt.

She doesn’t speak. But she doesn’t have to. Because I don’t need language tonight. I need the way she meets me without hesitation, the quiet heat in her gaze, the softness that tells me I’m welcome.

I need her warmth.

Her softness.

The glide of her skin beneath my palms.

The sound of her breath catching when I touch her like she’s mine—because she is.

In every way that matters.

And God, I think I’ll never stop needing her like this. Not while breath still moves through me, not when the dark feels like it’s pressing in from every side, not when the weight of the world pulls at me in pieces.

I need her.

The feel of her—warm and grounding.

The sound of her voice in my ear when the silence gets too loud.

The way her arms come around me without hesitation, like they were made to hold the broken parts steady.

To remind me that I’m not alone in this skin.

To pull me back to center.

To love me quiet.

To love me whole.

I roll her gently onto her back, one hand beneath her shoulder, the other splaying wide over her hip like I can anchor her there.

The quilt slips low, pooling at her waist.

The air shifts.

Still warm from sleep, but alive now—gentle, sparking with promise, like morning thunder barely held in check.

She doesn’t shy from me.

Doesn’t flinch or hide or fold into herself.

She just looks up.

Steady.

Soft.

And her hands... fuck, her hands come to the hem of my shirt, trembling just slightly as her fingers slide beneath it.

She doesn’t rush.

Doesn’t fumble.

She lifts it inch by inch, eyes never leaving mine, like this is something holy.

Like every moment she gets to undress me is an offering.

And when I sit back to pull the shirt over my head, she follows the movement with that quiet, sacred gaze.

Like she’s watching a ritual.

Like the sight of my bare chest means something.

She’s always looked at me like that. Like the first time I handed her a cup of tea and she held it like I’d given her something sacred. Like every moment since has only confirmed what she saw then; that I'm not what I’ve done, but what I choose to hold.

Not like a man shaped by violence.

Not like someone rough or broken or spent.

But like I’m a shelter.

A home.

A safe place.

I draw in a breath that shudders on the exhale as her eyes flicker down, then up. And I see it in her—the want, yes—but also the trust. The choosing.

I reach for the hem of her sleep shirt—mine, oversized, worn thin and soft with age—and she lifts her arms without hesitation. Slow, fluid, offering. I pull it up, over her ribs, over her chest, careful not to rush. Not because she’s fragile, but because she’s precious.

She’s bare beneath. Completely. Still flushed from sleep, still so warm she feels like something made to be held.

My breath catches, hard. Not from lust, but from reverence. Because she’s beautiful, yes, but not just her body. Not just the curve of her waist, the swell of her hips, the delicate dip of her collarbone, or the way her thighs part just slightly when I lean in.

It’s her eyes.

The way she looks at me like I haven’t seen too much, haven’t done too much bad. Like I’m not ruined.

Just hers.

I brace my hands on either side of her head and bow my body over hers, close enough to feel the whisper of her breath on my lips. Then I breathe her in—like air after drowning, like she’s the only thing keeping me tethered to the shore.

“I don’t want to take,” I murmur. My voice is rough. Thicker than I meant it to be. “I want to give.”

Her hands come up slow, fingertips tracing along my arms, over the muscle and scar and softness.

She settles her palms flat over my chest—right over the place that aches for her most.

“You already do,” she whispers.

Her voice like a match struck in the dark.

Like light.

I lower myself onto her with care.

Not just to touch her.

But to cover her.

To wrap around her with my whole self.

Every inch of skin to skin feels like return. Her warmth bleeding into my chest, her softness easing the last of the ache inside me, syncing my breath with hers like a tide finding its rhythm again.

Like gravity.

Like home.

She opens beneath me.

Because she trusts me to come closer, not take too much.

To let me in.

I feel her breath stutter beneath me.

Feel her hands slide down my back, anchoring there.

Feel the soft bend of her knees as they draw up, thighs brushing my hips.

I feel the first press of her. Warm, tight, dripping for me—welcoming in a way that almost buckles my restraint. As she whimpers from the first burn of the delicious stretch, I groan. From the recognition of her. Of this.

The stretch is slow, my whole body trembling with control I’m barely holding onto. Because it’s not just my body entering her. It’s everything I’ve carried since I left. Guilt. Distance. The coldness of the salt water. My past pressed against my chest like a loaded gun.

And now—now I’m sinking into her. Letting all of it go. Letting it melt in her heat. Letting it be swallowed whole. With a groan that sounds like it’s been clawing at my throat for years—

She gasps.

Quiet. Aching.

Her back arches just slightly, lips parting.

Her hands find my shoulders, gripping firm and sure—not out of fear, but with the quiet urgency of someone anchoring herself to what feels safe. What feels right.

That pure, quiet kind that says stay.

I still, buried to the hilt, my cock throbbing inside her slick, welcoming heat, feeling it surround me and take me in like I belong. I press my forehead to hers, our breaths tangling in the space between us. Her fingers flex gently against my skin, grounding me further, and I feel it.

That moment where the world falls away. Where there’s no past. No pain. No blood on my hands. Just her, and me, and this.

Not lust. Not release. But return.

The kind that says you are mine.

I am yours.

And there is nowhere else I’d rather be.