Page 175 of Sage Haven

A silent invitation.

I closed the door behind me, leaning against it for a beat longer than necessary. Reich sat on the edge of the bed, his gaze heavy-lidded, tracking me with the patience of a predator. Hunger burned in his dark eyes—devouring me, waiting.

I let the silence stretch. Let the heat simmer.

Then—deliberately, slowly—I let my fingers trail to the hem of my clothes, peeling them from my body piece by piece.

I watched him fight it.

Watched the clench of his jaw, the twitch in his fingers, the sharp inhale as he forced himself to meet my gaze—when every muscle in his body screamed to look lower.

The moment his resolve snapped—when his control fractured—something deep inside me clenched in satisfaction.

“Fuck, Sage,” he rasped, his voice rough, breath uneven. “You’re asking for trouble that only ends in chaos.”

I took a step forward, slow and intentional, my lips curling at the edges.

“Good. I want your kind of chaos.”

A challenge.

A promise.

And as his hand closed around my wrist, pulling me down onto his lap, I knew exactly what I was asking for.

And I didn’t care.

Because for the first time in years, maybe my entire life, I wasn’t afraid of the fire.

I wanted to burn.

With him.

For him.

Because of him.

40

REICH

She moved toward mewith a suffocating ease, like gravity itself had shifted—like every molecule of air between us bent and curved in her favor. Each step she took was deliberate. Measured. As if she already knew exactly what it was doing to me. How it was unraveling me one thin strand at a time.

And I allowed it to happen.

No—wantedit to happen.

The soft pad of her bare feet against the hardwood made no sound, but I heard her.

Felt her.

Every movement, every inhale synced perfectly with the pounding in my chest.

As if we shared the same rhythm.

As if her pulse was my pulse.

She was poetry in motion—something written by hands that had never trembled, a story unfinished but desperate to be told. And with every step that closed the space between us, the story began to write itself.