My eyebrow arches, and his body relaxes.

“Please?” he asks.

The silence that follows feels heavier than any magic. For the first time since this nightmare began, the chain isn’t the thing holding us captive. The fragile, impossible truth between us renders us immobile, and the bitter, devastating, awful truth is that he’s not alone in this.

My breath hitches in my chest. “Okay.”

We both stand, breathless, trembling with unspoken everything. The walls between us fall away as if we’d never built them at all. No more games, no more masks, just two people standing there, both exposed in every way that matters.

Kade and I strip, removing the layers that keep us apart as vulnerability seeps in through every exposed inch of skin. We climb into bed and the room feels smaller now, warmer too. Kade shifts to face me, his eyes searching mine for some sign I might change my mind. But I don’t. I settle against him, feelingthe strength of his arms wrap around me, and it’s strangely comforting.

His breath brushes against my hair, his voice a murmur against the quiet shadows of the night. “I’m here. Just let me hold you.”

I close my eyes, the weight of everything loosening bit by bit. In his embrace, I don’t feel the chains, the past, the heartbreak. I only feel him, the imperfect, scarred man who’s somehow making his way into the deepest corners of my heart.

“I’m here too,” I whisper back, the words a promise I’m trying to understand, and we fall into the unknown as the tangled truth of our desire binds us tighter than any chain ever could.