He shifted closer, practically pulling me into his lap.
“You scared me,” I admitted, the words falling out before I could rein them in. “Not today— I mean… when you left. When you kept leaving. When work became the only place you lived. I felt like—like I could disappear right in front of you and you wouldn’t notice.”
He inhaled sharply, his eyes closing for a moment as the confession physically landed in him.
I thought he’d pull away. I thought I’d said too much. I always said too much.
But Adrian took my face in both hands—so gently I nearly shattered again—and pressed a kiss to my trach scar.
“I notice you,” he whispered. “I’ve always noticed you. Even when I was too messed up and distracted to show it.”
“I think I’m just broken.”
“You are not broken.”
“I feel like it.”
He placed another kiss on my lips, quick and sweet.
“Then I’ll hold the pieces together until you don’t.”
“Why are you being so gentle with me?”
“Because you survived something that should’ve destroyed you,” he whispered fiercely. “Because you deserve gentleness. Because I love you. And,” he added quietly, “because you’re the only person I want falling apart in my arms.”
His warm breath mingled with mine. The heat between us shifted—grief to desire to something deeper, something that hummed under the skin. His thumbs stroked away my tears. My hands found his shoulders. We leaned in at the same time, drawn like magnets or tides or something older.
The kiss wasn’t hungry, not the way it had been the night before. It was slow. Bare. A confession disguised as mouthsmeeting. He tasted faintly of iced coffee and worry. I tasted of salt and relief.
When we pulled back, he rested his lips on my jaw and murmured, “I’m not going anywhere.”
My fingers curled in the fabric of his damp shirt, pulling him closer until our chests brushed, heat blooming between us.
“I don’t want you to,” I breathed. “Don’t ever want to lose you. I’m not me without you.”
His hands slid down to my hips and tugged me fully into his lap. In that moment, the world shrank to the space between us—warm, fragile, exhilarating. A new kind of intimacy.
Not sex or comfort. Not an apology. But something like trust, rebuilt one breath at a time. Because even broken, even terrified, even messy like this?—
I trusted him to hold me together.
Even when I couldn’t hold myself.
Chapter 37
Where The Fear Breaks
ADRIAN
I’d dreamed of this more nights than I could count. Of Eli in my lap, hungry for me, begging for more. But I wasn’t dreaming now. This was real.
His hands fisted in my collar as he kissed me with desperate heat. It was messy, tasting like salt from his own tears. I met him with the same hunger, one hand cradling the back of his head, the other sliding under his shirt to feel the muscles contract in his stomach.
He gasped when my fingers trailed just above his waistband.
“I’ve got you,” I whispered against his mouth. “I’m right here.”
Eli pressed closer, hips aligning with mine, needy in a way that made my pulse spike hot and fast. His breath hitched when he felt me—hard already, wanting him with an intensity that bordered on painful.
