Because I understand.
He isn’t stopping because he doesn’t want me—he’s stopping because he wants me too much.
He exhales, brushing his thumb softly across my cheek before shifting back. He pulls the duvet down and slides under the covers, lifting one side for me and patting the space beside him.
I crawl in, drawn to him despite the fire still burning under my skin. He wraps an arm around me instantly, pulling me into his chest. His heat thrums under my cheek, steady and grounding, even as my pulse still races, even as every part of me still burns with everything we almost did.
“Did you mean what you said in the truck?” The words slip out in a whisper before I can stop them.
He hums, voice heavy with sleep. “Hm?”
“When you said I mattered.” My voice trembles, and I hate that it does. I hate that I care this much when this is all supposed to be temporary.
There’s a pause long enough to make my heart sink.
“Yeah,” he murmurs against the top of my head. “I don’t say things I don’t mean.”
I swallow, my lips brushing his chest in a soft graze—an accident, a reflex, a need. “Prove it.”
He stills beneath me and I can feel his heart pounding beneath my cheek. I secretly hope he kisses me again. I wish he would roll me beneath him and lose control, giving into everything all at once.
But instead, his fingers trace a line between my shoulder blades, a delicate drag that makes me shiver. He nudges my hip, guiding me onto my other side. The mattress dips as he follows, chest to my back, fitting himself around me.
He pulls me closer.
Not with the desperation of earlier.
But with slow, intentional care—his hand flattening over my stomach, drawing me back until I fit against him perfectly and his forehead rests against the back of my head.
I’ve never been more at war with myself.
If he wanted sex, he could’ve had it.
Any other guy would’ve pushed it further.
But he’s not any other guy.
He’s already made me fall apart twice today in ways I’d never imagined.
But he just holds me.
Holds me likethisis the part he’s starving for.
And it wrecks me.
His thumb strokes a slow line against my hip, barely there.
A touch too gentle for what we’ve done.
Too intimate for what this is supposed to be.
Too much for someone who was never supposed to matter this deeply.
Wrapped in his arms—his warmth, his steady heartbeat, the tenderness he pretends he doesn’t have—I feel myself soften, sink, give in. Sleep pulls at me, and this time, I don’t fight it.
Themorninglightisunforgiving, slicing through the curtains and into my skull. My body aches like I’ve been scraped raw from the inside out.
I shift, burrowing deeper beneath the blankets, and a strong arm tightens around my waist, pulling me into a solid chest.
