I stop pacing but don’t turn around. Not yet. My jaw’s tight, my pulse won’t slow, and I already know what’s waiting for me.
The second I look at her—hair damp, skin flushed, still soft from sleep—I’ll lose whatever control I have left.
And she’ll see it.
She’ll look at me with those eyes that miss nothing, and she’ll know I’m still hard. Still wound tight from a night I didn’t plan and a body I never stopped wanting.
I exhale through my nose.
She doesn’t get to see what this does to me.
Not until I decide she can.
The door clicks open the rest of the way, and she steps out. Her hair’s damp, curling at the ends, her skin still pink from the heat of the shower. She’s wearing a soft blue dress that hits mid-thigh, and my pulse spikes.
She moves around the room, collecting things—phone, lip balm, whatever excuse keeps her from looking at me—and the quiet between us stretches.
“You’re dressed,” I say finally, because it’s better than saying the hundred other things sitting on my tongue.
She glances up. “That’s the goal when people leave their rooms.”
I take a slow drink of my coffee. It’s cold and bitter, but it gives my hands something to do. “You took your time.”
“I didn’t realize we were on your schedule,” she shoots back, adjusting a bracelet that doesn’t need adjusting.
I watch her cross the room, every movement deliberate and careful, and it’s all I can do not to follow. The hem of her dress lifts when she bends to grab her shoes, and I have to look away before I forget how to breathe.
She stands, slipping on her heels, and something about the way she does it—unhurried, unbothered—undoes me completely.
I drag a hand down my face and cross to the minibar. “You ready for breakfast?”
She looks at me in the mirror as she checks her hair. “Almost. Zip me?”
My jaw tightens. “You can manage that yourself.”
Her reflection meets mine. “If I could, I wouldn’t ask.”
I set down the glass. “Tessa.”
“Rowan,” she says, too lightly. “It’s a zipper, not a proposal.”
I let out a quiet curse and step toward her. “You have no idea what the hell you’re asking.”
She turns, smiling just enough to make it worse. “Then enlighten me.”
I don’t. I just move behind her, fingers finding the zipper, pulse already in my throat. The fabric parts slightly under my touch, revealing the curve of her back, and the air between us shifts again.
I tell myself to focus. To zip the damn dress. To remember who I am and what this is.
But then she exhales, and I stop pretending I’m unaffected.
I step in close enough that the back of her hair brushes my chin, and I have to remind myself to breathe through my nose instead of against her skin. The zipper waits, halfway down her spine, taunting me with every inch of exposed skin.
I touch her, and the temperature in the room changes. Her skin is warm beneath my fingers, and for a second, I forget how to move. I drag the zipper up slowly, my knuckles grazing each ridge of her spine, and she stops breathing. I feel it—the stillness in her chest, the tension in her shoulders, the awareness that burns straight through both of us.
The hook at the top gives me trouble, or maybe I just give myself an excuse to stay here longer. My thumb slides against the back of her neck as I fasten it, and she shivers. It’s small, but I feel it.
“Stop doing that,” I mutter, my voice rougher than it should be.
