I don’t want to let her go because reality is waiting. I can sense it at the edge of the bed, sharpening its knife. She could pull away, put her walls back up, and leave me lying here with nothing but the ghost of her body wrapped around mine.
She turns her head and I lift mine. Our eyes meet. For a second, neither of us says anything.
Her fingers come up and trace down the side of my face. Soft and slow.
I close my eyes because I can’t take it, yet I still pretend I’m fine. Her touch is too gentle for a man who has spent years convincing himself he could survive without it.
When I open my eyes again, her lips meet mine and my heart races as I kiss her back.
I love you.
The words rise fast, pressing against the back of my teeth. I want to say them. Fuck, I want to say them so badly it hurts. But I swallow them down.
After everything I did, after the way I hurt her, I don’t get to hand her my heart and make it another burden she has to carry. So I keep the words where they belong for now, locked behind my ribs, burning a hole through me.
“Sky,” I whisper against her lips, but it’s not even close to what I want to say. It’s all I trust myself to give her without begging her to stay.
I pull back from the kiss as a noise cuts through the quiet.
Metal shifts downstairs. Then the heavy groan as the workshop door rolls open.
Reality doesn’t knock; it kicks the fucking door in.
Skylar stills beneath me, her breath catching against my mouth. For one stupid second, I stay there, forehead pressed to hers, body still warm from hers, heart still doing dangerous shit behind my ribs.
Skylar pulls back, her brows knitting together. “Is that Rainer?”
Her voice is soft, but it cracks. The little bubble we built around ourselves bursts. Just like that.
Gone.
Now there is only the workshop downstairs, the morning pressing against the windows, and the ugly reminder that the world did not stop because I had Skylar back in my arms.
I exhale and drop my head for a moment.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “That’ll be him.”
Skylar’s gaze flicks over my face, before she glances toward the door, and I feel her shift beneath me, putting space back between us.
I roll off her before she has to ask, grabbing the sheet and dragging it over her because apparently my need to protect her dignity has decided to show up after I fucked every bit of sense out of us both.
She sits up slowly, pulling the sheet to her chest. Her hair is a mess. Her cheeks still carry that soft flush I want to hold in my hands and never let anyone else see.
And fuck me, I want to lock the door and climb right back into bed with her. Ignore Rainer and the whole world until Skylar looks at me the way she did two minutes ago.
I can already hear Rainer moving around below. Cupboards opening. Something clanging. The old bastard making enough noise to wake the dead.
I reach for my jeans on the floor, but I don’t put them on right away. I sit on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, trying to pull myself together while every part of me still wants to turn around and touch her.
I turn my head to see her watching me, the sheet tucked under her arms, her eyes softer than they were when she walked into this room last night.
Downstairs, Rainer calls out. “Zane? You dead up there, or just useless?”
Chapter 14
Skylar
The shower does nothing to calm me. If anything, it only makes everything worse.
