He looks like he’s mine. At least for tonight.
Something about that thought makes my chest squeeze.
The bathroom light flicks on, then off a few moments later. Connor comes back carrying a hand towel, his eyes finding mine.
He sits on the bed, his movements gentle as he draws the warm cloth across my lower back and my ass. The care in his touch makes my throat tight.
“You don’t have to do that,” I say, but I don’t make any move to stop him. “I’ll take a shower.”
“You can barely move,” he says softly. “Let me just clean us up, then we can go to bed. I’m too tired to shower anyway.”
He’s so careful—wiping away the mess he made, cleaning between my legs too. It shouldn’t feel this intimate, not compared to what we just did, but somehow this is what undoes me—the way he handles me like I’m something precious.
I yawn, my body loose and heavy with the aftermath of pleasure. I feel raw, tender, exposed.
When he’s done with me, Connor quickly wipes at the sheets too, then tosses the cloth into the bathroom hamper, turns off the light, and slides back into bed beside me. He doesn’t move toward me right away—just lies on his back, staring up at the ceiling, close enough that I can feel the heat of him but not close enough to touch.
The space between us feels intentional. An escape route, maybe. A chance for one of us to decide this was a mistake and back away before morning comes.
I refuse to give him that out.
I shift toward him, curling into his side before I can second-guess myself. My head finds his shoulder, my arm draping across his chest. For a second, I think he might pull away—might say something about this being too much—but his arm comes around me instead.
I close my eyes and let my breathing slow, matching the rise and fall of his chest beneath my cheek. My body is exhausted—pleasure still humming through my limbs, muscles loose with it—but my mind keeps circling the same thought.
This can be just for tonight, I tell myself. A one-time thing. Something to remember after we go back to being neighbors.
But as I drift toward sleep, I already know it won’t be that simple for me.
***
I wake with a start, my brain emerging from sleep like it’s swimming through molasses.
The sunlight streaming through the blinds is way too bright for morning. Did I forget to set an alarm?
My hand stretches across the sheets beside me, finding them cold and empty.
Connor’s gone.
Last night rushes back to me in vivid, toe-curling detail—Connor’s mouth on me, my hands in his hair, the way he flipped me over and—
Oh God.
My face burns hot enough to fry an egg as I grab my phone.
1:37 PM.
Shit.
Where is he?
I sit up so fast my vision blurs at the edges, heart hammering against my ribs. Half past one? How did I sleep so late? More importantly, where the hell is Connor?
My mind races through possibilities, each worse than the last. Maybe he woke up, remembered what happened between us, and realized it was a huge mistake. Maybe he’s already packed his bag and gone back to the city. Maybe he’s downstairs right now, explaining to my mother that he’s not actually myboyfriend and never was, that this whole thing was an elaborate lie that spiraled completely out of control the moment he put his mouth on my—
Fuck.
I force air into my lungs, trying to calm the anxiety tornado whirling through my chest. There are perfectly reasonable explanations for Connor’s absence that don’t involve him fleeing the state. He probably just went to get breakfast. Or coffee. Or literally anything normal people do in the morning when they wake up at a reasonable hour.
