Page 28 of Suite 7

I know something about discipline.

She’s not doing it now.

Just her. Undefended. Trusting me with the weight of her completely, without even knowing she’s doing it, and I’m going to have to be a very specific kind of person about this when she wakes up and puts the armor back on and says something sharp and I’ll have to let her.

I’ll let her.

But I don’t have to let her yet.

Tomorrow is a problem for a version of me that doesn’t have her sleeping against his chest right now.

5 Vera

Sandalwood.

That’s the first thing I sense — before my eyes open, before I know where I am, before anything else resolves. Sandalwood and warm skin and the low amber light pressing against my eyelids.

Then the weight of an arm across my waist.

I go very still.

The room comes in by degrees. The AC unit humming. The clock on the wall reading one twelve AM.

I fell asleep.

Kane’s chest lifts and drops against my back, slow and even. His arm is heavy across my waist, his body a furnace behind mine, and at some point in the night — without deciding to, without asking permission — I tucked myself into the curve of him like this was somewhere I belonged.

Oh no.

No, no, no.

The scene ended. Aftercare. Water, soft words, his forehead pressed to mine. We should have left. Gone our separate ways. Instead we fell asleep tangled together like it means something.

I ease myself from his arms, inch by inch.

“Going somewhere?”

His voice is alert. Not sleep-rough.

I sit up, pulling the sheet around myself. “I should — we should…” I stop. “We need to go.”

His shoulders straighten, and his eyes settle into controlled blankness.

“You’re right.” He stands and runs a hand through his hair, pressing it back into order. Then picks up his watch from the nightstand and fastens it with careful movements. “We should leave.”

That’s it? Just... leave?

I watch him gather his things: phone, keys, the black silk tie folded with careful precision before he tucks it into his pocket. Each movement controlled. Methodical. Creating distance with every economical gesture.

“So.” I pull my knees up, wrap my arms around them. “That was...”

“A good scene. You did well. Any concerns I should know about?”

A good scene.

I had been waiting, without knowing I was waiting, for something else. I don’t examine what. The words make my throat go dry.

I reach for the water glass on the nightstand.