Page 148 of A Million To Fall

She doesn’t answer right away. Her gaze flicks between my eyes as she draws her bottom lip between her teeth like she’s stalling for time.

My chest tightens. Every second of silence feels like a countdown to something I’m not ready for.

Then she shrugs. Barely.

“I… I don’t know, Boss,” she whispers, voice thin. “What… where do you want it to go?”

I swallow hard, my heart thudding against my ribs like it’s trying to outrun the things I’m about to say.

“I want you,” I say quietly. “I want to know that when I come home at the end of the day, I’m coming home to you.”

Her aqua eyes widen, lips parted. I can’t read her.

So I keep going. “I want this to mean something. All of it. You being here, the way you look at me, the way you let me touch you… the way you touch me like… like I matter.”

I shake my head, breaking our eye contact for a second to take a steadying breath.

“I’ve wanted you for years, Stormy. Since long before I understood what it meant to want someone so badly it hurts. I’ve always wanted you. Even when I was away. I never stopped.”

She looks at me like she’s afraid to breathe, like she’s waiting for the catch.

So I give it to her.

“But I know it doesn’t work that way. I know wanting you isn’t enough.”

I get off the bed and stand, my voice tightening with the truth cinching my vocal cords shut. “I have nothing to give you. No apartment until two days ago. No money. No future that doesn’t include clawing my way out of a hole I didn’t dig.”

I look away, jaw clenched.

“And… I know you’re with Archer. I know you love him. You guys have been together for a long—”

Skye steps forward. “I want the same things, Boss.”

The air leaves my lungs. Something flickers in my chest—something that dangerously resembles hope. Fragile and burning. I take a tentative step toward her, my heart beating double-time in my chest.

But before I can say anything, Skye grabs her underwear from the floor and pulls them back on. I stare, confused, as she steps into her jeans.

“Skye?”

“I mean it,” she says, but doesn’t look at me.

There’s something in her voice. A tightness that doesn’t match her words.

“I want all of it. Everything. With you.”

The room tilts, hope blooming so fast it hurts.

She pulls her shirt on while slipping into her shoes.

“But… are you leaving? Right now?” I ask.

The weight of her absence is already pressing in.

“Yeah.”

“Skye, if we both want the same thing, then why not—”

She shakes her head. “I can’t explain it right now.”