The first thing Zane registered was the sound of her breathing, soft and slow and warm against his chest, and it speared straight through him.
For a second he lay still, eyes shut, afraid to look. Every nerve in his body was still ringing from last night, from the reckless, impossible way their fight had bled into sothing neither of them could stop.
Her hand was on his ribcage, barely there, just the faint weight of her fingertips resting like she had not ant to fall asleep touching him.
He opened his eyes.
Dawn had not fully arrived yet, only that faint silver glow pressing at the edges of her curtains. It cast her in a soft half light. Her hair spilled over the pillow in ssy waves. Her lashes brushed her cheeks. Her lips were parted slightly, still swollen from how desperately and hungrily they had kissed.
His stomach dropped, not with desire but with guilt.
Because everything about this, the bed, the heat lingering on his skin, her breath ghosting against his chest, felt like crossing a line he was not sure she would have let him cross if she had been entirely clear headed.
He dragged a hand through his hair, slow and careful, not wanting to wake her.
Fragnts of last night hit in electrifying flashes. The arguing. The pain in her voice. His jealousy. Her fury. Her trembling hands when she shoved him. Her whisper that she hated him. The way her body lted against him anyway. The way she kissed him back like she could not breathe without it. He did not know what terrified him more, that he had kissed her or that she had kissed him back with the sa need, and his chest constricted with the weight of it.
Then her leg shifted over his, her thigh sliding lightly against his hip. He froze and looked down at her bare knee resting against him like it belonged there.
God.
He had to move. He needed space and air and distance from the scent of her skin before it scrambled every rational thought he had left.
He glanced at her face again and sothing pulled tight and painful inside his ribcage. She looked peaceful, fragile in a way she never allowed herself to be when she was awake. No armor. No sharp edges. Just a woman sleeping after being dragged through hell.
He gently and slowly slid out from under her. Her fingertips slid off his ribcage, brushing his side as they fell back onto the mattress. Even that featherlight touch made his spine go taut.
He pushed up to sit on the edge of the bed and stared at her.
He wanted to stay. He wanted to wake her gently, kiss her slowly, apologize for last night, and tell her he would do anything to make things right.
But the fear was louder.
He should not have touched her. He had let his jealousy make decisions for him. What if she regretted it when she woke. What if she felt used. What if she hated him all over again.
He inhaled sharply through his nose and forced himself to stand.
The room slled like them, warm skin, sweat, her shampoo, and it made his head spin.
His shirt was sowhere on the floor, half inside out. He found it near the foot of the bed, scooped it up, and tugged it on. One button was missing and he rembered exactly when it gave out. Her hands. Her impatience. Her mouth.
Heat flushed his neck. He swallowed it down, fingers fumbling with the remaining buttons until the fabric hung mostly closed.
He should go. He should put distance between them before she woke and saw him and realized just how badly he had crossed every line he had sworn to respect.
But then she shifted in her sleep, brow pinching faintly, a small sound catching in her throat, and he froze as he noticed the blanket had slipped low on her thigh.
Instinct took over, protective and automatic.
He reached for the duvet and pulled it up gently, covering her bare legs. His fingers brushed the curve of her calf, soft and warm and unbearably real.
A bolt of heat shot through him and settled below his hips so fast he had to bite back a groan.
"Jesus, Willow you are killing " he muttered under his breath, dragging his hand away like he had touched live current.
He tore his gaze from her body and forced himself to focus on her face. Even asleep she looked like she was bracing for sothing, that tiny crease between her brows would not let go.
He swallowed hard and knew he could not just disappear on her, not after everything he had already taken from her without aning to.
She needed space and ti, sothing normal to stand between last night and whatever ca next. Coffee and food and a breath of air before the conversation that would either save them or finish breaking them.
Zane moved quietly through the room, finding his pants and pulling them on, slipping his feet into his shoes by the door, and grabbing his phone and wallet from the nightstand.
His gaze landed on the small pad of sticky notes in the drawer beside her bed and he hesitated.
A note felt pathetic and inadequate, but walking out with nothing left behind felt worse, so he peeled one off and stared at the tiny square for a long second.
Anything more than simple would be too much. Anything less would be nothing.
He wrote:
Will get breakfast and coffee.Back soon. — Z
Safe and neutral, cowardly maybe but honest enough.
He set it on her nightstand beside her phone, which was still dark and silent.
He looked at her one more ti.
Her hair spilled like ink across the pillow. The blanket curved around her shoulders. Her hand had found the spot where his body had been monts before, fingers curled into the indentation in the mattress like her subconscious refused to admit he had gotten up.
A sharp ache tore through his chest.
"I’ll fix this," he whispered so quietly the room almost did not hear it.
He grabbed her keys from the glass bowl on the counter, stepped out into the hall, and locked the door behind him.
The morning air outside her building hit him cold and damp, laced with wet pavent and exhaust.
The sky was still bruised pre dawn gray and the city was not fully awake yet. A truck rolled by in the distance. A few lights flickered in neighboring windows. Sowhere a siren wailed faintly and then faded.
Zane shoved one hand into his pocket and rolled his shoulders back, trying to breathe past the tightness in his chest.
His Maserati sat where he had left it, beads of condensation clinging to the hood and the windshield fogged along the edges. He clicked the fob and watched the lights blink but did not climb in right away.
He leaned against the car and stared at the horizon.
His heart was still hamring like his body had not realized the storm was over.
He had held her in his arms. He had felt her mouth under his. He had felt her body pressed against his as though she were trying to erase the distance they kept rebuilding.
And now he was standing in a parking lot, feeling like the ground beneath him had shifted and might never settle back into place.
He dragged both hands through his hair, fingers digging into his scalp.
"Idiot," he muttered.
That kiss, those kisses, had not been planned. They had not been careful. They were the kind you spend months trying not to want and then unleash all at once when you finally snap.
He had told himself he would never touch her unless she ca to him clear eyed and certain, choosing him.
Instead last night had been a ss of anger and jealousy and pain and need so raw it stripped them both bare.
He forced himself into the driver’s seat.
The leather was cold. The cabin was too quiet. His reflection in the dark screen of the console looked like soone he barely recognized, hair disheveled, jaw shadowed and eyes too bright with sothing between panic and regret.
He started the engine and then just sat there.
Hands on the wheel. Breath coming too fast. The ghost of her mouth still on his.
"God," he whispered, letting his forehead drop against the leather wrapped rim.
He was in love with her.
He had known it in flashes, jealousy that made his vision go sharp, protectiveness that had him wanting to tear the world apart if it looked at her wrong, the way everything in him quieted when she smiled.
But last night had ripped away whatever flimsy deniability he had been clinging to.
There was no going back from saying I am in love with you out loud. There was no pretending it ant anything else after holding her the way he had.
And now she was going to wake up in that bed, read that note, rember every second and decide whether he was sothing she wanted or sothing she needed to cut out of her life.
He squeezed the steering wheel until the leather creaked.
He would bring her breakfast. He would explain. He would apologize. He would tell her he had never ant to push her when she was exhausted even though he had wanted her for longer than he could admit even to himself. He had wanted to make her his in every way that mattered, body, mind and soul.
He shifted into drive.
He did not aim for anywhere in particular. He just pulled out onto the street and let the city slide by in gray blurs of concrete and light while his mind tried and failed to sort the ss in his chest.
Sunrise crept up slowly, staining the sky with thin streaks of pale gold that caught on the glass facades of office buildings. Early buses groaned past. A cyclist cut across an intersection with his head down against the cold.
Zane barely registered any of it.
Every red light and every turn dragged him back into the sa loop.
The way she whispered his na, not like an accusation this ti but like a confession she did not want to admit.
He hit the brakes a little too hard at one intersection.
A pedestrian glanced over sharply, startled by whatever was written on his face. Zane did not even see him.
His thoughts were too loud.
What if she regretted it.
What if she believed he took advantage of her.
What if all she rembered was the part where he pushed when she was too tired to think straight.
He turned the wheel without thinking and followed a side street toward the waterfront. The air grew colder and sharper, tinged with the sll of the river.
He pulled up outside a twenty four hour café, a small corner place with fogged windows and a glowing OPEN sign stubbornly bright in the gray.
He killed the engine and sat there for a mont staring at his own reflection in the glass.
Coffee was not going to fix the fact that he had lost control in her living room.
But walking back in empty handed would feel worse.
He stepped out of the car and went inside.
The warmth hit him first and then the sll, fresh coffee, sugar and sothing buttery in the oven. A bored barista blinked at him from behind the counter and eyed his wrinkled dress shirt, missing button and wrecked hair with thinly veiled curiosity.
"Rough night?" she asked.
"You have no idea," he muttered.
He ordered too much.
A black coffee for himself.
Another for Willow, then changed it to the way she actually took it now that he bothered to rember, oat milk, one sugar, extra hot.
Two croissants.
Sothing with chocolate he was not sure she would want but got anyway because he needed options.
While he waited he stared at the napkin dispenser like it might give him answers.
What was he going to say when he walked back in.
I am sorry I kissed you when you were exhausted.
I am not sorry I kissed you at all.
I should have waited.
I do not know if I could have.
His chest burned.
The barista slid the tray toward him.
"You are good," she said gently, as if she could see the panic riding under his skin and had decided to pretend not to.
"Thanks," he said, voice rough.
He carried the coffees and pastries back to the car like they were fragile.
By the ti he pulled up outside her building again the sky had shifted from bruised gray to pale morning. People were starting their days. Lights flickered on.
Sowhere above him Willow was either still sleeping or awake and realizing he was gone.
He killed the engine and sat there with his fingers tightening around the cardboard tray.
She was going to read that note. She was going to rember last night. She was going to look at him and decide whether this was the beginning of sothing or the end of everything.
For a mont the urge to turn the key again and drive until the city disappeared clawed at him.
He forced it down.
Cowardice had already cost her too much, his silence in the hospital room, his lies about Miles, his failure to fight harder when she needed soone on her side.
He was not running again.
Zane got out of the car, balanced the tray in one hand and the pastry bag in the other, and headed for the entrance.
The lobby was quiet and the security guard half asleep behind the desk. Zane nodded once, barely registering the curious look, and stepped into the elevator.
As the doors slid shut his reflection stared back at him in the mirrored panel, tie missing, shirt still minus a button and eyes tired and too bright.
He exhaled a humorless breath.
"Get it together," he told himself quietly.
The elevator humd upward.
With every floor the knot in his chest tightened.
Her floor number lit up. The doors slid open. He stepped into the hallway he had paced the night before.
Last night he had stood there with his forehead against her door begging her to let him in.
This morning he walked toward that sa door with coffee and breakfast and the terrifying knowledge that he was completely in love with a woman who had every reason not to trust him.
He stopped just short of the doormat and adjusted his grip on the tray so his hands would not shake.
He exhaled slowly.
Ti to find out what exactly they had done.
He reached for her keys, slid one into the lock and turned it.
The door clicked softly open.
And sowhere on the other side Willow Hale was about to decide whether last night had ruined them or changed everything.
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