Page 177 of Iced Up Love: Part Two
I let him. I let all of it happen. But I feel it. Every second of it.
The way I’m being handled instead of touched.
The way I’m being cared for instead of wanted.
The way something has shifted between us, and I don’t know how to shift it back.
By the time I’m dressed, the soreness has settled into something dull and manageable, something I can move with instead of around.
“I don’t want to go back to bed,” I say as he reaches for me again.
He pauses.
“Okay,” he says after a second. “What do you want to do?”
“I just want to sit somewhere else,” I admit. “I don’t want to feel stuck in that room.”
There’s a brief flicker of something in his eyes, hesitation, calculation, before he nods.
“Couch?”
“Yeah.”
He helps me out into the living area, slower than I would move on my own, steadier, making sure every step is controlled, supported.
Elijah is still on the phone.
He looks at me as we come in, and for a moment, just a moment, everything else disappears.
There’s something in his eyes that hits me straight in the chest.
Fear.
Love.
Something darker underneath it.
Something cold and determined that doesn’t belong to the man I knew before.
And then it’s gone.
Hidden behind that controlled, unreadable expression he’s started wearing like armor.
I don’t know how to reach him.
I don’t know how to get past that.
And that, that hurts in a way I wasn’t expecting.
Jackson comes over a second later, setting a cup of tea down in front of me, along with something small to eat, his movements softer, easier, more familiar than the others, like he’s trying to hold onto something that hasn’t changed.
“There you go, sweetheart.”
“Thank you.”
Zach settles behind me, his fingers moving into my hair again, brushing it slowly, carefully, and this time when I lean into it, I don’t stop myself.
It feels good.
