Page 92 of Next Level Up
I pause. “Couch for me. You two take the bed.”
“You sure?” Haven asks, sitting up, stretching.
I nod once. “Yeah. It’s fine.”
“Alright,” Carter says, pulling her up with him. “But if you keep choosing that thing, I’m buying you a chiropractor.”
I wave him off and watch as they disappear down the hall, soft laughter trailing behind them.
Even though I’m alone on the couch, in the quiet I don’t feel left out. This chaos almost feels like home.
27
Carter
The morning light cuts through the blinds, casting golden stripes across Haven’s skin.
She’s still sound asleep when I wake up. Her hair is messy, her cheeks mushed against the pillow and one arm curled loosely across my stomach.
I don’t want to break the moment, all I do is look at her. Something in my chest shifts, it’s not new; the feeling.
But it’s sharper today, like it’s clawing up my throat with every beat of my heart, whisperingtell her, tell her, tell her.I don’t know when it stopped being casual. Maybe from the first time she looked at me with those wide, curious eyes like I was something worth figuring out I was already in too deep. It’s terrifying. What if I’m wrong? What if I’m the one who loves harder? So I do what I always do when the words feel too heavy.
My hand finds her hip under the blanket, soft and slow. I stroke over the curve of it, down to the dip of her waist, justmemorizing. My fingers trace the line of her ribs, the slope of her back, the dip of her spine, every inch of her mine to worship.
She stirs, breath catching, but doesn’t wake. I kiss her shoulder, her neck then her jaw.
Then she opens her eyes. “Hi,” she whispers.
I smile. “Hi.”
Her hand moves up to touch my chest, fingers curling lightly in the fabric of my shirt. “You’re looking at me like I’m a miracle or something.”
“You are.”
I slide my hand to her cheek, my thumb brushing beneath her eye. “I need to say something. And I don’t want to ruin anything. But if I don’t get it out now, I’m gonna explode.”
She nods, silent.
I take a breath. And then I say it. “I love you.”
She blinks slowly, like she’s letting the words settle in her chest.
“You don’t have to say it back,” I rush to add. “I just—I needed you to know. You don’t have to do anything with it. I just…”
She kisses me before I can let anything else stupid escape my mouth.
The way her mouth moves over mine, the way she cups my jaw like she’s anchoring me there, grounding me, holding me still so I feel it.
We move together slowly, everything soft just heat and emotion and so many goddamn feelings I can barely hold them all. She guides me inside her as I pull her on top of me.
My forehead presses against hers, our breaths mingling, the world quiet except for the sounds she makes—those quiet whimpers, those whispered moans, those choked-off gasps that sound like they’re carved straight from my ribs.
“I love you,” I whisper again, breaking apart right there in her arms.
She sits up, I can tell her mind is racing a million miles a minute. I pull her back down into my arms and just hold her there.
“I don’t know if I can say it,” she whispers against my skin. “Not because I don’t feel it—God, I do—but because every time I say that to someone, they leave. Or they change. Or they look at me like I handed them something too heavy to hold.”
