Page 48 of Never After Us
I should go back inside, close my balcony door, drink the coffee I already made, and pretend I never saw her bending into sunlight that doesn’t even exist today.That would be the smart thing.The safe thing.The only thing that keeps my life contained in the narrow emotional margins I know how to function inside.
But my feet don’t listen.
She disappears into her apartment, sliding the door open with careless ease, and somehow I’m moving.One step.Then another.Then across the balcony divider that suddenly feels too small, too thin, too fragile for whatever the hell this is becoming.
My pulse bumps against my throat, faster than it should be for a man walking twelve feet.
This is a bad idea.
This is a terrible idea.
This is exactly something Dr.Bennet would sit back for, steeple his fingers, and say in that irritatingly calm voice, “And how does that choice reflect your emotional avoidance patterns, Alec?”
I’m not avoiding anything, though.Not right now.Right now, I’m doing the opposite of avoiding.
I’m walking straight into temptation like it won’t destroy me.Like I’m not a guy held together by duct tape, therapy co-pays, and nicotine gum.
This isn’t just a bad idea—it’s an emotional disaster in progress, and I’m the idiot voluntarily marching into it.
My palms feel strange.Too warm against the morning chill, like they already know what they want to touch.
My jaw aches from how tightly I’m clenching it.
And my dick is hard—still hard—because apparently, it didn’t get the memo that this isn’t supposed to happen.Not with her.
My pulse keeps kicking up whenever I think about her looking at me the way she does—open, curious, unguarded.As if I’m not fucked up.Like I’m someone she wouldn’t mind inviting into her life.
Meanwhile, my brain is rattling off reasons to turn around like a malfunctioning warning system:
One: She has a kid.A smart, observant one who clocks bullshit faster than most adults and would see right through me in seconds.
Two: I’ve got enough issues to staff an entire support group.Some of them come with side effects.All of them come with shame.
Three: I’ve never touched a woman outside of a contract or a PR stunt, and that was years ago.My idea of connection involves blackout sex, blurry memories, and waking up feeling even worse.
Four: She makes me feel things I don’t want.Things I’ve spent years suppressing.Things that look a lot like hope and need and fuck, what if.And I just fucking met her.
Five: I want to fuck her.Not just in the “get off and leave” way.I want it slow.I want her laid out under me, her legs wrapped around my waist, her back arching when I push inside.I want to hear her moan my name like I’m something she wants to keep.I want to wreck her for anyone else.
And the worst part?
I want to be good at it.
I want to make her feel safe while I make her come so hard she forgets how lonely I am underneath it all.
Which is exactly why I need to take a shower.
A cold one.
Long enough to kill the heat in my blood and scrub every trace of this stupidity from my system.
Then—and only then—maybe I’ll earn the right to cross that line.
Or maybe I’ll just be clean when I fuck it all up.
I step into the bathroom, flip on the light, and drag a hand through my hair like that’s going to do a damn thing to clear my head.It doesn’t.
Not when I can still feel the phantom heat of her body pressed against mine—something that’s never even happened but lives so vividly in my head it might as well have.
