Page 58 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir
“I thought—” My voice chokes off. I swallow hard. “I don’t know what I thought.”
Kalev steps closer. The air between us turns molten, heavy with everything unsaid.
“I kept thinking about you,” he says. “Between bullets. Between choices.”
I laugh again, softer this time. “That’s romantic. 'Between body counts, I remembered your coffee order.'”
He shakes his head, lips twitching despite himself. “More like… between nightmares, I remembered what it felt like to breathe.”
Silence again, but it’s different now. Not heavy. Loaded.
His fingers twitch at his side like he wants to reach for me and isn’t sure if he should.
I do it first.
Just the hem of his jacket—rough, dust-crusted, real.
“You look like you crawled through hell,” I murmur.
“Pretty sure I did.”
“And you came back.”
“I had to.”
My throat tightens.
“I didn’t know if I wanted to punch you or kiss you,” I whisper.
“Do both.”
I step in.
Fingers curl in his collar. His mouth brushes mine like a secret, soft at first—almost reverent—and then not at all. There’s nothing careful about the second kiss. No protocol, no pretense. Just hunger and ache and weeks of pretending we were fine without this.
I back him into the wall beside the console.
His hands find my hips, anchoring me like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he doesn’t hold on.
I kiss him until my lungs burn, until the sharp edge of fury softens into something raw and unguarded.
When I pull back, he rests his forehead against mine.
“I don’t know how to do this,” he admits.
“Me neither.”
“But I want to.”
“Yeah,” I breathe. “Me too.”
Another silence.
This one stays.
Warm.
I trace the line of his jaw, thumb brushing the fading bruise. “You gonna vanish again?”
