Page 25 of The Ache That Stayed

Mistake One: Going to the club.

Mistake Two: Seeing her under strobe lights, having the world narrow to only one point. Her.

For one stupid second, I told myself it wasn’t her. Her hair was wrong—vibrant, cut different.

Mistake Three: Being bothered when another man stood too close to her. An old, ugly and violent streak loosened inside my chest. Like barbed wire snapping.

Touching her should have been the final mistake. My pulse hadn’t slowed since. I shouldn’t have. But that once was enough for me to confirm my instinct, that she was real. And when she went still, something in me went cold. I disappeared into the shadows before she turned. Coward. Self-preservation.

Same thing to me. Always has been.

Dragging her out of the club should have been the moment I learned something. Instead, I carried her home.

The memory of her slumped in the passenger seat bled into me like poison. She kept drifting in and out of consciousness. And when I turned on the heat to keep her warm, she murmured “hot,” and touched herself—hands gliding down her neck, over breasts, down her thighs. My grip on the wheel had turned bone-white, leather creaking under strain. I sped through the night before I did something I’d regretted.

The plan was simple.

Get her home. Make sure she was safe. Don’t touch her again. The last part—I could barely contain.

I grabbed paper towels and pressed them against my knuckles until fresh blood slowed and started wrapping my knuckles.

Fuck. What am I doing here?

My cock strained against denim, heartbeat pulsing like it would split the zipper, at the memory of bringing her here. I closed my eyes, remembering.

I’d carried her to the bedroom, lights low, her warm breath fanning my neck. She mumbled unintelligibly. I sat her against the headboard, watching her for a beat too long, staring at the dress like it was a problem I couldn’t solve without making a bigger one.

Leaving her in it felt wrong. Touching her felt worse.

I swore under my breath, reaching for her zipper, peeling her dress off. Slow. Careful. Mechanical. Like diffusing a bomb. The dress slid down her body and pooled around her hips.

I turned my head when I unclasped her bra.

Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t Look.

Then I looked anyway. Just once.

Another fucking mistake. By this point, I stopped pretending the number mattered.

Her heavy breasts spilled out, pebbling her nipples as cool air touched her skin, chest rising, body chasing warmth without knowing why.

Perfect. Just perfect.

My chest tightened, temptation and guilt colliding until I couldn’t tell them apart. My hand hovered.

I should have stopped there. I didn’t. And for one stupid, dangerous second, I let my knuckles brush the underside of her breast as I pulled the fabric away. Soft, warm beneath my hand.

Not mine to touch.

I circled one nipple with my finger, again and again, and she moaned in her sleep, leaning into my touch. Her moan was low, unconscious, but it branded me like a scar.

Air was punched out of my lungs, and realisation hit hard. Heat slammed low in my gut, pulse erratic, straining my already hardened cock.

“Fuck,” I breathed, stepping back like I’d touched fire. Restraint tasted like blood in my mouth.

One more second and I would have crossed a line I could never uncross.

I ripped my hands through my hair, grabbed the tee, slipped it over her and pulled up her shorts, fingers rougher than I meant them to be, as if distance could erase what almost happened.