Eleven
1200 Words
Emma:
When I woke up, it wasn’t sudden.
No gasp.
No jolt.
No nightmare that snapped me back into my body like a rubber band.
Just warmth.
Warm weight against my ribs.
Soft breathing near my arm.
And for a split second — one perfect, impossible second — I was convinced I’d dreamed everything. The firehouse. The bruises. The kiss. The plan. The panic. All of it.
Then a deeper, steadier breath reached my ears.
Not Avery’s.
Lower.
Rougher.
Close.
My eyes blinked open slowly.
Kaden.
Sitting on the floor.
Head leaned back against the wall, chin tipped down slightly, arms crossed over his chest in a way that shouldn’t have looked comfortable but absolutely did. One long leg bent, the other stretched out. His boots sat near the door, kicked off like he’d decided to stay awhile.
And his eyes… weren’t closed.
He wasn’t sleeping.
He was watching me.
Quietly.
Openly.
Like he’d been doing it for a while.
His voice dropped to a whisper the second he saw my confusion.
“You okay?”
There it was again.
That voice.
That gentle, dangerous voice that made all my carefully constructed walls feel like tissue paper.
I swallowed, my throat tight from sleep. “How long—”
“A little over an hour.”
He didn’t look away.
Didn’t shift.
Didn’t apologize for staring.
“You fell asleep hard,” he added softly. “Avery did too. I didn’t want to move you.”
Oh.
That simple.
That devastating.
He didn’t want to move me.
Didn’t want to disturb this.
Didn’t want to break the tiny, fragile pocket of peace that had settled over the room like dust in a sunbeam.
My heart thudded in that stupid, traitorous way again.
I looked down.
Avery was still curled into my side, face smushed into my arm, tiny hand gripping my shirt like she was afraid I’d leave.
The kind of hold that shouldn’t have hit me as hard as it did.
The kind of hold I’d never had.
“She’s a cuddler,” Kaden murmured, softer than before. “Most people don’t get the privilege.”
I swallowed. “She’s sweet.”
“She doesn’t trust many people,” he said quietly.
My chest squeezed. “Kaden…”
“Don’t,” he whispered. “I’m not trying to make it heavy. I’m just… saying the truth.”
The truth.
Which, apparently, had weight whether he meant it to or not.
I shifted a little, and his eyes tracked the movement immediately — not in a predatory way. In a protective way. Like he was scanning for pain.
His brows pulled together the moment my face tightened.
“You hurting?”
I nodded before I could lie.
His jaw flexed. “Where?”
“My ribs,” I admitted, keeping my voice low so I wouldn’t wake Avery. “It’s not bad. Just… stiff from how I was sitting.”
He moved then.
Not toward me.
Downward.
Reaching into a drawer built into the bed frame that I hadn’t noticed before. He pulled out a folded blanket, shook it out quietly, and stood in one fluid movement.
I stared up at him, small and rumpled and painfully aware of how large he suddenly looked standing over me.
“Lean forward,” he said gently.
I blinked. “What—”
“Just trust me.”
God.
There it was again.
That impossible request.
That impossible voice.
That impossible man.
Against my better judgment — and maybe because exhaustion made everything feel softer, more manageable, less defendable — I did.
I leaned forward slightly, careful of Avery.
And Kaden…
He tucked the blanket behind me.
Around me.
Around her.
Slow.
Patient.
Careful in a way that made my throat burn.
His fingers brushed my shoulder — the lightest touch — and my breath stuttered.
He noticed.
Of course, he noticed.
Because when he spoke again, his voice dropped to something almost unbearably gentle.
“Tell me if anything hurts.”
“It doesn’t.”
God.
My voice was barely audible.
He finished tucking the blanket around us, then paused — just long enough that I felt the weight of his gaze on the side of my face.
Then he sat back down.
Not on the floor this time.
On the bed.
Beside my feet.
Close enough that his knee brushed mine.
Not an accident.
Not unintentional.
Not remotely safe for my pulse.
He rested his forearms on his thighs, hands laced loosely together, looking at me with that softened expression Avery had so generously informed me about.
It was real.
God help me, it was real.
“Emma,” he said quietly, “you scared me earlier.”
I blinked. “What?”
“When you left the table.”
His jaw worked.
“When you didn’t come back.”
My heart thudded once — hard.
“I thought maybe…” He exhaled, long and slow. “I thought maybe you were panicking because of me.”
The honesty in his voice struck deep.
“I wasn’t,” I said quickly. “I just— everything hit at once.”
He nodded. “I figured. But I didn’t want to barge in and make it worse.”
“You didn’t.”
Silence wrapped around us — warm, charged, intimate.
Avery snuffled in her sleep and burrowed deeper against me.
Kaden watched the movement with something close to awe.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“For what?” I asked, genuinely confused.
“For being here.”
His voice wasn’t rough.
It wasn’t careful.
It wasn’t even restrained.
It was honest.
Purely, devastatingly honest.
“For her,” he added, glancing at Avery. “For me. For… this.”
My breath caught.
Because I knew what “this” meant.
Not the custody plan.
Not the bruise on my ribs.
Not the sleeping child between us.
This moment.
This trust.
This strange, terrifying softness blooming between two people who didn’t know how to hold it.
“Kaden…”
He looked at me again — really looked.
And something in his expression shifted, like he was bracing.
“I don’t know what we’re doing,” he said quietly. “But I know I don’t want it to stop.”
My stomach flipped.
My pulse jumped.
My grip on Avery tightened instinctively.
He leaned forward an inch.
Just one.
Enough to feel the heat of him.
Enough to make my lips part.
Enough to make my entire body go still.
“I’m not asking for anything.”
His voice dropped.
“I just… needed you to know that.”
I didn’t breathe for a full second.
Maybe two.
Then I whispered, “I don’t want it to stop either.”
His eyes closed.
Not long.
Not dramatically.
Just… long enough to feel like a confession.
Long enough to feel like surrender.
When he opened them again, the room felt different.
Warmer.
Riskier.
More alive.
And then Avery shifted again, her hand finding my wrist, tiny fingers curling around it.
Kaden watched the movement.
His Adam’s apple bobbed.
And his voice came out low and certain.
“Let me take you both home.”
- Writer
