In His Bed , In Her House

CHAPTER THREE - HE CAME BACK TO ME

The sound of tires on gravel jolted me from a restless nap.

I hadn’t meant to fall asleep, not with my heart still aching and my phone clutched like a lifeline on my chest. But there I was — curled on my couch, my soul half-scabbed over from last night’s unraveling.

Then I heard it again.

A car door shutting.

Slow footsteps.

My gate creaking open.

I sat up fast.

No. No, it couldn’t be—

A knock. Three soft, deliberate taps. The kind only one man in the world had ever done like that. Like he already knew I’d open. Like he owned the silence between us.

I stood, barefoot, pulse screaming through my throat.

When I opened the door, there he was.

Mike.

Suit jacket off. Shirt sleeves rolled. Eyes tired but hungry.

My breath caught.

He looked older than I remembered — travel-worn, scruffy, but still so… Mike. Still that man who haunted my sheets and my memory with equal violence.

“Hi,” he said, voice low.

I didn’t answer.

I just stepped aside.

He walked in like he always did — with certainty. Like my house still remembered the shape of him. Like my body did.

We didn’t speak.

Not with words.

I turned. He grabbed me. Hard. His mouth crashed into mine before the door even closed behind us. I tasted airport coffee and guilt. I tasted the ache we’d both been drowning in.

I moaned into him, wrapping my legs around his waist as he lifted me with one swift movement and carried me to the bedroom like a man starved.

He threw me onto the bed, stood at the edge, and stared.

“You have no idea,” he whispered, eyes locked on mine. “What I’ve been thinking about on that plane.”

“Show me,” I whispered back, voice already breaking.

He undressed me like he was angry at my clothes. Pulled my panties down with his teeth. Pressed kisses from my knee to the inside of my thigh like an apology for every missed morning, every broken promise.

Then he buried his face in me.

No teasing. No talking.

Just heat and tongue and years of knowing exactly how to make me lose my mind.

I gasped, fingers gripping his hair, legs trembling as he devoured me like my body held the answers to every fight we’d ever had.

When I came, I came shaking. Clawing at the sheets. Crying out a name that never really belonged to me.

He crawled up my body, kissed me hard, then slid inside me in one perfect, aching thrust.

God.

It felt like coming home.

We didn’t speak. We just moved — slow, deep strokes that made my breath catch in my throat. He held my hands above my head, pinned me down, filled me like I was made for it. Like I was made for him.

And maybe I was.

Because nothing, no one, ever felt like Mike did.

“Mine,” he growled into my neck.

“Yes,” I breathed.

I wrapped my legs around him tighter.

He f****d me like he was sorry.

Like he was trying to say all the things he never said with words.

When he came, it was with a grunt and a shudder that made my body clench around him one last time.

He collapsed beside me, breathless. Sweaty. Silent.

I stared at the ceiling, unsure if I was full or hollow.

⸻

Morning light crept through the curtain.

I woke to his mouth on my n****e, his hand already between my legs.

“Again?” I murmured, still sore, still tender.

“I’m not done apologizing,” he said against my breast.

I arched into him.

It was slower this time. More tender. Like he was trying to erase the night before. Or maybe rewrite it.

He kissed me the whole time.

Held me as I came around him again, then buried himself so deep inside me I thought I might never find myself again.

After, we lay in silence.

Too much had been said yesterday. Too much still hung between us.

Finally, I spoke.

“So. Is she still here?”

He went still.

“Yes.”

I pulled the blanket over myself, heart already tightening.

“And she doesn’t know you’re here.”

“No.”

Of course not.

“She still thinks you’re in Australia,” I whispered.

He didn’t answer.

I sat up.

“So you came here to f**k me, not to fix anything.”

“That’s not fair,” he said, sitting up beside me. “You said you were done. I came to fight for you.”

“You came to have me,” I snapped. “That’s not the same.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “I needed to see you.”

“You needed to feel better. To feel wanted. I get it.”

“That’s not true—”

“It is,” I said, voice rising. “You didn’t tell her. You didn’t even try to fix things before coming to me. You’re still lying, Mike.”

He looked at me, eyes softening. “I love you.”

“You love having me. But you don’t choose me.”

Silence.

“I gave you everything,” I whispered. “My body. My heart. My home. And I still come second.”

“You don’t,” he said quickly. “You don’t.”

But I didn’t believe him.

Not anymore.

And yet… I couldn’t bring myself to tell him to leave.

Because his scent was on my sheets.

Because my body still ached in the best way.

Because, God help me, I still wanted him.

Even if it broke me.