The morning glare cut clean through Ryan’s room, a blade of gold laid across the sheets.
I blinked into it, winced, and kept very still.
There was weight around my waist, his arm, heavy and warm, pinning me like the last fact in a room full of denial.
His chest pressed to my back, breath slow and deep, the kind of breathing that belonged to people who didn’t wake at every sound.
It wasn’t the s*x that undid me.
It was this.
The impossible gravity of a body beside mine, the illusion of belonging.
The illusion had weight, the kind that left bruises under skin and logic alike.
Carefully, I shifted onto my back.
Ryan Carter asleep looked like discipline refusing to let go even when it had no business staying.
His jaw was set, a shallow line drawn tight through his cheek; even unconsc
