[Miles’ POV]
The estate weekend ends with polite goodbyes and zero resolution—basically the Valmont family motto, right after "Money Can't Buy Happiness But It Can Buy Excellent Lawyers."
I drive us back to the city while Rae starts approximately forty-seven sentences she doesn't finish. "I was thinking—" Silence. "About what Dorian said—" Nothing. "Maybe we should—" Nope.
Each abandoned thought hangs in the air. I don't push. Pushing leads to conversations I'm not equipped to survive.
I drop her at her apartment without coming up. "Get some rest," I say, and it sounds like a goodbye that means more than goodbye.
I drive home to stare at my ceiling like it owes me money.
Two days pass. Two days of checking my phone like a teenager waiting for prom confirmation.
Tuesday afternoon, someone knocks on my door.
Rae stands in the hallway, absolutely soaked, looking like a drowned goddess who made questionable navigation choices. Water drips from her hair, mascara has migrated to new zip codes, and she's shivering hard enough to register on seismographs.
"Rae? What—you're soaked."
"I was in the neighborhood." The lie is so transparent it's basically invisible.
"You live forty minutes from here. In the opposite direction."
"The neighborhood is a flexible concept." Her teeth are chattering.
I pull her inside. My hands are shaking when I grab a towel and clothes—my old college sweatshirt, flannel pants she'll swim in. I pretend the shaking is from cold air. We both know it's not.
"Change," I manage. "I'll make tea."
She emerges drowning in my clothes, and something in my chest does complicated gymnastics. The sweatshirt hangs off one shoulder. She looks like she belongs here, which is a dangerous thought.
I hand her chamomile—her favorite, not that I've memorized her tea preferences like a stalker with excellent taste.
We sit on opposite ends of my couch. The same couch where she's cried about exes, celebrated wins, fallen asleep during terrible movies. Now it feels like a demilitarized zone.
"Why are you really here, Rae?"
"I don't know. I couldn't stop thinking about—" She gestures at the kitchen counter I can't look at without short-circuiting.
"Don't." The word escapes before I can stop it.
"Don't what?"
"Don't start something you're not going to finish. I can't keep doing this. The almost-conversations. The loaded silences. It's killing me."
She sets down her tea. "Do you ever think about that night?"
I laugh—sharp, bitter. "Do I think about it? I think about it constantly. It's ruining my ability to function. I can't look at my kitchen counter without losing my mind."
The confession hangs between us like a grenade.
"I replay it every night. During client meetings when I should discuss profit margins. You've completely destroyed my relationship with kitchen appliances."
"Miles—"
"I know you left because you thought I regretted it. I know you're with Dorian because it's safer." My voice cracks. "I know I'm supposed to be the supportive friend who doesn't make things complicated. But I can't pretend anymore."
She crosses the room in three steps. Suddenly she's right there, close enough to count her eyelashes.
"I'm not here because it's safe," she whispers. "I'm here because I can't stay away."
She kisses me like the world is ending and beginning in the same breath—soft, deliberate, devastating. Her palms cradle my face, thumbs brushing the stubble along my jaw, and I feel eight years of careful restraint shatter against my tongue.
I kiss her back with every filthy, tender thing I’ve never said. Every time I almost told her I loved her and swallowed it instead. Every night I jerked off to the thought of her and hated myself for it. All of it pours into her mouth now, slow and relentless.
“I need you to be sure, Rae,” I rasp against her lips, voice shaking. “I can’t do this if tomorrow you pretend it never happened.”
Her answer is a broken little sound as she pulls me closer. “It’s real, Miles. It’s been real since the first time you fixed my stupid spreadsheet at three in the morning and looked at me like I was the only thing in the room.”
We don’t make it far. Three steps and I have her against the hallway wall, her legs around my waist, my mouth on her throat, tasting her pulse.
Another two steps and her back hits the doorframe, my hands sliding under her shirt to palm bare skin, thumbs brushing the underside of her breasts until she whimpers my name like a prayer.
When we finally reach the bed, I lay her down like she’s something holy and breakable and mine. She watches me with wide, unguarded eyes—trust and terror and want all tangled together—and it fucking undoes me.
I strip her slowly. Kiss every inch I uncover. The soft spot beneath her ear that makes her sigh. The slope of her collarbone. The swell of her breast, taking her nipple into my mouth and sucking until her back arches off the mattress and she’s threading her fingers through my hair, holding me there.
I map her ribs with my tongue, the dip of her waist, the trembling skin just above her panties. When I drag those down her legs she’s trembling, slick and swollen and so beautiful I have to stop just to look at her spread out on my sheets.
“Miles,” she whispers, reaching for me.
I crawl back up her body, kissing her deep and slow, letting her feel how hard I am, how much I want her. I settle between her thighs and slide inside her in one long, unhurried stroke—bare, because we’re done pretending this is anything less than everything.
She’s tight, hot, perfect. Her breath catches on my name as I bottom out, and I have to still, forehead pressed to hers, fighting the urge to rut into her like an animal.
“Move,” she breathes. “Please, Miles. I need to feel you.”
So I move—slow, deep rolls of my hips that drag over every sensitive spot inside her. She wraps her legs high around my waist, heels digging into my back, urging me deeper.
I brace myself on my elbows so I can watch her face, watch her eyes flutter shut every time I grind against her clit, watch her lips part on these soft, wrecked sounds that belong only to me now.
I kiss her through it—tongue stroking hers in time with my cock, swallowing every moan. When she starts tightening around me, thighs shaking, I slide a hand between us and circle her clit exactly how she likes, slow and firm.
“Come for me, Rae,” I whisper against her mouth. “Let me feel it. Let me have this.”
She breaks with a soft cry, clenching around me so perfectly I nearly lose it. I fuck her through it, drawing it out until she’s boneless and gasping, nails leaving crescents in my shoulders.
Only then do I let myself go—pulling out at the last second, fisting myself once, twice, and coming hard across her stomach and breasts with her name torn out of my throat like it’s the only word I’ve ever known.
I collapse half on top of her, both of us shaking, hearts hammering against each other. She drags lazy fingers through my hair, presses a kiss to my temple, and I feel something inside my chest crack wide open.
Afterward, she falls asleep in my arms. I lie awake memorizing everything.
The curve of her shoulder. The flutter of her eyelashes. The way she curls into me like I'm her safe harbor.
I know she might leave again. Know this still isn't choosing me—not officially, not publicly. Know I'll let her break my heart as many times as she needs to.
But tonight, she's here.
And maybe that's enough.