"You don't have to know tonight," he said gently. "Tonight is for grieving. For accepting. Tomorrow is for deciding."
The simplicity of it, the lack of pressure or expectation, loosened something in my chest. I nodded, suddenly exhausted, the emotional toll of the day catching up with me all at once.
"I want to sleep," I said, my voice small in the quiet room.
"Of course." He turned toward the door, clearly assuming I meant alone.
"Stay," I said, the word escaping before I could reconsider. "Just... stay with me. Please."
He paused, studying my face for a long moment, searching for something—uncertainty, perhaps, or reluctance. Finding none, he nodded. "If that's what you want."
"It is."
I changed in the bathroom, washing my face, trying to erase the evidence of tears. When I emerged in a simple nightgown, Rafe had removed his shoes and jacket but remained otherwise dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed, his posture conveying respect for my boundaries despite our growing intimacy.
I climbed into bed, pulling the covers up around me, suddenly shy despite everything we’d shared. Rafe remained where he was, not presuming, waiting for direction.
“Lie with me,” I said softly. “Just hold me. Nothing more.”
He nodded, moving to stretch out beside me on top of the covers, a small gesture that acknowledged the limits I’d set. I turned onto my side, and his arm came around me, pulling me gently against his chest, his body warm and solid against my back.
It was a strange kind of quiet—the kind that settled in the absence of restraint, after so much noise. So much taking. We’d been reckless with each other these past weeks. Demanding. Rough. His dominance had burned through me like a fever, but his aftercare had always been just as exacting. Just as deliberate. Every bruise he left was followed by balm. Every broken breath answered with steady silence, a palm to my spine, a hand in my hair, his voice at my ear until I felt like I existed again.
But this? This wasn’t aftermath.
This was something softer.
And somehow, that made it harder to breathe.
We lay in silence, his steady breathing a counterpoint to the occasional hitches in mine as residual tears found their way to the surface. He didn’t speak, didn’t try to soothe me with empty words or false promises. Just held me, a steady presence inthe darkness, anchoring me as I drifted on a sea of grief and realization.
As sleep began to claim me, a thought surfaced with unexpected clarity: In all my life, I had never been held like this—with care but without demand, with strength but without force. Not by my father, not by my brothers, not by any man I’d dated or friend I’d trusted.
Only by him. The man who had taken everything from me, yet somehow given me something I hadn’t known I needed.
The irony wasn’t lost on me, even as consciousness began to fade. The man who had kidnapped me was the only one who had stayed. The only one who had seen me—really seen me—and decided I was worth keeping, worth fighting for, worth whatever consequences came with claiming me.
It wasn’t love. Wasn’t healthy. Wasn’t anything I could name or categorize or justify.
But as I drifted into sleep, Rafe’s arm a warm weight around me, his heartbeat steady against my back, I couldn’t deny the truth that had been growing inside me for weeks:
For the first time in my life, I felt like I belonged somewhere. To someone.
And the most terrifying part wasn’t that it was with him.
It was that it felt right.
21
GRACE
"You can go into town today."
I looked up from my book, certain I'd misheard him. Rafe stood in the doorway of the library, hands in his pockets, expression unreadable as always.
"What?"
"Town. You can go. For a few hours." He stepped further into the room, his movements measured and deliberate. "There's a bookstore you might enjoy. A café. A few shops."
