Chapter 469
[ 458 words ]
Chapter 469:
She stilled.
His mouth tightened, as if he hated every word before he forced it out. “I wanted to see that it mattered. That another woman putting her hand on me wasn’t just an administrative nuisance you expected me to handle. I wanted…” He stopped, jaw locking. The silence that followed was almost more revealing than the words themselves.
Caroline’s voice softened. “You wanted me to be jealous.”
His eyes met hers, dark and unflinching. “Yes.”
The single word was quiet, brutal, and honest.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
𝘚𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘴.𝘤𝘰𝘮
He sounded nothing like a terrified boy. He sounded like a man with too much pride to plead and too much fear to keep lying. The sheer restraint of it stole her breath more than any outburst could have.
She came around the edge of the table. Slowly. Deliberately. Giving him every chance to step away.
He didn’t.
She stopped in front of him, close enough to feel the heat coming off his body, close enough to see the exhaustion carved into the lines around his mouth. She lifted her hand to his jaw, because he could not lift his to her, her fingers tracing the hard, tense line of him. The stubble was rough against her skin. She saw the fear, the regret, the desperate need for reassurance held under military discipline and sheer stubborn pride.
“I didn’t react because I knew she had no chance,” Caroline said quietly. “Not because you don’t matter.”
His eyes sharpened.
“And if you need the ugly version, here it is.” Her thumb brushed the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t like her touching you. I didn’t like the way she looked at you. I wanted her hand off you before you even told her to move.”
A shudder went through him, small but unmistakable.
“But I trusted you to handle it,” she continued. “That does not mean I was indifferent.”
His breath left him slowly, unevenly, as if something in his chest had finally loosened.
She rose up on her toes, tilted her head, and gently, deliberately, bit his lower lip. It wasn’t hard, just a sharp, definitive pressure. A claim.
A shudder ran through his entire frame. A low sound rumbled in his chest, and then his mouth was on hers. He did not grab her. He did not pull her in. He couldn’t, not with the brace and the splint, and maybe for once he did not need to. He simply bent his head and met her where she stood, kissing her with a desperate, contained hunger, pouring all his regret, his insecurity, and his bone-deep relief into the only contact his ruined body allowed. It was a kiss of surrender, of homecoming, and of a fragile, hard-won peace. The cracks between them weren’t just mended; they were sealed.
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