Page 97 of The Wrong Man

“I can assure you, you did. Quite enthusiastically.”

He groans again, but when he lifts his head, there is a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. A small, shy thing that makes my chest feel too tight.

“You are not supposed to tease me about it.”

“I’m not teasing. I’m stating facts.”

“You are teasing.” He pokes me in the ribs, and I catch his hand before he can do it again. Our fingers intertwine without either of us consciously deciding to make it happen. “This is very strange.”

“What is?”

“This.” He nods his head at our joined hands, at the tangled sheets, at the general state of intimate proximity we find ourselves in. “Waking up together. Talking. Being... normal.”

Normal. As if anything about this situation could ever be described as normal.

“Would you prefer I go back to keeping you tied to a chair?”

It’s meant as a joke. An incredibly poor one, admittedly. Dylan’s smile flickers, and I realize too late that some wounds are too fresh to prod at, even gently. Some things should never be joked about. Ever.

“Sorry,” I say. “That was...”

“It’s fine.” But his voice has gone a little flat. He extracts his hand from mine and sits up, the sheet pooling around his waist. “I should probably eat something.”

The easy intimacy of moments ago has evaporated. I want to reach for him, pull him back, find a way to recapture whatever we had before I ruined it with my careless words. But I don’t know how. I have never known how to be soft with people. It is not a skill that was ever required of me.

“I could make breakfast,” he offers, not quite meeting my eyes. “We have eggs.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.” He finally looks at me, and there is something complicated in his expression. Something I cannot quite read. “I need to do something with my hands. Otherwise I am going to start thinking too much, and that never ends well.”

I understand that impulse better than he knows.

He climbs out of bed, and I watch him pull on the shirt I discarded last night. It hangs to mid-thigh on him, too big in the shoulders, the sleeves falling past his wrists. He looks small in it. Young. Vulnerable in a way that makes something protective and dangerous stir in my chest.

He pads out of the bedroom without looking back, and I am left alone with the cooling sheets and the lingering scent of him on my pillow.

What am I doing?

The question has been circling my mind for days now, but it feels more urgent this morning. More impossible to ignore. Last night changed things. Last night took whatever strange connection was building between us and turned it into something physical, something undeniable, something I cannot pretend away.

I wanted him. I still want him. And that wanting is going to destroy us both.

I get up, find pajama bottoms and pull them on, then make my way to the kitchen. Dylan is cracking eggs into a bowl, his movements quick and efficient, completely absorbed in the task.

I lean against the doorframe and watch him.

This is dangerous. All of it. The way he looks in my kitchen, in my clothes, making breakfast like this is his home. The way my chest feels warm just from watching him work. The way I am already dreading the moment he leaves this room, leaves my sight, leaves the small bubble of domesticity we have somehow created.

I am not built for this. I am built for violence and fear and the cold satisfaction of a job well done. I am built to hurt people, not to care for them. Not to want them safe and happy and close.

Dylan glances over his shoulder and catches me staring.

“You could help instead of lurking,” he says. “There should be coffee somewhere.”

“I was not lurking.”

“You were absolutely lurking. Very menacingly. I felt threatened.”