It had been two days since Alec laid me bare in his bed and stopped just before the fall.
Two days of glances that lingered too long.
Two days of passing each other in tight halls and tighter silences.
Two days of pretending I wasn’t dying to feel him inside me.
I was still living in his house. Still taking care of Lily. Still smiling like I didn’t dream of him every night.
But something had shifted.
It was in the way he looked at me across the dinner table, eyes full of restraint and something deeper.
It was in the way his hand grazed mine when I poured coffee, and we both froze like touching again might break us.
It was in me—this fire building so fast I could hardly breathe.
And it was in him, too.
Tonight, it snapped.
It started simply.
Lily had been fussy during her bath a
