"Thanks," I say, and my voice doesn't sound like me. It sounds flat and hard and like a warning. I take the tray from him and close the door with my other arm.
I stand there with my back against the door, holding a tray of soup and crackers, breathing hard. My heart is going fast and my grip on the tray is white-knuckled and there's a word in my head that I've never thought about anyone before. Mine. Not in a fun, flirty way. Not in the way I've said it to hookups when things get heated. In a way that feels like it's coming from somewhere very old and very deep, somewhere that doesn't care about professionalism or hierarchy or the fact that I'm a twenty-three-year-old legal assistant who doesn't know what the fuck he's doing.
Mine. He's mine. And I just almost growled at a bellhop for smelling him.
What the fuck is happening to me.
I set the food on the desk and bring Miles a glass of water. He takes it without looking at me and drinks half of it, and I sit in the chair across from the bed and try to figure out what comes next.
It gets worse. Not all at once — in stages, like the tide coming in. Miles paces. He sits down. He stands up. He goes to the bathroom and I hear water running. He comes back wet-faced and shivering even though the room is warm.
I try to get him to eat and he takes one look at the soup and pushes it away. "The smell," he says, and I move it to the kitchenette counter and crack the balcony door instead. The cold mountain air helps for about a minute, and then he tells me to close it because the cold is making the cramps worse.
He snaps at me when I get too close. "Stop hovering." When I sit down: "Would you stop staring at me." When I suggest he try lying down: "I'm not a child, Garcia, I know how to manage myself." Each one is sharper than the last, and I take it, all of it, because I can see what's underneath. He's scared. He's in pain. And he's humiliated that I'm watching it happen.
I bring him a cold washcloth without asking. He snatches it from me and presses it to the back of his neck and doesn't say thank you, but he doesn't throw it at me either, and his shoulders drop a fraction when the cold hits his skin. I'll take that.
The room is getting warmer. I don't think it's the heating. Miles's scent is thickening in the air, sweeter and heavier than before, and I'm responding in ways I'm trying very hard to ignore. Every time he paces past me I get a wave of it and my pulse jumps and my cock twitches and I hate myself for it. He's in pain. He's scared. And I'm sitting here getting hard because the scent is rewiring me in real time — a growl building in my throat every time he moves, my vision narrowing to track him, the urge to cover him so strong my fingers ache from grippingthe armrest. I'm going to have to unpack that later, when I'm not busy trying not to be a monster.
Then a bad wave hits. He's standing near the window and he doubles over, arms wrapped around his stomach, and the sound he makes is awful — this low, grinding noise through his teeth. I'm on my feet before I can think about it.
"Don't touch me," he says, but his voice is broken. He's gripping the windowsill with white knuckles and he's shaking, all of him, head to heels. "Don't — just don't—"
"I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."
"It doesn't even matter," he says, and his voice cracks. "My body does this, it goes through all of this, and it doesn't even—" He stops. His jaw clenches. He stares at the floor like he's said something he can't take back.
I don't know what that means. I can hear that it matters — it goes deeper than just hating heats — but I don't understand it, and right now isn't the time to ask. So I just stand there, close enough to catch him if he falls, and wait.
The wave passes. Miles sinks onto the bed, exhausted, his fight gone. He's not pushing me away anymore. He doesn't have the energy. He's just sitting there, damp and shaking and too tired to pretend.
I sit next to him. Not touching. Just close enough that he can feel me there.
"You should go," he says. No conviction in it.
"No."
"This is going to get worse."
"I know."
"You don't—" He swallows. "You've never done this before."
"No."
"You're scared."
"Yeah." I look at him. He looks at me. His eyes are fever-bright and his face is flushed and he looks terrible and beautiful andlike someone who stopped expecting anyone to stay. "I'm staying anyway."
He doesn't say anything. He just sits there, and I feel the moment he stops fighting. It's not a big dramatic thing. It's just the tension leaving his shoulders, the clench in his jaw loosening, the way he leans toward me instead of away. He's done. He's too tired and too scared and too deep in this to keep pretending he wants me to leave.
We sit on the bed in the quiet room and I listen to him breathe and I don't try to fix anything or say anything smart. I'm just here. Whatever's coming, I'm here.
He turns his head and looks at me. Not the sharp, cold look he gives me at work. Not the angry, desperate look from the bathroom. An expression I've never seen on his face before — open and terrified, asking for something he doesn't know how to ask for.
I lean in, or he leans in, or we both do. It doesn't matter. His lips touch mine, and it's soft. It's the softest thing that's ever happened between us. No anger in it, no frustration, no adrenaline. Just his mouth on mine, warm and trembling, and his fingers coming up to rest on my jaw like he needs to make sure I'm real.
I kiss him back. Slow. My palm on the back of his neck, gentle, cradling him. He makes a sound against my lips that's not pain and not pleasure, just — need. Just this aching, raw need to be close to someone, and I pull him closer and he lets me.