“You are.” There’s no argument in his tone. Just certainty.
He stands, completely unbothered by his state of partial undress. His boxer briefs allow a strong outline of what’s inside, which is impossible to miss. And he’s not completely soft—that much I can tell.
But he doesn’t cover himself. Doesn’t hesitate. Just moves through the room like his body is another extension of the space.
I try not to look, but I do anyway. The broad line of his shoulders beneath the thin fabric of his T-shirt, the definition underneath it, the way his strength shows without effort.
It’s not the sculpted perfection of someone obsessed with the gym.
It’s something else.
Something functional.
Real.
A flicker of heat moves through me before I can stop it.
He pauses at the doorway, glancing back. “Stay.”
The word lands immediately.
Clean. Final. Not a suggestion.
There are a dozen ways I could interpret it. Another dozen ways I could push back.
I don’t ask.
He disappears into the bathroom. The door shuts. A moment later, the shower turns on, the sound of water filling the silence.
And I don’t move.
I should get up. Get dressed. Do something.
But I don’t.
Because he said stay.
And something in me listens.
I hate that it does.
I hate how familiar it feels.
The water runs in the other room, steady and loud, and my mind drifts despite myself. It’s too easy to picture him under it—steam curling around his body, water sliding over inked skin I’ve already started mapping in my head.
Heat gathers low in my stomach, building between my thighs so rapidly I have to squeeze them together, trying to ground myself.
Get a grip, Ivy, you giant perv.
As I sit there, wrapped in his sheets, wearing his shirt, surrounded by his space, I feel it happening.
The shift.
Where I stop deciding.
Quiet. Subtle.
When the water shuts off, I force myself to move.