Page 15 of Forbidden Passions

Tonight, sleep eluded me for entirely different reasons. I was too aware of her—the subtle floral scent of her hair, the occasional soft sound she made in her sleep, the fact that she was wearing my clothes in my bed. It was the most intimate thing I’d experienced in three years, and we weren’t even touching.

I don’t know how long I lay there, caught between wanting to move closer and the urge to get up and go into the other room. Eventually, the rhythm of the rain and Callie’s steady breathing lulled me toward sleep.

Just as I was drifting off, a particularly violent crack of thunder shook the cabin. Beside me, Callie startled awake with a small, distressed sound. She reached out in the darkness, her hand finding my arm and gripping it tightly.

“It’s okay,” I said automatically, my voice low. “Just thunder.”

“I know,” she murmured, but she didn’t let go. “Sorry.”

I should have pulled away. Should have maintained the careful distance between us. Instead, I found myself covering her hand with mine, her skin soft beneath my callused palm.

“It’s okay,” I repeated, and I wasn’t sure if I was reassuring her or myself.

For a moment, we stayed like that, connected by that simple touch, the storm raging around us. Then, slowly, she released her grip and withdrew her hand.

“Thanks,” she whispered into the darkness.

I didn’t trust myself to respond.

Eventually, her breathing evened out again as she fell back asleep. Max had somehow migrated to the foot of the bed, leaving nothing between us but a foot of empty mattress and my crumbling resolve.

I turned to the side, facing away from her, and closed my eyes. But even with my back to her, I could feel her presence like a physical force—warm, alive, unsettlingly appealing.

This woman was dismantling my defenses one by one, and she didn’t even know it.

Or worse—maybe she did.

The thought followed me into uneasy dreams, where I searched for something I couldn’t name in an endless storm, guided only by the sound of Callie’s voice calling me forward into the darkness.

She wasn’t the storm.

She was the silence after.

The kind that made you remember what you’d lost. And wonder—just for a second—what it might cost to want something again.

CHAPTER FIVE

Callie

I woke to the sound of movement.

Blinking sleepily, I registered several things at once. An unfamiliar room, the storm still raging outside, and a very large, very shirtless man doing push-ups on the floor beside the bed. The motions were slow, controlled, as if trying to keep the ghosts quiet.

I knew he had ghosts. They were etched in his skin in the form of scars that he carried. No doubt, they were also stamped into his mind, just as deep.

For a long moment, I just watched. Not just the ripple of muscle across his back, but the tension coiled into every line of him—like he was holding something in. Pain. Rage. Maybe both.

The man didn’t just wear silence—he weaponized it. And somehow, it made me want him more.

Thirty, forty... I lost count somewhere between awe and something dangerously close to longing. This wasn’t just fitness. This was discipline born of necessity. A man fighting demons before breakfast.

This was not how I’d expected to start my morning, but I wasn’t complaining.

Not one bit.

He pulled a shirt over all that scarred, beautiful skin and started toward the door. I felt the moment he paused. I heard the stillness stretch. Then, slowly, he turned.

I squeezed my eyes shut, feigning sleep, forcing my breathing to stay slow and steady. But I could feel him watching me. The air shifted with the weight of it—his stare, heavy and rough, dragging over my skin like a touch. Possessive. Branding.

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