Page 23 of Crossed Paths
We collapse onto the bed in a tangle of limbs and breath, our bodies still joined, still humming with the aftershocks of what just passed between us. I pull her closer, needing to feel every inch of her, needing to make sure this is real. My lips find the crown of her head and linger there. She sighs, content, curling into me like she belongs there, and God, she does. She fits into my arms like they were made to hold her.
My fingers move without thought, tracing idle shapes across the bare skin of her back, memorising the dips, the warmth, the quiet rhythm of her breath. Every part of me is aching to stay here, wide awake, just watching her. I’ve waited so long for this. For her. For this moment where nothing else matters and she’s mine. Finally mine.
I fight the pull of sleep like it’s the enemy because I don’t want to miss a second of her like this. I want to burn it intome, her weight against me, the faint scent of her hair, the sound of her whisper-soft breaths. I try to hold my eyes open, to resist the heavy drag of peace settling over me. But she’s too much. Or maybe too little, too gentle, too soft, too perfect. Being here, with her in my arms, feels like exhaling after holding my breath for years.
And slowly, helplessly, I feel myself slipping. My body sinks into the mattress, into her, into the kind of quiet I didn’t think I’d ever get to feel. My last thought before darkness pulls me under is that if this is what sleep feels like with her beside me, wrapped around me, then maybe I don’t need to fight it anymore.
Chapter 8
Hunter
The first thing Iregister is warmth. The second is her hand.
It's slow, soft, deliberate—stroking my cock under the duvet with a confidence that’s both tender and electric. My eyes are still heavy with sleep, but the sensation is impossible to ignore. I let out a breath, rough and surprised, and squint down at her through the early light filtering in around the curtains.
She’s propped on one elbow beside me, sheet draped low across her chest, hair mussed and tumbling around her face in fiery waves. Her expression is focused, but there’s a hint of mischief tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“Alex,” I rasp, voice thick with sleep, “what are you doing?”
She glances up at me, and her smile is slow, almost shy—but the way her hand keeps moving says otherwise. “I want a little bit more,” she murmurs. “Before we go back to our lives.”
That hits me in the chest harder than it should.
Our lives. Like this…usis something separate. Temporary. Something to be folded up and put away like a summer duvet.
I reach out, brushing her hair gently back from her face, fingers lingering on her cheek.
Then I roll, smooth and steady, shifting her beneath me. She lets me, her thighs parting just enough to cradle my hips, her hands coming to rest on my chest. I look down at her, and she’s everything—bare, real, watching me like she’s bracing for the moment I turn to smoke.
I press my forehead to hers, close enough to feel her breath catch.
“You know this isn’t just one night,” I whisper. “You know that… right?”
She doesn’t answer straight away. Just studies my face like she’s trying to find the edges of something she doesn’t quite trust yet.
Then, softly, “I’m not sure how that’s supposed to work.”
My thumb brushes along her jaw. “Alex, it’s not complicated. I’m a single man. You’re a single woman. We date. You know… dinners. Cinema. More of this—” I thrust my hard cock against her clit, just enough to make her breath hitch. “There’s nothing unusual about that.”
Her eyes narrow slightly. “You want to date me?”
I lift a brow. “What wasn’t clear when I said, ‘That wasn’t casual for me’? When I told you, ‘I’ve wanted you for longer than I can explain’? And I didn’t just mean that night, Alex. I meant you.”
She goes quiet then. Not pulling away. Just… quiet.
Like she’s trying to absorb it, hold it up to the light, see if it casts a shadow.
I don’t press.
I just watch her.
She exhales slowly, then says, “What about my brother?”
I blink. “What about him?”
“He’s your friend,” she says, not quite meeting my eyes. “Isn’t there… I don’t know. Some kind of code?”
I laugh. “Firstly, I can take Pete any day of the week.”
