Chapter 29 Crossed lines
The cold air hits my face and I swallow hard.
Then I realize I’m still rock-hard, still aching and pulsing. I feel pathetic. I feel unhinged. A fresh surge of disgust coils through me. I drag a hand through my hair, trying to steady the sudden, frantic thrum in my chest.
Kaden shifts in front of me. He’s coming back down from the high now, breathing uneven but calmer, and when he reaches for me his fingers brush my arm...I react instantly.
My hand closes around his wrist before he can pull me closer. My grip is too tight.
He glances up at me, and I watch as his eyes sharpen. He’s not just looking, he’s assessing. Not casually or lazily, he studies me like he’s trying to understand something important.
And I hate it.
God, I hate it.
Because under that gaze I feel stripped open in a way I haven’t felt in years. Too visible, too fucking exposed.
Kaden’s brow creases slightly. “What’s—” He stops himself. The question hangs there unfinished before he finally says it. “What’s wrong?”
My grip loosens. I release his wrist immediately, like the contact burned. My eyes drift around the cooler instead...shelves of bottles, steel racks, the dull light humming overhead. Anywhere but him.
My heart is racing now. Not the sharp adrenaline from before. This is different. Faster and wilder. It feels like something tightening around my ribs, squeezing harder with every breath until the air in my lungs turns thin and insufficient. The space suddenly feels too small.
Too close.
Too much.
Like the walls are inching inward.
I take a step back, then another. The sensation grows stronger with every second, a frantic pressure clawing its way up my throat. Kaden’s voice cuts through it. “Hey...Bastian?”
There’s confusion in it now, and something else.
Concern.
That makes it worse, I can’t stand it. I turn abruptly, heading straight for the door. My stride is sharp and fast, the metal handle cold against my palm as I yank it open. The warmer air outside hits my face as I step through.
I don’t look back.
I walk through the empty club with long, rigid strides, past dark tables and silent lights and the faint smell of stale liquor. Out the front door...into the night.
Only when I reach the car do I finally slow. George is exactly where I left him, sitting behind the wheel with the quiet patience of a man who knows better than to ask questions too quickly. He glances at me the moment I open the back door. “What–”
“Don’t.” The word comes out sharper than I intend. I sink into the seat and stare straight ahead. “Drive.”
He nods and starts the engine. The car pulls away from the curb smoothly, the city lights sliding across the window beside me. In the rearview mirror I can feel George watching me, I ignore it entirely. My hands trembling in my lap as I try to figure out how I’m supposed to look Kaden Winters in the eye in five hours.
The suffocating feeling hasn't left. It’s followed me into the car, wrapping around my throat like a cold hand. I feel exposed. As if Kaden didn’t just use my mouth, but reached inside and touched the parts of me that are supposed to be dead.
I have to fix this. I have to find a way to rebuild the wall before the sun comes up, because the alternative is a death sentence.
Both the drive and the elevator ride up to my penthouse is a blur.
I don’t remember pressing the button. I don’t remember the climb up floor after floor. My reflection in the mirrored walls looks distant, like a stranger wearing my face. By the time the doors slide open, my pulse is still hammering like I’ve been running.
I walk straight inside. The place is immaculate, as always. Usually it calms me, tonight it feels hollow.
I head straight for the washroom. The moment the door shuts behind me I start stripping. Shirt first, then the rest of it, the clothes landing in a careless pile on the floor. I scoop them up and shove them straight into the washer without looking at them again.
I don’t want to see them. Don’t want to think about where they’ve been.
The shower is already running by the time I step into the glass enclosure. I turn the handle all the way to the left. The water turns scalding. Steam rises almost instantly, thickening the air, fogging the glass. It hits my skin in a punishing rush, burning hot against my shoulders and chest.
I welcome it.
Usually I’m careful. Tonight something inside me feels raw and wrong and restless, like static crawling under my skin. I grab the brush and drag it over my arms.
Hard.
It scrapes across my skin, rougher than it should be, but I don’t ease up. My jaw tightens as I scrub my shoulders, my chest, my throat....then I do it all over again.
Harder.
The water pounds down over me, hot enough to sting, but it still doesn’t feel like enough. My breathing grows shallow. I press the brush harder against my skin, dragging it down my stomach, across my ribs. Usually there’s a voice somewhere in the back of my mind reminding me to slow down.
Don’t press too hard.
Don’t leave marks.
Be careful.
Tonight that voice is nowhere to be found. All I can hear is the echo of my own pulse and the memory that refuses to leave my head.
Cold air....Kaden’s hand in my hair. The way he looked at me. I grit my teeth and scrub even harder, scraping over skin that’s already starting to burn under the heat. The steam thickens until the entire shower is a blur of white. My chest rises and falls sharply. I brace one hand against the tile wall and let the water beat against the back of my neck, hot enough to sting.
Still not enough....
Nothing feels like enough. The city outside is just starting to lighten with the faintest hint of dawn by the time I finally stop moving. My skin is flushed and raw in places, red where the brush dragged too hard. Only then do I realize what I’ve done.
I stand there under the relentless heat, breathing slowly, watching the water run down the drain. And for the first time since I walked out of that cooler, I feel exhausted.