I'M NOT READY

CHAPTER 25

FREYA'S POV

We were now inside the elevator, and I could feel him without even looking at him.

That was the thing about Caelan. He didn't have to touch me for my body to know he was there. His warmth bled through the space between us like heat from an open flame, and no matter how hard I stared at the climbing numbers above the elevator doors, I couldn't stop feeling him.

His arm brushed mine.

Just that. Just the barest graze of skin, and my breath hitched so loud I was sure he heard it.

I felt him turn to look at me.

"Freya."

God, the way he said my name. Low and deliberate, like he had all the time in the world. Like he knew exactly what it did to me and was choosing to do it anyway.

I turned to look at him, and that was my mistake.

Because the moment my eyes met his, he closed the distance between us and kissed me.

It wasn't soft. It wasn't the kind of kiss you eased into. It was the kind that started in the middle — hungry and certain, his hand cupping my face like he'd been thinking about this exact moment for a very long time. I grabbed the front of his shirt on instinct, my fingers twisting into the fabric, and he made a low sound against my mouth that went straight through me.

Fuck.

I kissed him back. Harder than I meant to. My back hit the elevator wall and I didn't care, because his body followed and the solid warmth of him pressed against me was the best thing I'd felt in longer than I could remember.

The elevator dinged.

We broke apart, both of us breathing unevenly. His eyes were dark when he looked at me, his thumb dragging slowly across my lower lip like he was memorising the shape of it.

Then he stepped back, and I nearly reached for him.

He pressed his fingerprint to the door and pushed it open, and I followed him inside on legs that felt slightly unsteady.

I let my eyes move around the apartment while I tried to pull myself together. Bare walls. A dining table with chairs. No warmth, no personality — just clean lines and empty corners.

"Do you actually live here?" I asked. "It looks like a show apartment that no one ever bought."

He let out a quiet breath of a laugh. "I work a lot. Never had the time."

"That's a sorry excuse."

"Probably." He came to stand behind me, so close I could feel the heat of him again. I kept my eyes ahead, watching our faint reflection in the dark glass of the window as his hand reached up and gathered my hair to one side, exposing the curve of my neck. "Maybe you can help me fix it."

His lips touched the side of my neck.

Just barely. A ghost of a thing. But my eyes fell shut and my head dropped to the side before I could stop it, giving him more.

"Caelan…"

"Mm." He kissed the spot again, slower this time. His hands settled at my waist, pulling me back against him, and I felt him — all of him — and the breath left my body completely.

He was so warm. So solid. And he smelled like cedar and something darker underneath, something that made my every muscle in me knot low in my belly, restless and wanting.

His fingers found the zipper at the back of my top.

And that's when it happened.

It wasn't a thought. It was more like a sensation — cold and sudden, flooding in behind the warmth. Rowan's face. The way he'd looked at me that first time. Not like I was something to be treasured. Like I was something to be used and set aside when he was done.

I stepped forward.

Out of Caelan's hands. Out of his warmth.

I hugged my arms around myself, staring at the dark window, at the blurry ghost of my own reflection staring back at me.

"Freya." His voice was different now. Still low, but careful.

"I'm sorry." I shook my head, my voice came out smaller than I wanted it to. "I want to. I do, I really— I just." I exhaled hard. "I'm not ready. I thought I was but I'm not."

The silence stretched.

I braced for it. The frustration. The fine, whatever. The quiet shift in the air that men got when you stopped being what they needed you to be in that moment.

It didn't come.

Instead I felt him step around me, moving to my side so I could see him without having to turn. He didn't reach for me. He just stood there, hands loose at his sides, watching my face with an expression I didn't have a name for.

"Okay," he said.

I looked at him. "Just okay?"

"Just okay." No edge to it. "You don't have to explain yourself to me."

"I want to," I said, and I surprised myself by meaning it. "It's not you. I want you to know that. It's just—" I pressed my lips together. "Someone made me feel like what I wanted didn't matter. Like my body wasn't mine to say no with. And I think that's still…" I touched my sternum without thinking. "Still sitting here."

Caelan was quiet for a moment that felt too long.

Then he reached out, slowly enough that I could see it coming, and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers barely grazed my cheek.

"Then we wait," he said. "It's as simple as that."

But it wasn't that simple. Because even as I stepped away from his touch, I wanted nothing more than for him to make love to me. A Love making so intense that it would win over the memories of our first night.

I wanted to tell him I was falling in love with him. That I saw him in a different light.

But I didn't.

Instead, I searched his face. I was good at reading people — three years of navigating pack politics had made sure of that. I knew how to find the lie behind the patience, the irritation dressed up as understanding.

There was nothing there. Just him, steady and unhurried, like he had all the time in the world and was perfectly willing to spend it waiting for me.

Something cracked open in my chest. Quietly. Deeply.

"You're not what I expected," I admitted.

The corner of his mouth lifted. "What did you expect?"

"I don't know." I looked at him. "Less. I expected less."

He held my gaze for a beat, something warm and unreadable moving behind his eyes. Then he exhaled and nodded toward the kitchen.

"Come on. Let me make you something to drink." He started to move, then glanced back at me over his shoulder. "And you can keep telling me how depressing my apartment is. I could tell you were holding back."

A laugh came out of me before I could catch it. Real and sudden, loosening something in my chest that had been wound tight all evening.

I followed him.

And I thought, not for the first time, that this man was going to be very, very dangerous for me.

Not because he would hurt me.

But because I was starting to think he wouldn't.