chapter ninety four

Weeks drifted by after the surprise party soft, golden weeks filled with the kind of quiet that Adrian once believed he would never earn again. The house that had once echoed with tension now felt alive laughter in the kitchen, the patter of Elias’s feet on the stairs, the low hum of Gabriel’s voice when he read in the evenings. It was peace not the weak temporary kind that came between storms, but something deeper, truer.

Adrian woke every morning with Gabriel’s warmth pressed against him, the faint sunlight spilling through the curtains, their breaths falling into rhythm. Some mornings they didn’t rush to get out of bed. Some mornings, they just stayed talking in whispers, fingers tracing idle paths across skin, learning again how to touch without fear of losing each other.

For a man who had lived half his life in pursuit of control, Adrian had never known the gentleness of surrender — not until Gabriel.

Their romance, once forged in secrecy and shadows, had evolved into someth