Chapter 11

William’s POV

Steam curled around me like a veil as I stepped out of the shower, towel forgotten somewhere behind me. I ran a hand through my damp hair, still half-lost in my thoughts—until I saw her.

Kate..

Standing in my room like a deer caught in headlights… except her eyes weren’t filled with fear.They were dark. Wide. Flickering with something else entirely.

Want.

The air between us shifted. Thickened.

I stopped in my tracks, every muscle tightening. Time stilled.

Her lips parted, and her breath hitched as her gaze swept down my body. She wasn’t trying to hide it. Not this time. Her eyes roamed, tracing my bare chest, lingering too long on the sharp lines of my abdomen, before darting away when she caught herself—too late.

She saw everything.

And she wasn’t running.

Not yet.

“Kate,” I said, low and rough, her name dragging across my throat like gravel. My voice didn’t sound like my own. It sounded like the man I was trying not to be.

“I—” She swallowed, voice shaky. “I thought you weren’t home…”

I could see it—feel it—pouring off her in waves. That lingering tension from whatever happened tonight. Her dress clung to her like a second skin, wrinkled slightly from the car ride, straps slipping from her shoulder as if begging to fall. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes glassy, and she looked a little unsteady, like maybe she’d had a drink—or maybe I was the one intoxicating her now.

God help me.

Everything inside me was screaming.

Get a grip.

Put on a damn towel.

Tell her to go.

Lock the damn door next time.

But I didn’t move. Not right away.

I stood there, fully exposed, while the silence stretched between us like a fuse waiting for a spark. My skin prickled under her gaze. My blood thick with need and restraint. And the look in her eyes?

It nearly ruined me.

She wanted to touch.

She wanted to stay.

And fuck me… I wanted the same.

But I couldn’t. I shouldn’t. She was my friend’s daughter. Still too young. Still too off-limits. Still the one girl I could never, ever touch without setting the whole damn world on fire.

So why did I want to let it burn?

I reached for the towel—finally—but not before catching that flicker in her eyes when I moved.

She was staring again.

This wasn’t the soft, innocent Kate I’d met on her first day. This version of her had heat in her gaze, a raw hunger she didn’t even try to mask. It was dangerous. She was dangerous. And still, I couldn’t look away.

I wrapped the towel around my waist, jaw tight, throat thick.

“You shouldn’t be in here,” I said. But it didn’t come out stern—it came out hoarse. Weak. Like I was trying to convince myself more than her.

“I know,” she whispered.

She didn’t move.

My pulse thundered in my ears. My hands twitched at my sides, itching to touch. To test the boundaries. But there were no safe boundaries with her—not anymore. I’d already lost the upper hand the moment I stepped out of that bathroom and saw her in my space, looking at me like I was a man, not her goddamn guardian.

She was too close to the bed now. Too close to the edge I’d been avoiding since the day she walked into my house with wide eyes and a suitcase.

I took a breath. It didn’t help.

“What are you doing in here, Kate?” I asked, voice lower than I intended.

She opened her mouth, then closed it, swallowing hard. “I just… wanted to see you.”

That undid me a little.

Wanted to see me. Not needed something. Not accidental. She came here because she wanted to.

I stepped toward her.

Not enough to close the space.

Just enough to feel her presence pull tighter around me like gravity.

“You shouldn’t want that,” I said. “Not with me.”

Her chin lifted. Brave. Stupid. Bold.

“Why not?” she asked softly. “Because I make you feel something you don’t want to admit?”

I froze.

The words hung there between us—like a challenge. Like a truth she’d pulled straight from my chest and laid bare in the dark.

I should’ve shut it down. I should’ve laughed, turned away, told her to go to bed and never come into my room again.

But instead… I said nothing.

Because she was right.

She was fucking right.

My control was hanging by a thread. And every second she looked at me like that—hungry, curious, brave—it frayed a little more.

I clenched my jaw. “Go to bed, Kate.”

Her lips parted like she wanted to argue, but she didn’t. She turned slowly, quietly, and walked toward the door, her scent trailing behind her like some kind of twisted perfume designed to torture me.

And right before she stepped out, she turned back to look at me over her shoulder—eyes dark, voice barely a whisper.

“I think about you, too.”

Then she was gone.

And I was left in a room filled with steam… and fire...

The door clicked shut behind her, but her words… they didn’t leave with her.

“I think about you, too.”

God.

What the hell was I doing?

I stood there frozen in the center of the room, a drop of water trailing down the side of my neck and over my chest—but it wasn’t from the shower anymore. I was burning from the inside out.

That girl was driving me insane.

No, not a girl. A woman.

A woman who had just looked me dead in the eye, standing in my room after midnight, and confessed exactly what I’d been trying to deny for weeks.

She wanted me.

And I wanted her. No matter how hard I tried to fight it, bury it, choke it into silence—I wanted her.

But wanting her didn’t make it right.

I turned away from the door and gripped the edge of the dresser, muscles tensing as I fought the urge to chase her down the hall, to drag her back into this room, lay her out across the sheets and—

No.

That was the fucking problem.

Because I could see it all too clearly—her mouth on mine, her legs wrapping around me, her breathy moans tangled in my ears while I kissed every inch of her soft skin like a starving man. And goddamn if the image didn’t make me hard just thinking about it.

I slammed the drawer shut.

I’d spent the last week away from this house, trying to forget her. Trying to remind myself that this was wrong. That she was off-limits. That she was my friend’s daughter and barely old enough to be making choices like this.

But then I walked in tonight and saw her sitting on my damn couch in that dress—short, tight, practically made of sin. She’d dressed like that for him, hadn’t she? That Jeremy kid. But the way she’d looked at me told a different story.

Every glance. Every breath. Every flicker of heat in her eyes—it was for me.

I should’ve told her to get out the moment I saw her in my room. I should’ve put a wall up so high she couldn’t climb it even in heels.

But I didn’t.

I let her see me. All of me.

And now she’d seen something she was never supposed to—something in me that even I was afraid of. That barely-contained, hungry, possessive part of me that didn’t give a damn about age or rules or friendship or fathers.

The part that wanted to claim her.

To own her.

And if she ever gave me the green light, I wasn’t sure I could stop myself.

I sighed and dragged a hand down my face, then poured a glass of scotch—neat, burning smooth. It didn’t help.

Nothing would.

Because Kate wasn’t just in my house anymore.

She was under my skin.

And the more I tried to stay away…

…the closer I came to crossing a line I could never uncross.