The Fire 🔥 Between Us

Chapter Three: The Morning After

Morning slipped through the blinds like it was trying to steal a secret. The light stretched across the bed, across my skin, warm and nosy. The house was too quiet, that kind of stillness that comes after everything important has already happened. Todd lay beside me, one arm crooked behind his head, the other draped where my body had been before I rolled away. His breathing was deep, slow, steady.

I lay there for a while, watching him, trying to figure out when the world had shifted. The air still smelled like us, like skin and coffee and a decision we weren’t supposed to make. The night had burned through both of us, and yet somehow the silence that followed was louder than any sound we’d made.

He looked peaceful. I wasn’t.

My mind was racing with what came next. What this meant. What I’d done. What we’d done.

I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake him. The floor was cold against my feet. My turquoise headband was tossed on the nightstand, my clothes in a pile that told too much truth. I wrapped one of his shirts around me, soft and warm and smelling faintly of his cologne, and went to the kitchen.

Coffee first. Always coffee.

As the pot hissed to life, I leaned on the counter and tried to slow my thoughts. Every nerve still hummed. My body remembered him in ways my mind couldn’t organize. I didn’t know what it was about this man that threw me so far off balance. Maybe it was the way he carried his quiet like it was something holy. Maybe it was how he saw me—not the business owner, not the influencer, not the boss—but me.

The steam rose from the cup, curling in the light.

I didn’t hear him come in. I just felt it. The air changed before he spoke.

He leaned against the doorway, watching me. Shirtless, muscles coiled but calm, eyes darker than the coffee I was holding. There was something dangerous in the way he looked at me, something that said we’d already gone too far to pretend.

He didn’t say a word, and neither did I. We just stood there, letting the morning breathe for us.

He moved closer, slow and sure. His fingers brushed my arm as he passed behind me to grab a mug. The touch was casual, but it hit like a current. I could feel the pulse of last night still alive between us, just waiting to catch fire again.

I wanted to tell him to go. I wanted to tell him to stay.

Instead, I handed him the coffee. He took it, his fingers grazing mine for just a second too long.

He finally spoke, voice still rough from sleep, low enough to make the walls lean in. He said something about how I was thinking too loud. About how he hadn’t slept because every time he closed his eyes, he still saw me.

I didn’t answer out loud, but he was right. I hadn’t slept either.

The way he looked at me made it hard to breathe. He wasn’t smiling this time. There was no teasing, no charm, just that quiet certainty that scared the hell out of me. Because this wasn’t a game anymore.

He came closer, took the mug from my hand, set it down on the counter, and stood so close I could feel the heat coming off his body. My pulse picked up.

I thought about everything waiting outside that door—customers, employees, messages, my whole other life—and none of it mattered in that second. He reached up and brushed his thumb along my jaw, tilting my face just slightly.

I didn’t flinch. I didn’t pull away.

He didn’t kiss me. Not yet. He just looked at me like he was memorizing something important.

Then, softly, he said I was trouble.

And I thought, so was he.

I told him to go practice, that he had tournaments to win, that I had orders to fill. But neither of us moved. The space between us was small, and shrinking by the second. His hand slid to the back of my neck, not rough, not demanding, just a quiet claim.

I let him.

The kiss that followed wasn’t wild or rushed. It was slow, deliberate, almost cruel in how much it didn’t hurry. The kind of kiss that says you’ll be thinking about it for the rest of the day. The kind that leaves something burning just beneath the skin.

When he finally stepped back, my knees didn’t feel like they belonged to me.

He said something about seeing me later, about wanting to keep whatever this was quiet until we figured it out. His tone was calm, but I could hear the edge in it, the same fear that was crawling through me.

I nodded. I told him I’d see him later too, but my voice didn’t sound steady.

When he left, the house didn’t feel empty. It felt charged, like he’d left part of himself behind in the air.

I tried to focus on work. The boutique orders. A delivery of oils coming in. But my hands shook every time I picked up my phone. He’d already texted me before I even sat down—just a single message:

Thinking about you.

I stared at the words until they blurred.

I told myself to breathe. Told myself this was just heat. Just chemistry. Just two people who needed a distraction. But deep down, I already knew better.

The day dragged. Every sound outside made me jump. Every car that passed, I thought it was him. Every time my phone buzzed, my heart kicked like it was trying to escape.

By late afternoon, the sun was high and the temperature had climbed, but I still felt cold inside. The rush of last night was gone, replaced by a kind of quiet panic.

He was dangerous for me. Not in the way people mean when they talk about bad men, but in the way that some fires are dangerous—beautiful, hypnotic, and utterly impossible to control.

The world had a way of finding out about things like this. Secrets like ours didn’t stay hidden.

When my phone rang again, I didn’t recognize the number. I let it go to voicemail, but a few seconds later, a text came through.

We need to talk.

No name. No clue. Just that.

I sat there staring at the screen, the coffee cold in my hand, the house full of memories that hadn’t even had time to fade yet.

Whatever this was between me and Todd, it wasn’t over.

It was just starting to cost something.

And for the first time, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to pay.

The fire between us wasn’t dying—it was learning how to breathe in daylight.