Rafe swore he wasn’t gonna let it happen again. He told himself it was a one-time thing—the late nights, the accidental touches, the way you melted under him like you were made just for him. It wasn’t supposed to mean anything. But it always did.

He ran a hand down his face as he stared at you, still tangled in his sheets, your bare skin kissed by the soft glow of the bedside lamp. Your eyes fluttered shut, chest rising and falling so gently, like you didn’t even know how much damage you were doing to him just by being there.

Touch my body tender, ’cause the feeling makes me weak.

The line echoed in his head because that’s exactly what you did. You touched him like he was something soft, something breakable, and that terrified him more than anything.

Rafe sat on the edge of the bed, head in his hands, trying to piece together how the hell he let it happen again. How he let you crawl into his bed like it was your place—like you belonged there. Like you belonged to him.

How can we go back to being friends when we just shared a bed?

He couldn’t. You couldn’t. But you’d try. You always did. You’d both wake up tomorrow, pretend you weren’t tangled in each other last night, pretend he wasn’t memorizing the way your lips parted when you sighed his name.

Rafe still remembered last December, the first time you ended up in his bed. You were laying on his chest, tracing circles over his skin, and he was too scared to breathe—afraid you’d lift your head, realize what you were doing, and leave. He’d never admit it, but that night wrecked him.

How can you look at me and pretend I’m someone you’ve never met?

That’s what you’d do in the morning. Look at him like none of this ever happened. Like you didn’t know every scar on his body. Like he wasn’t the one who knew how to make you fall apart.

And Rafe? He’d let you. Because loving you quietly hurt less than losing you completely.