“It’s not—” She swallowed hard. “It’s not about acting like a child.”
Jonnas nodded once immediately. “I know.” Relief hit her so hard she almost let out the breath she was holding, because God, she’d been scared of him misunderstanding that part.
“It’s more like—” Her cheeks burned. “Feeling cared for enough that I can stop holding everything together all the time.” Jonnas’s hand slid possessively into her hair.
“You spend a lot of time holding yourself together, don’t you?”
The quiet understanding in his voice nearly broke her again. “Yes.” And suddenly she was talking, really talking to him. Words were pouring out faster than she could stop them. “I’ve always had to be responsible.” Her voice shook slightly. “I worked through nursing school. Paid my own bills. Took extra shifts. Handled everything myself because if I didn’t, no one else would.” Jonnas listened without interrupting once, and that alone made emotion clog her throat.
“And after a while—” Dani laughed weakly. “You get so used to surviving that you forget how to let someone help you.”
Jonnas’s expression softened painfully. “Baby girl.” The tenderness in his voice shattered something inside her.
Dani looked up at him helplessly. “Then you came along and started opening doors and bringing me soup and telling me to sleep, and now my brain doesn’t know how to handle any of it.”
One side of his mouth lifted slightly. “That sounds serious.”
“It is serious.”
“You know what I hear?” he asked.
“What?” she breathed.
“A woman who’s exhausted of handling everything on her own.” The simple honesty of it made her eyes sting again. Jonnas pulled her closer, carefully, until her forehead rested against his chest. “You don’t have to earn care from me, Dani.” Her entire body went still, because that was the thing she’d never known how to ask for. Care without conditions, without performance, and without proving she deserved it first.
A tear slipped free before she could stop it. Jonnas kissed the top of her head softly.“You know what I want tonight?” he murmured. Dani shook her head slightly against him. “To put you in one of my shirts.” His hand moved slowly up and down her back. “Tuck you into bed.” His voice lowered further. “And hold you while you sleep.” Her knees nearly buckled. No one had ever offered her softness like that before. Not without expecting something in return immediately.
“Jonnas.”
“Hm?”
“You make me want things that I have no right to want.”
His arms tightened around her instantly. “Good.”
Dani looked up at him shakily. “That wasn’t supposed to be reassuring.”
“It is to me,” he admitted. The honesty in his expression stole the air from her lungs because he meant every word, and for the first time in her life, Dani found herself wondering what it might feel like to stop surviving long enough to simply be loved.
Dani was absolutely not prepared for how intimate putting on one of Jonnas’s shirts would feel. It should’ve been simple because it was just clothes. But standing in his bathroom,wrapped in soft black cotton that smelled like him while her hair was still damp from the shower, felt dangerously close to something real—something permanent.
She stared at herself in the mirror for a long moment. The shirt swallowed her whole, hanging off one shoulder and brushing the tops of her thighs. Her cheeks were still pink from the hot water—and maybe from the way Jonnas looked at her before she disappeared into the bathroom. Like he already knew exactly what she’d look like naked and soapy in the shower. Her stomach fluttered. Pregnancy hormones were ruining her life—or maybe Jonnas Black was.
A soft knock sounded at the bathroom door. “You okay in there, baby girl?” There it was again—that warm, low voice and the nickname that she had slowly gotten used to. Dani closed her eyes briefly before opening the door, and immediately forgot how breathing worked.
Jonnas stood there in gray sweatpants and a black t-shirt that stretched tightly across his chest. His dark hair looked damp from his own shower, and without the suits and ties and polished administrator persona, he somehow looked even more dangerous—more real.
His eyes dragged slowly over her the second the door opened, and heat flooded Dani instantly. “You’re staring again,” she whispered.
“Can you blame me?” The roughness in his voice made her thighs press together instinctively. Something dark flickered through his expression before he stepped closer slowly. “That shirt looks good on you.”
Dani’s pulse jumped. “It probably costs more than my rent.”
His hand settled lightly against her hip. “There you go again.”
“What?”
“Making yourself smaller.” The quiet correction wrapped around her chest tightly. He seemed to notice everything.Jonnas brushed his thumb slowly beneath the hem of the shirt resting against her thigh, and Dani’s breath caught hard.