Chapter 97\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tristan\u2019s POV\u00a0<\/p>\n
42%\u00a0<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t pull out of Athena immediately. I stayed buried inside her, my forehod pressed against hers as I tried to catch my breath.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears, and for a moment I couldn\u2019t think about anything except how right this felt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
How terrifyingly, impossibly right it felt again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I kissed her forehead gently, tasting the salt of her sweat, before slowly lifting her in my arms. She was boneless against me, her head tucked into my\u00a0<\/p>\n
neck as I carried her to her room.\u00a0<\/p>\n
www\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her breathing was already evening out, exhaustion taking over, but I couldn\u2019t bring myself to leave her there alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I slipped into bed beside her, pulling the covers over both of us, and she immediately curled into my side like she belonged there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
No matter what either of us said, we both knew this wasn\u2019t what siblings did Siblings didn\u2019t lose control on kitchen counters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Siblings didn\u2019t touch each other the way we just had, didn\u2019t make the sounds we\u2019d made, didn\u2019t fit together like two pieces of the same broken puzzle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Siblings did\u00a0<\/p>\n
fuck twice in a roll.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When she\u2019d told me this morning that she only saw me as an elder brother, had made a decision. I was going to let her go. I was going to keep my distance and treat her exactly like Orion\u2019s little sister and nothing more.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But then she kept doing things that made it impossible to keep that promise. The way she looked at me during dinner, the way she\u2019d jumped to defend me at the race, the way she\u2019d gotten so angry when I called myself her brother.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Every action, every glance, every breath she took seemed designed to unrave my resolve.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t someone who went back on his word. I prided myself on being a man who meant what he said. But with Athena, everything was different. She\u00a0<\/p>\n
made me different.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Made my wolf feel whole again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I pulled her closer, feeling her warm breath against my chest, and whispered goodnight to her already sleeping form.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2026..\u00a0<\/p>\n
I woke up reaching for someone who wasn\u2019t there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My hand moved across the sheets automatically, searching for a familiar body the way it had every morning for the past four years. It was a habit I couldn\u2019t break, even though I knew the bed would be empty.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jess.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The name hit me like a physical blow, and suddenly I was fully awake, my het racing for all the wrong reasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What was today\u2019s date?\u00a0<\/p>\n
My hands were shaking as I grabbed my phone from the nightstand, dreading what I might see on the screen. When the numbers came into focus, my\u00a0<\/p>\n
1\/2\u00a0<\/p>\n
19:39 Tue, Jan 6 T\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 97\u00a0<\/p>\n
stomach dropped to the floor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Six months. Today marked exactly six months since I\u2019d lost them both.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Shit. Shit, shit, shit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
I bolted upright, panic clawing at my throat. How could I have forgotten? He could I have been so stupid, so selfish, so completely worthless?\u00a0<\/p>\n
I could hear the shower running in Athena\u2019s bathroom, and the sound made e feel even sicker.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I had to get out of here before she finished, before I had to look her in the ee and pretend last night hadn\u2019t been the biggest mistake of my life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
42%\u00a0<\/p>\n
How the hell was I supposed to face her now? I\u2019d had sex with another woman in the same kitchen where I used to make love to Jess. On the\u00a0<\/p>\n
anniversary of her death. God, what kind of monster was I?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Moving as quietly as possible, I slipped out of Athena\u2019s bed and grabbed my othes from where they\u2019d been scattered across her floor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The sight of them there, mixed with hers, made my chest tight with shame and something else I didn\u2019t want to name.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I practically ran to my own bathroom, turning the water as hot as it would go and scrubbing at my skin like I could wash away what I\u2019d done. But no amount of soap could clean the guilt from my conscience.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ten minutes later, I was dressed and heading for the door, my keys clutched in my sweaty palm.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t call out to Athena, didn\u2019t leave a note, didn\u2019t do any of the things a decent man would do after spending the night with a woman.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Because I wasn\u2019t decent. I was a cheating piece of garbage who\u2019d dishonored the memory of the only woman I\u2019d ever truly loved.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Memories Drifted Into Soft Silence by Kyx Frost 97 Chapter 97\u00a0 Tristan\u2019s POV\u00a0 42%\u00a0 I didn\u2019t pull out of Athena […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-second-gear-of-love-novel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}