Updated Apr 11, 2026 • ~7 min read
Chapter 12: She Breaks
Sloane
That evening, after we’ve eaten dinner in a silence that’s thick with unspoken want, after we’ve cleaned up and tended the fire and gone through all the motions of our nightly routine while very carefully not touching each other, I finally break.
“What are we doing?” I ask, and my voice sounds too loud in the quiet cabin.
Jackson looks up from where he’s been sharpening his knife for the third time tonight—nervous energy, I realize, the same energy that has me reorganizing my already-organized belongings and checking the fire that doesn’t need checking.
“What do you mean?” he asks, but there’s a wariness in his eyes that says he knows exactly what I mean.
“This.” I gesture between us, at the charged air that’s been crackling ever since that kiss, since we crossed a line we both knew we shouldn’t cross. “Us. The kissing. What are we doing?”
He sets down the knife with careful precision. “I don’t know. What do you want to be doing?”
It’s such a careful non-answer, such a deliberate deflection, and it makes me want to scream and laugh and kiss him all at once.
“I want to understand the parameters,” I say, falling back into lawyer mode because it’s safer than being honest. “I want to know what this is so we can… manage expectations.”
“Manage expectations.” He almost smiles, but there’s something sad in it. “You sound like you’re negotiating a contract.”
“Maybe I am. Maybe that’s the only way I know how to handle this.”
“Okay.” He leans back in his chair, and I can see him thinking, processing, trying to find words for something that defies easy definition. “Here’s what I think: we’re snowed in. We’re stuck here for at least another few days, maybe a week. We’ve both acknowledged there’s… attraction. Chemistry. Whatever you want to call it.”
“Okay.” My heart is beating too fast.
“And we’re both adults who are capable of making decisions about what we want.” He pauses. “The weather might not clear. We might die out here. Might as well enjoy what time we have.”
“That’s dark,” I say, but I’m smiling despite myself.
“I’m practical.” He shrugs. “We’re living on the edge of survival. Might as well acknowledge it.”
I should be horrified by his bluntness, by the casual way he’s discussing the very real possibility of our deaths. But instead, I find it… refreshing. Honest. No pretense, no games, just raw truth.
“So what are you proposing?” I ask. “Survival sex?”
The words hang in the air between us, crude and honest, and I watch color creep up his neck. It’s the first time I’ve seen him blush, and it’s oddly endearing.
“If you want.” His voice is rough, careful. “I’m saying… we’re here. We want each other. We’re both going to go crazy if we keep pretending we don’t. So maybe we stop pretending.”
“Stop pretending,” I repeat, testing the words.
“Yeah.” He leans forward, his elbows on his knees, his dark eyes intense. “No games. No expectations beyond what we have right now. Physical only. When the blizzard ends and you leave, this ends. Clean break.”
Physical only.
The words should feel clinical, cold, but instead they feel like permission—permission to want him without guilt, to take what I need without worrying about the future, to be selfish in a way I’ve never allowed myself to be.
“Physical only,” I say slowly. “No feelings.”
“No feelings.”
We’re both lying, and we both know it. You can’t share what we’ve shared over the past ten days—the vulnerability, the understanding, the quiet intimacy of survival—and pretend feelings aren’t involved. But this fiction we’re building, this careful framework of rules and boundaries, is the only thing making this possible.
So I’m willing to lie if he is.
“I want that,” I say, and my voice comes out steadier than I feel. “I want you. This. Whatever we’re calling it. I want it.”
Something flares in his eyes—heat and relief and want all mixed together—and he stands slowly, moving toward me with that predatory grace that makes my breath catch.
“You’re sure?” he asks, and he’s close enough now that I can feel the heat radiating off his body. “Once we cross this line, Sloane, there’s no going back to pretending.”
“I’m sure.” I reach up and cup his face, feeling the scratch of his beard against my palm, the warmth of his skin. “I don’t want to pretend anymore.”
“Neither do I.”
He kisses me, and it’s different from this afternoon—slower, more deliberate, like he’s taking his time to explore and savor rather than just consuming. His hands slide into my hair, angling my head exactly how he wants it, and I melt into him with a sigh that’s part relief, part surrender.
This is what I’ve been wanting for days. This heat, this connection, this feeling of being wanted and seen and desired by someone who understands me in a way no one else ever has.
When we break apart, we’re both breathing hard, and his eyes are so dark they’re almost black.
“Ground rules,” he says, and his voice is rough with desire. “We’re smart about this. We’re careful. And when you leave—”
“We say goodbye,” I finish. “Clean break. No drama, no expectations, no promises we can’t keep.”
“Exactly.”
It should feel clinical, businesslike, but instead it feels like the most honest agreement I’ve ever made. We’re not pretending this is a fairy tale or that we can somehow make it work despite living in completely different worlds. We’re just two people acknowledging that sometimes survival means taking what joy you can find, even if it’s temporary.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Deal.”
“Deal.” He kisses me again, softer this time, almost sweet. “But not tonight.”
I pull back, surprised. “What?”
“Not tonight,” he repeats, and there’s something in his expression that makes my chest ache. “Tonight you’re going to go to bed and think about whether this is really what you want. Tomorrow, if you still want it, then we move forward. But I need you to be sure, Sloane. I need you to know what you’re getting into.”
“I’m already sure—”
“Tomorrow.” His thumb brushes across my lower lip. “One more night to think about it. To be certain. Because once we do this, once we go there, it’s going to change everything between us.”
He’s right, and I hate him a little for being the responsible one when all I want is to throw caution to the wind and drag him to bed right now.
“Fine,” I say. “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” he agrees, and then he steps back, putting distance between us again, and I immediately miss his warmth.
I go to my bed, climbing under the blankets that still smell like him, and watch him settle into his chair by the fire like this is any other night. Like we didn’t just negotiate the terms of a no-strings-attached physical arrangement. Like my entire body isn’t still humming with want and need and the memory of his kisses.
“Goodnight, Sloane.”
“Goodnight, Jackson.”
I close my eyes and try to sleep, try not to think about tomorrow, try not to imagine what it’s going to feel like when he finally touches me the way I’ve been craving.
But it’s impossible.
All I can think about is him—his hands, his mouth, his body pressed against mine. All I can think about is the way he looked at me like I was something precious, the way he kissed me like I was oxygen, the way he’s giving me one more chance to be smart even though we both know I’m going to choose him anyway.
Tomorrow, I think. Tomorrow we stop pretending.
Tomorrow I get to have him, even if it’s only for a little while.
And I fall asleep with a smile on my face and heat in my blood and the certainty that whatever happens next, I’m not going to regret it.
Not even when it ends.
Not even when leaving him breaks my heart.
Because some things are worth the pain.
And Jackson Torres is definitely one of them.
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