Chapter 2: Last night I was inside you
The scent of sizzling bacon and fresh coffee seeped under the living room door, pulling Bella from a thin, restless sleep. For a disoriented second, she didn’t know where she was. The TV was off. The knitted blanket was tangled around her legs. Early morning light, pale and dusty, slanted through the bay window.
Then it all crashed back. The dark room. The muscular arms. The voice saying her name.
Joseph.
She sat up, a low groan escaping her. Every muscle felt stiff, but it was a dull, superficial ache compared to the raw churn in her stomach. She could still smell him on her skin, a phantom scent beneath the wool of the blanket. She pushed it off.
She forced herself up, padding barefoot across the cool hardwood floor. She paused at the archway to the kitchen, hidden by the curve of the wall.
Joseph stood at the stove, his back to her. He wore a grey henley and loose sleep pants, his black hair still damp from a shower. He moved with a quiet efficiency, flipping bacon in a cast-iron skillet. The muscles in his shoulders shifted under the fabric.
She remembered the exact feel of those shoulders under her hands, the solidity of them. A hot, shameful curl of desire tightened low in her belly, quickly followed by a wave of nausea.
She must have made a sound, a breath, because his movements hitched. Just for a fraction of a second. Then he continued, but his posture was rigid, as if he knew she was there.
“Uh,” he began, not turning around. His voice was carefully neutral, a stranger’s voice. “I uh, made breakfast. If you’re hungry.”
The mundane offer hung in the air, absurd and devastating. I made breakfast. Last night I was inside you and now I’m making bacon.
“Yeah,” she managed, her own voice rusty. “Thanks.”
She stepped into the room. The kitchen was warm, sunlit, exactly as it always was—the copper pots hanging, the herb garden on the sill, the worn farmhouse table where they’d shared a hundred meals. It felt like a museum of a life that had ended while she wasn’t looking.
He finally turned, clutching a spatula. Their eyes met.
His bright blue eyes were shadowed, the skin underneath slightly bruised from lack of sleep. He looked at her, and for a single, unguarded moment, it was all there—the same shock, the same horrible, mesmerising recognition.
“Sleep okay?” he asked, the question a stark, painful formality.
On the couch, alone, replaying every second I spent in your bed? “Fine,” she lied.
The sound of heavy, cheerful footsteps thumped down the stairs. “Something smells incredible!” Sam’s voice, loud and sunny, filled the hall.
Joseph turned back to the stove so fast it was a flinch. Bella’s body tensed, every nerve ending screaming.
Sam bounded into the kitchen. He was dressed in joggers and a faded university t-shirt, his blonde hair sticking up in adorable tufts. He beamed at Bella, his brown eyes crinkling. “There she is! I came down last night but you were dead to the world on the couch. Jet lag monster got you, huh?”
He crossed the room in three strides and kissed her. His lips were soft, familiar. She made herself kiss him back, forcing her hands to come up and rest lightly on his arms. His kiss tasted of mint toothpaste. It was clean, simple.
“Morning,” she whispered against his lips.
“Morning,” Sam said, pulling back to grin at Joseph’s back. “Since when do you make a full spread, chef?”
Joseph shrugged, a tight roll of his shoulders. The bacon hissed violently as he poked at it. “Felt like it. Someone’s got to feed the savages.”
“You’re a prince.” Sam pulled out a chair at the table, the legs scraping loudly. “Sit, babe. Let the man work his magic.”
Bella sat. She watched Joseph move. He moved differently than Sam—with a sort of contained, economical grace. Sam was all loose limbs and enthusiastic energy. Joseph was a coiled spring. She saw his hand, the one holding the spatula, clenched so tightly his knuckles were white.
He plated the food with a grim focus: bacon, scrambled eggs, toast golden and buttered. He set a plate in front of Sam, then one in front of Bella.
“Thanks, Joe,” Sam said, already digging in. “This is killer.”
Joseph grunted in reply. He brought his own plate over and sat down at the head of the table, as far from Bella as possible. The triangle felt all wrong. Sam, cheerful and oblivious, was the base. Bella and Joseph, silently screaming, were the unstable points.
“So,” Sam said around a mouthful of eggs, “how was the rest of your trip? You kinda went quiet at the end.”
Bella focused on cutting her bacon. The knife screeched on the ceramic. “It was good. Just… busy. Lots of last-minute stuff with my family.”
“I missed you,” Sam said, and the raw sweetness in his voice was a knife to her heart. He reached under the table and squeezed her knee.
Across the table, Joseph took a sudden, long drink of his orange juice.
“I missed you too,” Bella said. It wasn’t a lie. She had missed him. She had missed this—the easy morning, his bright face.
She just hadn’t realised how much she’d also missed the quiet, watchful presence at the head of the table until last night had rewritten everything,
Joseph finished his food quickly, the movements of his fork precise and mechanical. He stood, the chair legs scraping against the floor, and carried his plate to the sink. The water ran as he rinsed it, the sound overly loud in the quiet kitchen.
“I’m gonna head downstairs,” he said, not turning around. He placed the clean plate in the drying rack with a soft clink.
Sam smiled, oblivious to the current humming between the other two. “I’ll come down in a minute,” he said, shoving the last bite of toast into his mouth. “Gotta show Bella the new setup.”
Joseph just nodded, a tight dip of his chin, and left the room without another glance. His footsteps faded down the hall, toward the basement stairs.
Sam reached for Bella’s hand, lacing his fingers with hers. “You okay? You’re quiet.” His thumb stroked her knuckle, a gentle, familiar rhythm.
“Just tired,” she said, forcing a smile. “Still on travel time, I think.” She squeezed his hand, hoping the lie wasn’t palpable in her grip.
In the basement, Joseph flicked on the single, bright overhead light. The concrete room was cool and smelled of dust and old laundry. He needed to do something, anything, to calm his mind.
He went straight to the weights, the heavy, solid iron a welcome anchor. Sitting on the bench, he loaded the bar with more plates than usual, the clang of metal echoing off the cinderblock walls. He laid back, gripped the cold steel, and started.
Each press was a purge. He pushed the weight up, exhaling hard, imagining he was pushing the whole night away. The strain in his chest, the burn in his triceps, it was a clean, simple pain. Better than the other kind.
Upstairs, Bella and Sam finished clearing the plates. “He’s been hitting it hard since I got home,” Sam said, nodding toward the basement stairs. “Guess he’s training for a marathon or something.”
“Or something,” Bella echoed softly, stacking a plate.
Sam grabbed her hand again, pulling her toward the hallway. “C’mon, I wanna show you the new speaker system he helped me install. It’s insane.”
They headed downstairs. The wooden steps groaned under their combined weight. The sound of rhythmic, heavy breathing and the metallic clank of weights being racked grew louder.
The basement opened up before them. Joseph was mid-set, the bar loaded and held above his chest, his arms trembling slightly with the effort. A sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead and throat, darkening the neckline of his grey henley. Every muscle in his arms and back was corded, defined under the strain.
He didn’t stop or look over. His focus was absolute, his bright blue eyes fixed on the ceiling beam above him. He lowered the bar slowly, with control, until it nearly touched his chest.
Then he pushed it back up, a low grunt escaping him. The sound was raw, physical. Bella felt it in the pit of her stomach. She remembered that sound, muffled against her shoulder.
Sam whistled, breaking the spell. “Damn, Joe. Save some strength for the rest of us.”
Joseph racked the weights with a final, deafening clang. He sat up on the bench, grabbing a towel from the floor. He wiped his face, his breathing still ragged. Only then did he look at them.
His gaze swept over Sam, then landed on Bella. It held for a fraction of a second too long, a silent collision in the dusty air. “It’s all yours,” he said, his voice rough from exertion.
He stood, the towel draped around his neck. He was taller, broader down here in the confined space, a physical presence that seemed to suck the oxygen from the room. Bella’s eyes tracked a bead of sweat as it traced a path down the side of his neck, disappearing under his collar.
“So, the speakers?” Sam said, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he moved toward the far wall.
“Yeah,” Joseph said, He walked to a panel on the wall, his movements loose and tired now. “The receiver’s here. I ran the wires under the baseboard.”
He tapped the controls, and suddenly the room was filled with a crisp, enveloping sound, a rich bass line threading through the clear high notes of a guitar. The music was immediate and total, erasing the awkward silence.
“Nice!” Sam yelled over the riff, his face lighting up. “Now we can have proper parties here.” He grinned, bouncing slightly to the beat.
Joseph agreed with a tight nod, his eyes on the equipment panel. “Wiring was the hard part.” He needed distance. Now. He walked over to the freestanding pull-up bar bolted into a ceiling beam near the laundry area. He grabbed the cold steel, facing away from them, his back a broad wall of grey cotton.
He lifted himself up, the muscles in his shoulders and back flaring beneath the fabric. Each smooth, controlled pull brought his chin level with the bar. He lowered himself slowly, with a tension that spoke of focused aggression, not exercise.
Bella watched, hypnotized. The deliberate rise and fall of his body was a brutal, beautiful rhythm. She remembered the same controlled strength moving under her, inside her. Her mouth went dry. She could almost feel the ghost of his stubble against her neck.
Sam, oblivious, fiddled with his phone, syncing it to the system. A new song crashed through the speakers, something loud and percussive. “Yes! That’s the stuff!” he shouted.
Joseph didn’t falter. His pulls came faster, more relentless. A damp patch spread between his shoulder blades. Each exhale was a short, sharp burst swallowed by the music. He was punishing himself. She knew it. She felt the same urge to crawl out of her own skin.
“You gotta feel this bass!” Sam grabbed her hand, pulling her toward the centre of the room where the sound was thickest. The vibrations travelled up through the concrete floor into her bones.
She let him pull her, her eyes tearing away from Joseph with physical effort. Sam wrapped his arms around her from behind, swaying them both clumsily to the beat. His chin rested on her shoulder.
His touch felt like a boundary she’d breached forever. She leaned into him, trying to absorb his simple affection, to let it overwrite the other memory. It was like trying to hear a whisper in a storm. Every thump of the kick drum was Joseph’s heartbeat from last night.
Joseph dropped from the bar, landing softly on the balls of his feet. He snatched his towel, dragging it over his face. He didn’t look at them. He just stood there for a moment, head bowed, breathing hard, a statue of coiled energy in the corner.
Then he moved to the heavy punching bag that hung just behind the wall connecting to the laundry area. He didn’t put on gloves. He just braced his stance, rolled his shoulders, and started.
Thud. His right fist connected with the leather, a solid, meaty impact. Thud. Left fist. He timed his punches with the beat of the bass, each strike a percussive accent to the song’s driving rhythm. The bag swayed on its chain, groaning with every hit.
Bella watched the ruthless efficiency of it. The controlled pivot of his hips, the snap in his shoulders, the way his knuckles met the canvas with a sound that was both soft and devastating. This was a different language. One of pure, focused release.
Sam tapped his phone, lowering the volume by a fraction. “So, when should we have a party? Test this system out properly.”
Joseph didn’t stop. “Whenever you want,” he said, his voice clipped between strikes. “The sound system you wanted is set up.”
“Tonight?” Sam asked, grinning at Bella. “We could get some people over.”
Joseph’s next punch was harder, the bag jerking violently. “Tomorrow night,” he said, the words a short burst of air.
His punches quickened, the timing with the bass forgotten. Now it was just a storm of impacts, a frantic, uneven tattoo. Thud-thud-thud. Sweat flew from his hairline with a sharp turn of his head.
“Tomorrow works,” Sam said, shrugging. He turned his attention back to Bella, slipping an arm around her waist.
Sam kissed her temple, his lips dry and warm. “I’m gonna grab a water. You want one?”
She shook her head, unable to form words. Sam bounded up the stairs, his footsteps fading into the hum of the house.
The basement shrank, containing only the sound of fists on leather and the low thrum of music. Bella stood frozen, a spectator to a private war. Each strike seemed to land in the pit of her own stomach. She saw the raw, red skin on his knuckles, the deliberate neglect of his own pain.
He finally stopped, his hands braced on the bag, forehead pressed to the warm leather. His breath sawed in and out of him, loud in the sudden quiet. The bag slowly twisted to a stop.
He turned around.
He looked at her then, really looked, his chest heaving. Sweat tracked through the dust on his temples. His blue eyes were dark, stripped of all their usual gentle caution. They held hers across the concrete distance, and the air grew thick and impossible to breathe.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist, a gesture that was somehow more intimate than the punching. He studied her face as if searching for a sign, a clue to what she was thinking.
“Bella,” he started, then stopped. He shook his head, a short, frustrated motion. “This is…”
“I know,” she whispered.
Footsteps clattered on the stairs again, too fast to be Sam’s careful descent. “Forgot my phone!” Sam called out, his voice echoing before he appeared.
Joseph’s gaze shattered. He turned swiftly, grabbing his towel from the floor, putting the bag between himself and the stairs. Bella took a step back, her heart hammering against her ribs.
Sam snatched his phone from the amplifier. “You two planning the party without me?” he asked, his smile easy.
“Just catching my breath,” Joseph said, his voice forcibly even. He rubbed the towel over his neck. “It’s your show.”
“Right.” Sam scrolled through his phone. “I’ll text the group. Tomorrow. Eight-ish.” He looked up, his eyes bright.
Sam’s phone buzzed in his hand. “Ugh, my manager. I gotta take this.” He headed back up, already talking. “Yeah, hi, what’s up?”
The silence he left behind was heavier than before, charged with everything unsaid. Joseph finally turned from the bag.
Bella’s gaze dropped to his hands. The knuckles were already swelling, the skin split and angry. “Your hands,” she said, the words barely audible.
He looked down, flexing his fingers slowly as if noticing the damage for the first time. “Doesn’t matter.” He wiped them on his sweat-darkened henley, a grimace touching his mouth. “Nothing that won’t heal.”
The casual dismissal of his own pain was worse than if he’d shouted. It was a wall. She could feel him building it up, brick by brick, right in front of her. The man from last night, the one whose control had shattered into quiet groans, was being sealed away.
He ran both hands through his damp hair, tugging at the roots. The gesture was so full of frustrated agony it made her chest ache. He was a man trapped, and she was the cage.
He needed space. Air. To not be near her. He walked past her, not touching, giving her a wide berth.
He went behind the wall separating the laundry area from the main room. He tugged the sweaty henley over his head in one rough motion and tossed it into the wicker hamper with a soft thud.
Bella shouldn’t have looked. She meant to turn away, to give him privacy, but her body disobeyed. From her angle, she had a partial view.
He grabbed a fresh grey t-shirt from a neat stack on top of the dryer. He pulled it on in a single, efficient movement, his back muscles rippling.
His lower abs and V-line were exposed for a second before he pulled it down. The glimpse was fleeting, a slash of tan skin and defined muscle, a trail of dark hair leading down. It was a fact of his body, simple and unadorned.
But to her, in that heartbeat, it was a key turned in a lock. It was the map of what she’d felt pressed against her in the dark. Her breath caught, a tiny, audible hitch.
He walked out, the clean cotton settling over his torso. He stopped when he saw her face. His eyes locked onto hers, and the air between them changed again, electric with a shared, forbidden knowledge.
He opened his mouth, closed it. A heavy tread sounded on the stairs.
“Hey, crisis averted!” Sam’s voice echoed, too loud, too close. “Just a scheduling thing.”
Joseph’s gaze snapped toward the sound, the intimate moment severed. He took a deliberate step back, putting physical space between them just as Sam’s sneakers appeared on the bottom step.
“Cool,” Joseph said, his voice forcibly light. “I’m gonna shower.”
He didn’t look at Bella again. He just moved past Sam on the stairs, a mumbled “’Scuse me,” and was gone. His footsteps faded quickly overhead.
Sam hopped off the last step, his energy filling the void Joseph left behind. “He’s in a mood,” Sam said, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. “Probably just hungry. Man’s a beast when he needs protein.” He slung an arm around Bella’s shoulders, pulling her into his side. “So. Party tomorrow. You’re gonna help me, right?”
She leaned into him, resting her head against his shoulder. She could smell his fabric softener, the same brand he always used. It was familiar. It was safe. “Yeah,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “I’ll help.”