Page 171 of Sage Haven
And all I could do was let it happen.
“Fine,” I muttered, the word tasting like surrender.
The light in her face when I said it—it gutted me.
Because I wanted to be the man who could give her that joy without conditions all the time.
And I wasn’t sure I could.
But tonight, I would try.
She rose from the couch, moving toward me like she was tethered to me. And when her fingers curled around my arm, grounding me with that quiet, unspoken certainty she always carried— I couldn’t breathe.
Her touch wasn’t possessive.
It wasn’t about control.
It was about something I couldn’t quite name.
Her eyes met mine.
And for a moment—Nothing else existed.
A night out with Sage.
It sounded like heaven.
It felt like freedom.
And for the first time in a long, long while—I wanted to believe that it wouldn’t be too big of a risk.
Even if I knew better.
Even if I knew what was waiting for us when we got back.
For one night, I’d let myself forget.
For one night, I’d let myself have this.
Her.
And maybe…maybe it wouldn’t destroy us.
39
SAGE
We wove through thequiet streets of town until we reached a restaurant unlike any other—a place swallowed whole by pitch-black darkness.
No flickering candlelight. No dim ambient glow. Just pure, unrelenting black.
It made sense. Reich never did anything without a reason. Everything he did had a purpose.
Dining in the dark was something I had never experienced before, though I’d heard whispers—rumors that when sight is stripped away, the other senses awaken. That without the distraction of vision, flavors become sharper, textures more vivid—every bite an exploration rather than a mere act of consumption.
Maybe that’s why Reich had brought me here.
He had a way of expanding my world, pushing me beyond the edges of what I thought I knew, making me step outside my comfort and into the unknown.
