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Chapter Twelve lingers in the morning after—and refuses to rush past it.
Rhys wakes to sunlight, soreness, and Maddox’s weight beside him, the physical proof of what finally happened still written across his body. What follows is domestic, intimate, and unguarded in a way the story hasn’t allowed before: shared hunger, naked laughter in the kitchen, fruit eaten with bare hands, the quiet awe of seeing someone you’ve wanted for decades moving easily through your space.
But the chapter doesn’t stay gentle for long. Desire resurfaces with urgency, carrying twenty years of restraint straight into the present. In the shower, memory and reality collide as their bodies pick up where adolescence was interrupted—no hesitation, no distance, only need. What unfolds is raw, relentless, and deeply physical, a reckoning that feels less like indulgence and more like reclamation.
This bonus chapter is about catching up—not just sexually, but emotionally. About letting the body say what words never could. About what happens when time collapses and longing finally gets to finish its sentence.
🎧 Content note: Explicit sexual content; intense physical intimacy; mature themes.
