The silence between them was charged, electric, a living thing that thrummed with everything they weren't saying. Outside, thunder rolled across the sky like a warning neither of them intended to heed.
The corner of his mouth curved — not quite a smile, but something far more devastating. "Maybe I do." He reached out, his fingers ghosting along her jaw with a gentleness that contradicted every sharp angle of his features.
Tonight, she let herself feel everything.
His phone buzzed on the marble counter. They both flinched. The spell shattered like glass, and reality rushed back in with all its sharp, unforgiving edges. He stepped back, his expression closing like a vault.
She couldn't. God help her, she couldn't. Because the truth — the terrifying, exhilarating truth — was that she didn't want him to stop. She wanted to burn.
"Looking at me like that," she managed, her voice barely above a breath. "Like you own me."
But plans, she was learning, had a habit of crumbling when your heart decided to mutiny against your brain.
