"This conversation isn't over," he said, and it sounded like both a promise and a threat. Then he was gone, leaving her standing in the dark with a racing heart and the ghost of his touch still burning on her skin.
"You can't keep doing this," she whispered, not turning around. Her voice was steadier than she felt, which was something, at least. Her heart hammered so loudly she was certain he could hear it.
"Tell me to stop," he said, his thumb tracing her lower lip with agonizing slowness. His eyes searched hers, and for the first time, she saw something beneath the control — something raw and desperate. "Tell me, and I will."
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.
She should have pulled away. Should have remembered why this was dangerous, why she'd built those walls in the first place. But his touch was fire, and she'd been cold for so long.
Tonight, she let herself feel everything.
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.
The rain hammered against the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse. She pressed her forehead against the cold glass, watching the city below blur into rivers of light. Behind her, she could feel his presence like a physical force — dark, magnetic, impossible to ignore.
