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.
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 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.
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 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.
She sank onto the sofa, pressing her hands to her face. What was she doing? This wasn't part of the plan. None of this — his intensity, his vulnerability, the way her body responded to his like a compass finding north — was part of the plan.
