He was dressed the same: black shirt, black jeans, boots that didn’t make a sound. The breeze moved through his short hair, but his face stayed carved in stone. Eyes unreadable. Shoulders loose. Like nothing in the world could touch him unless he let it.
And yeah, I’d dated men like that before. I liked them tall. Broad. Cut from muscle and quiet danger. The kind of men who didn’t flinch when I told them exactly what I wanted—and exactly how I wanted it.
I didn’t do soft. I didn’t do clingy. I liked hands on my hips and teeth at my throat. I liked weight and control and the low, hungry sound a man made right before he lost it between my legs.
But I didn’t believe in the rest. The forever stuff. The falling. That wasn’t real—it was chemicals and timing and too many Disney movies. Real love? That was a fairytale. A branding exercise. A lie we dressed up in flowers and white dresses and overpriced cake.
Companionship, though? That was useful. A body. A breath. A night. Sometimes a weekend, if the chemistry was good and the playlist didn’t suck. But anything more than that? Anything deeper?
I knew better.
“I thought you didn’t commit,” I said, forcing my tone breezy as I pretended to adjust something on my clipboard.
“I don’t.”
“So you just ... appear. Coincidentally. In the exact spot where I’m working.”
His eyes flicked to the clipboard, then to my face.
“You’re bleeding.”
I blinked. “What?”
He nodded once, and I followed his gaze to the edge of my palm. A thin slice ran diagonally across my skin, beading up just enough to sting.
Damn paper edges on these laminated maps.
“I’m fine,” I muttered, shifting to hide it.
But he didn’t move on. Didn’t brush past or make some dismissive grunt like I expected.
Instead, he stepped closer.
Too close.
Close enough that I caught the scent of him—clean, cool despite the warm air, something faintly metallic. Like the inside of a weapons locker or a storm about to break.
“I didn’t ask if you were fine,” he said. “I said you were bleeding.”
Before I could answer, his fingers wrapped around my wrist—lightly, not controlling, but deliberate. Like he was testing the feel of me. Like he wanted to see if I’d pull away.
I should have.
I didn’t.
His thumb brushed across the cut. Just once. Just enough to make the breath catch in my throat.
“Keep moving like that and you’ll tear it deeper,” he said, voice low.
“It’s a scratch.”
“You plan to bleed on the party favors?”
“Do you plan to make everything weird?”
He didn’t answer.
Didn’t smile.
