As if on cue, John pulled back and pressed his forehead against mine.
“That was fucking stupid,” he said, breath hitching in short bursts through his nose.
“You’re a real charmer, you know that?”
He leaned back, studying my face with an expression too careful, too measured.
Suddenly, I couldn’t bare to look at him. “I wish I had a smoke,” I muttered, focusing on the faint yellow streetlight glowing off the water beyond the patio.
“I have some. By the window,” John replied, his voice quieter now. His hands had stilled.
“Aren’t you full of surprises.”
I stood, suddenly aware of the cool night air. Of the bareness of me in front of him. I grabbed a blanket from the sofa—the same one I’d curled under just last night—and stepped outside. The city hum and chilled air wrapped around me like a second skin. I leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette. The flame flared bright, a brief glow in the dark.
A moment later, John joined me. He’d pulled on his pants but nothing else. Our shoulders brushed as he stood beside me, close but not touching. Smoke filled my lungs. I closed my eyes, savoring the burn.
Then he took the cigarette from between my fingers. The ember glowed again as he inhaled. The red light caressing his features.
“And did it work?” he asked, voice low.
I turned, pressing my flushed face against the cool stone wall. Watching the lines of his bare torso shift in the moonlight as he looked back at me.
“Did you get me out of your system?” he asked.
I took the cigarette back, inhaling as my eyes drifted across the skyline beyond the scattered row of mismatched houseboats. Buying time. Pushing down the words I wanted to say. Words likeNever.AndImpossible.
Instead, I exhaled and said, “I have no fucking clue how you got in there in the first place. It definitely wasn’t your charming personality.”
“Neither was it yours.”
“Fuck you.” I laughed.
He joined in. Some of the tension between us eased—just a sliver, but enough to breathe.
I stepped toward the edge of the patio, where a low privacy fence shielded us partially from view. I stubbed the last of the cigarette into a snow-filled plant pot. It hissed as it melted a dark crater into the pristine white.
A cold breeze whipped across the deck, lifting my hair and sending goosebumps down my bare arms.
John had gone quiet. I turned to check if he was still there.
He was.
Watching me.
“This wouldn’t be so hard,” he said quietly, “if you weren’t so goddamn beautiful.”
A smile tugged at my mouth. I tilted my head, loosening my grip on the blanket just enough. The fabric slid, slow and deliberate, slipping from my shoulders, over the curve of my breast, until both were bare against the chill of the night.
My nipples peaked beneath the moonlight’s kiss. The blanket pooled at my waist.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
His jaw flexed. “It is.”
I could imagine what he saw: my collarbones glowing silver in the moonlight, the sharp line of my black bob brushing my jaw, a woman half-naked and unapologetic, framed by the city’s skyline. Forbidden. Untouchable. His—if he dared.
“Maybe once wasn’t enough,” I said. “Won’t matter if I leave now or...” I raised a brow, slipping back into the version of myself that didn’t care. The girl who never stayed the night.
