Silence.
So much silence.
But I know he’s still there. I know he hasn’t listened to my command.
I canfeelhim.
I ready myself to turn, to face him, to let him see howundoneI am because ofhim, but before I do… he speaks.
“Do you know why,” he says the words slow, ragged, and raw, as ifhe’sas undone as I am. “I call you Nova?” he asks through panted breaths.
My stomach twists, my chest squeezes, and my knees threaten to give out.
I say nothing.
“It’s not because of your last name, Serafina,” he continues, his words mixed with the sound of him moving closer. “I call you Nova because to me, that’s exactly what you are.” His voice deepens, a dangerous, velvet rasp that pulls me under, leaving me weightless and wanting. “Your sudden appearance in my life has been nothing short of a bright light—blinding, unstoppable, cataclysmic. A celestial event so rare it rewrites everything it touches. You lit up every dark corner of my ravaged soul, and I willneverbe the same. And much like the stars and galaxies, the infinite space beyond what we understand, I can’t explain it. I can’t name it. I can onlyfeelit. That’s what you are to me. That’s themessyou have made me.”
The mess I have…
I turn so quickly that I fear I might crash to the ground, but before I can, his hands are on me. Strong fingers flex around my waist, anchoring me as though he’s afraid I might disappear, and before I can think, before I can breathe, he kisses me.
It’s raw, carnal, and devastating all at once, a kiss to end all kisses. A kiss that could only exist in a dream. But this isn’t a dream.
This is real.
This ishim.
My eyes slam shut at the contact, at the desire to have one less sensory function, so I can focus all of my attention on just one.
I cannot hear.
I cannot smell.
I cannot taste.
I can only feel.
Feel one thing and one thing only.
Him.
And the feeling isinsatiable.Like I could never get enough. Like I could live in this exact moment forever, and I wouldn’t spend a single second wishing for anything else.
But then his tongue glides over the seam of my lips, beckoning me to open for him, and I do, and I realize I was wrong.
This.
This is the feeling I need to die with.
But first, I need tolivein it.
My tongue collides with his in a dance I’m in no control of. He isdominating,he isall-consuming, and I fuckingloveit.
His hands move, sliding along my torso to my back. One hand grips my ass while the other tightens around the back of my neck, his long finger reaching around, squeezing just enough to make me gasp, forcing me to lean into him. And he’s more than ready for it.
He hoists me onto him, and my back hits the wall as my ankles lock around his waist.
The kiss—if you can even call it that—continues. Never stopping, never wavering, never needing a moment tobreathe.
