He smiled down at her, pulling her closer by their staffs as his eyes glinted.
“Hi, baby.” His voice had dropped low, intimate.
Lira wrenched her staff free, tossing it to the side, and spun away, creating distance between them. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a thundering betrayal of her composure. This was exactly why she avoided him as much as she could—the way her body remembered what her mind fought to forget.
Callum followed her lead, tossing his staff to the side, and waited for her next attack. She moved to strike but he caught her arm and spun her, locking her against him. She dropped her eight, rolled, and came up with a sweep that almost took his legs.
They moved together like smoke, swirling and dancing against the other. Each attack flowing into defense, each defense into attack. Every touch, every brush of skin sent electricity through her. Their bodies remembered each other, muscle memory that five years couldn’terase.
They went to the mat hard, her landing on top, thighs bracketing his waist, hands pinning his wrists above his head. Both stayed frozen, both panting. She could feel his heartbeat through every point of contact, could see her own mask reflected in his.
His hands slid free of her grip—she let them, she absolutely let them—and traced up her legs. Slow. Deliberate. His fingers found the curve of her hips, traveled up her sides with a possessiveness that made her breath catch. One hand rose to her face, tucking a strand of hair that had escaped back behind her ear. The gesture was so soft, so tender like he had always been with her, it nearly broke her.
He sat up, keeping an arm around her waist as she straddled him, bringing their faces close enough that their masks almost touched. His hand stayed at her jaw, thumb tracing the edge where her mask met skin.
“I miss you,” he whispered, keeping his eyes locked on hers.
Three words.
Simple in structure, devastating in impact.
Lira felt them each like a punch to her gut, each syllable striking somewhere vital and unguarded. For a dangerous moment, she let herself lean into his touch, let herself remember how perfectly they’d fit together, how completely he’d understood her in ways no one else ever had or likely ever would.
“Don’t.” She forced the word out, hating how weak it sounded. “You don’t get to say that to me anymore.”
His hand stilled against her skin. “Li—”
“No.” She pulled back, rolling away and coming to her feet in one fluid motion. She needed space. She needed distance. “You pushed me away, Callum. You looked me in the eye and told me what we had meant nothing. ThatImeant nothing.”
“You know that wasn’t true. You know me well enough to know I never meant a single word of it.” His voice had gone rough around the edges. “You know why I had to say those things.”
“Do I?” She snatched her fallen staff from the mat. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you made a choice. And it wasn’t me.”
Callum rose more slowly, his movements lacking their usual fluid grace. “It wasn’t that simple.”
“It never is with you.” She turned away, returning her staff to the rack with more force than necessary, and willed her voice not to show the emotion exploding in her chest. “Nothing is ever simple with you, Callum. Everything’s a game, a calculation, moves on some board I can’t even see.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Fair?” She spun back to face him, her voice finally catching and cracking. “Was it fair to make me fall in love with you, to let me believe we had a future, then discard me like one of your business arrangements that outlived its usefulness?”
The words seared the air, molten and unforgiving. They were too honest, too raw. Lira regretted them immediately, her chest aching, a scorch of shame unraveling as she watched the way his body stiffened like she’d stabbed him.
She never lost control like this. Never let her emotions dictate her words. But Callum had always been the exception, the fault line, the one who slipped past her barricades and unsettled the most guarded corners of her heart. The one that always found the parts of herself she kept hidden from everyone else.
He took a step toward her, hands open at his sides in a gesture that might have been surrender or supplication. “Lira, please. Let me—”
“I have errands to run,” she cut him off, retreating behind formality like armor. “Thank you for the match.”
Callum flinched at the coldness in her words. “You think I wanted to disappear? That it was easy for me to walk away?”
“You did it anyway.” Her voice was a whisper now, the fight in it gone with only the pain left.
She moved toward her discarded shoes, slipping them back on as she pushed her arms into her jacket and hoisted her duffel bag over her head.
“Please—”
She didn’t let him finish. “I can’t, Callum. My heart can’t.”
