She was tantalizing.
She wasgorgeous.
My chest tightened. Because this wasn’t beauty you touched to claim. It was the kind you had to touch to believe it was real.
Her shoulders were still damp from the bath, drops catching in the glow. Her hair was a soft mess, half-dried, sticking to her collarbone. Her eyes — those damn eyes — were brighter than anything the fire could throw. I wanted to memorize it, the shape of her courage.
Because that’s what it was. Courage.
Every thought I had was warring with the next. That she was stunning. That I wasn’t allowed to think it. That she had no idea what she did to me just by breathing. That I wanted to thank herfor trusting me with her softness when I knew how hard the world had made her.
My hand flexed at my side, fingers itching to trace the delicate tie across her chest, not to untie it, but to prove to myself that she was really here — that this impossible, bright thing had chosenme.
When I met her gaze again, her teasing had gentled into something quieter. I felt it like a thread pulling tight between us.
“I’m looking,” I murmured, the words barely audible at all. “And I still don’t believe you’re real.”
She took another step toward me — slow, deliberate — and my restraint gave a sharp, dangerous twitch. The air between us thinned to nothing.
Her fingers brushed mine first. Barely. Then they slid along my palm, guiding my hand until it rested just above her hipbone again, exactly where it had been before.
“Still don’t believe it?” she whispered.
“Getting there.” My thumb traced a slow circle over her skin, motion that made it hard to breathe. “But you’ll have to give me a minute.”
The laugh she gave was small and breathless. It hit me in the chest like something bright and fleeting, something I couldn’t hold on to but desperately wanted to.
I let my other hand follow, mapping the curve of her waist, the faint shiver that chased my touch. The fabric under my fingertips was soft — ridiculous, even — but the body beneath it was solid and warm and human. I couldn’t stop touching, not yet.
When I finally let my eyes lift, she was watching me with a mix of triumph and tenderness. There was no shyness left in her, only a quiet sort of power.
I cupped her jaw, my thumb catching at the corner of her mouth. “You’re going to ruin me,” I said, half a whisper, half a prayer.
She smiled, slow and knowing. “Maybe that’s fair. You already ruined me first.”
And then she leaned forward, close enough that her breathbrushed my lips but didn’t bridge the distance. It wasn’t an invitation so much as a reminder — that we were still on the knife’s edge, that this, right now, was the place where we chose how deep to fall.
Her breath hit my mouth, and I swear I could feel my pulse stumble. For a long second, neither of us moved. We justhoveredthere — as if we rushed it, we’d break whatever fragile spell we’d been spinning all night.
Then she tilted her chin up a fraction, and that was all it took.
The kiss wasn’t careful. It was the kind that steals the air from your lungs before you realize you’ve given it away. Her mouth fit against mine like she’d been memorizing it in her sleep; all warmth and hesitation and then — something deeper.
My hands found her hips, fingers flexing against the silky band of red that cut across her skin. She made a sound — soft, broken — that nearly undid me.
“Colette,” I murmured against her lips, and her fingers fisted in my hair like she didn’t want me to stop saying her name.
I kissed her again. Slower this time. I wanted to remember every second — the glide of her mouth, the faint taste of peppermint lip balm, the sound she made when I caught her bottom lip between my teeth and let it go.
When we finally pulled apart, her forehead rested against mine. Both of us breathing like we’d just run a mile barefoot through snow.
“God, you’re—” I started, but she pressed a finger to my lips, eyes shining.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “If you say it, I might start believing it.”
I smiled against her touch, the ache in my chest almost unbearable. “Then let me show you instead.”
I didn’t rush her. Didn’t even try to. The moment had already shifted — something molten beneath all that playfulness, burning through every inch of space between us.
