She’s afraid I won’t.
Hurt is familiar to her, has shape and texture and predictable patterns.
Hurt comes with rules she understands, boundaries she can navigate.
“You already are,” I murmur, taking one step closer on the wet pavement, my shoes silent against the stone. “You’re doing it right now, this very second.”
The space between us narrows, not because I rush it, not because I force the moment, but because she forgets to step back in time, forgets that maintaining distance is supposed to be her priority.
“Fuck you.”
The curse is sharp, automatic, a shield she’s used before in other situations with other men. But I can see the chips in it, the places where it’s worn thin from overuse.
“You’ve been fucking me in your head for a week,” I say, and the words are simple statement, not accusation.
She flinches like I’ve struck her.
There it is.
That crack in the façade.
That perfect, beautiful fracture running through the centre of her certainty.
Her pupils widen just a fraction, and I know I’ve hit something buried deep—not memory exactly, but recognition, the kind that makes the body react before the mind can catch up and construct defences.
I reach for her with deliberate slowness.
She steps back, finally remembering that’s what she’s supposed to do.
I follow, matching her retreat step for step.
Two more paces and I’m behind her, so close she can feel the heat of me down her back radiating through the cool night air, but I still don’t touch, not yet, not until she stops lying to herself about what she wants.
Her breath stutters—not enough to give her away to anyone watching, but enough for me to hear it, to catalogue it, to add it to the growing list of ways her body betrays her intentions.
“I’m not going with you,” she says again, but her voice is softer now, less certain, more breath than bite.
“Yes,” I whisper, mouth close to her ear where she can feel each word like a caress, “you are.”
The streetlight above us flickers, old sodium bulb struggling against the damp, bathing her skin in a brief wash of pale gold before settling back into shadow, and I feel the moment her resistance recalibrates—not stronger, just different, shifting from outright refusal to negotiation.
“No—”
My hand wraps around her arm, fingers circling the delicate bones of her wrist.
Not gently, not with the soft consideration one might use with something fragile.
Not roughly, not with the brutality of someone who enjoys causing pain for its own sake.
Just decisively, with the absolute certainty of someone who knows exactly what he’s doing.
The street is quiet in the way cities get just before something goes wrong—too still, too aware of itself, holding its breath. The car idles at the kerb like it belongs there, like it’s been waiting longer than she realises, longer than this single evening.
She stiffens under my grip, muscles going taut.
I pull her towards the car with inexorable force.
She resists—but not like she means it, not with the full weight of someone who genuinely wants to escape.
