The curtains shift when she pushes them wider, maybe for air, maybe for the night itself, and the glow spills over her like she belongs to the moon. For one unsteady second, I think she sees me.
I freeze.
She doesn’t.
She yawns, tips her head back, and laughs softly, as if the night told her a secret.
I choke on the sound because I know the truth—she’s not laughing at the dark. She’s tempting it. Drawing it closer. Drawing me.
My chest is tight, every muscle wired, every thought poisoned by the same refrain: One step. One climb. One night but then she moves again, curls forward, hugging her knees to her chest like the weight of the world lives there. Her smile fades, and what’s left is raw. Lonely. Something she wouldn’t let anyone else see.
And that’s when I know I’m not leaving.
I stay rooted to the shadows, starving at the sight of her, dragging every second out until it’s agony, because the longer I stay out here, the safer she is from me.
But my restraint is thin, a thread unravelling with each sigh she lets slip into the night.
The window stays open too long.
Her body stays soft too long.
And me? I stayed chained too long.
The thread snaps.
I scale the side of the house like I’ve done a hundred times before in worse places, boots silent, grip steady, heart pounding not from the climb but from what waits at the top.
Her.
The lamp casts her in gold, her knees drawn to her chest, chin tipped against them like she’s folded herself up small to keep the night out. She doesn’t hear me. She doesn’t feel the shift in the air when I step over the sill, landing inside her room.
But I feel her.
Every breath she exhales is a hit of something I can’t quit, and every inch of bare skin she shows me is a sin I’ll burn for.
I move slowly, not because I’m unsure but because I want to savour this—want to watch the exact moment the predator enters the prey’s den. My shadow stretches across the carpet until it brushes her toes.
That’s when she lifts her head.
Her eyes widen, her lips part, and a startled sound catches in her throat. But I’m already on her, my hand covering her mouth, my body pinning her against the mattress before she can speak her own name.
Her pulse thrashes against my palm, her chest arches up against mine, and her eyes—God, her eyes—they blaze with terror and recognition all at once.
“Shhh.” My voice is rough, low, the command vibrating against her lips under my hand. “You’ll wake your friend.”
Her lashes flutter. I feel the scream she swallows instead.
I lean closer, drag my mouth along the shell of her ear until she shivers, until she’s trembling for reasons she won’t admit.
“You left the window open for me.” My teeth graze her skin, sharp enough to sting. “You wanted this. Didn’t you, baby girl?”
Her nails claw at my arm, not to push me away but to hold on.
And just like that, it isn’t me breaking into her world.
It’s her pulling me in.
Wrong Kind Of Right
