She doesn’t sleep after that.
Neither do I.
I stay in her room long after I should have left, stretched out in the chair by her desk like I own it, like I own her. She lies stiff in the bed, back to me, covers pulled up to her shoulders as though the thin fabric could protect her from what I am.
It can’t.
Her breathing isn’t even. It staggers, hitches, catches on every inhale until I know she’s wide awake. Pretending. Testing my patience.
“You think I don’t hear you, Brooklyn?” My voice cuts through the dark, rough and low, and I see the way her spine stiffens under the blanket. “Every breath you take gives you away.”
She doesn’t answer. She won’t. Not yet.
I let the silence stretch, thick and unbearable, until the air feels heavy enough to choke her. Then I rise slowly, deliberately, the floorboards groaning beneath my weight. Her shoulders tense tighter with each step I take until I’m beside her bed.
The covers cling to her like a second skin.
I peel them back.
She gasps, rolling onto her back, eyes wide and glassy in the lamplight. God, she’s beautiful like this—caught between fear and fury, trembling but defiant.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispers. Her voice shakes, but the words stab anyway.
My mouth curves, dark amusement tugging at the corner. “And yet…” I lower myself to sit on the edge of her mattress, so close the heat from her bare legs slides over my skin, “…here I am.”
Her throat works, swallowing hard, and I trace the line of it with my gaze. My hand follows, fingers brushing her jaw, tilting her face to mine. She doesn’t look away. Brave little thing. Or foolish.
“What do you want from me?” she breathes.
Everything.
I don’t say it. Not yet. I let the hunger in my silence answer for me as my thumb drags over her lips, parting them, pressing just enough to feel her exhale against my skin.
She shudders. I smirk.
“Don’t ask questions you already know the answers to, baby girl.”
Her lips part under my thumb, but she doesn’t bite, doesn’t push me away. She just lies there, frozen, wide-eyed as though she knows one wrong move will set me off. Smart girl.
“Thought you were asleep,” I murmur, dragging my hand down the column of her throat, slow enough to feel her pulse kick against my fingers. It’s racing. Good.
“I was trying to be.” Her voice is sharp but thin, like she’s throwing a blade with no weight behind it.
A laugh rumbles out of me—low, quiet, the kind that scrapes. “You can’t sleep when I’m near, can you?”
She glares, and God, I want to sink into it, tear her apart just to see how long she can hold that fire.
“I can’t sleep because you’re in my room.”
“No.” I lean in until my mouth hovers just above hers, the ghost of a kiss that never lands. “You can’t sleep because you want me in your room.”
Her breath stutters, chest rising sharp and shallow, and I know I’ve hit it. The truth she’ll never admit out loud.
“Get out.” She tries to spit it out, tries to sound furious, but it comes out strangled, weak.
My smile sharpens. Predator. Cornered prey.
“Say it like you mean it, Brooklyn. Convince me. Make me believe you don’t want me sitting here, watching you, thinking about how easy it would be to—” my fingers slide under the thin strap of her tank top, tugging it down just enough to bare the curve of her shoulder “—ruin you.”
