She met my gaze, and something passed between us then. Dangerous. Electric.
“Next time,” she said, slow and deliberate, “you shouldn’t fight my battles for me.”
I stepped in closer, just enough to feel her breath catch. “Next time,” I murmured, “maybe he won’t walk away.”
We were toeing a line neither of us fully understood—trapped in a war of wills and want.
And I was already planning how to win her completely.
She focused on the cut above my eye, her touch infuriatingly gentle.
Precise. Controlled.
Like she wasn’t unraveling me with every press of that bandage.
Her fingers moved with practiced grace, but I felt the tension in them—like she didn’t want to care, didn’t want this to mean anything. That made two of us. And yet… each press against my skin felt like a challenge.
And I welcomed it.
A beat passed. Then another.
“Thank you for punching his teeth in,” she said, a flicker of amusement dancing behind her words.
It caught me off guard. Not because of what she said, but because of how she said it—light, like it hadn’t meant something to her.
I laughed, low and dark. “I would’ve done worse if they hadn’t dragged me off.”
She finished her work, and for a moment, silence settled between us. Heavy. Alive.
She turned to leave.
I didn’t let her.
My fingers wrapped around her wrist—not hard, not enough to bruise, but enough to stop her. Enough to make her stay.
The moment ignited, that spark between us flaring hotter than before. The kind that didn’t die out—it burned until something broke.
“You came,” I said. The words tasted like surrender and accusation all at once.
Her breath hitched. Barely. But I caught it.
She didn’t know what to say, so she deflected—like always.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“But you did.”
She narrowed her eyes, lips parting with that familiar stubbornness. “Maybe I didn’t want anyone else saying those things about me.”
God, the defiance in her voice—it was delicious. It lit something inside me, deep and primal. I wanted to grab it. To push her. To see what she’d do if I gave her something real and dangerous to fight against.
“And if I hadn’t made you?” I asked, voice low and dangerous.
She didn’t answer.
Silence stretched between us, taut as a drawn bowstring.
“Would you still have come?”
