Maybe now he did.
I didn’t turn around. My back stayed to him, spine locked straight. I could feel him standing there.
The heat of him. The presence.
It wrapped around the room like smoke.
“You didn’t say goodnight.”
I said nothing.
Because I wasn’t going to lie.
I heard his footsteps first—measured, slow, meant to unnerve.
Then silence again, as he came to a stop behind me.
I felt his eyes on me, crawling down the line of my shoulders, my spine, the curve of my hips under the silk.
I hated the way my skin reacted—tightened, prickled, shivered.
I hated that I could feel want tangled up in all the fury and fear.
And I hated him more for knowing it.
I stood rigid, the weight of his gaze pressing between my shoulder blades like the tip of a blade waiting to pierce.
Every step he took was deliberate. Measured. A silent promise of everything I hated.
“Leave,” I snapped, forcing the word past the tightness in my throat.
He didn’t stop.
“Do you think I’m afraid of your words?” His voice—God, his voice—was smooth and low, like velvet dragged across a bruise. It sounded indulgent. Dangerous. The kind of tone that could talk you out of your clothes and into your coffin.
The space between us shrank, slow and choking. Each breath I took felt like a betrayal—my body tense, my lungs too shallow. I could feel him before he touched me, his heat bleeding through the air, wrapping around me like a chain.
He was close enough to steal the breath from my mouth.
“You flinched when I kissed you,” he said, that sick amusement lacing every syllable. “And yet you haven’t moved away.”
My pulse stuttered. I wanted to say something—anything—to shut him up. But my mouth refused to work. My body was busy fighting itself.
Because he was right.
I hadn’t moved.
I felt his hand reach for mine—slow and sure, like he already knew what my answer would be.
Instinct took over.
I jerked away, heart hammering like I’d just touched fire.
“Not yet, then,” he murmured, and I heard it—that smug, knowing edge that scraped down my spine like fingernails on stone.
I hated how sure he was.
Hated more that some part of me stayed exactly where I was.
