I closed the distance.
Inches now.
Enough to steal her breath.
The scent of her—lavender, defiance, sleepless heat—wrapped around us like a storm cloud ready to burst.
“You can throw plates at me all day long,” I murmured, voice low, dark, velvet-wrapped steel, “but it won’t change what you are to me.”
She stared at me—jaw tight, eyes gleaming.
“You think you can intimidate me?” she snapped.
But I heard it.
The edge.
The quiver.
The little slip in her voice that told me she felt it too—that electricity coiling in the space between us, sparking with every breath.
“Oh, little Persephone,” I whispered, leaning just a little closer, letting my mouth hover near her ear. “This isn’t about intimidation.”
She froze. Just for a second.
A standoff with no winner—only rising stakes.
“This is about inevitability.”
My lips didn’t touch her.
Not yet.
But they hovered close enough that her body swayed, just slightly, toward mine.
I smirked.
“Let’s see how long you can resist.”
Her eyes flicked down.
Quick. Reflexive.
But not quick enough.
She was looking at me. All of me.
At the lines of my chest, bare and unapologetic.
The muscles that flexed as I leaned back.
The ink that curled down my ribs like a secret.
And then?—
The blush.
It bloomed across her cheeks in a soft, furious wave. She blinked like she hadn’t realized I wasn’t wearing a shirt until that exact moment.
