Ross and I are in the living room. He’s building a fire in the hearth, his hands dark with soot, arranging the logs with an architectural precision that makes me smile.
The flames catch, casting a warm, flickering glow across the room. It’s romantic. Undeniably, dangerously romantic.
I sit on the emerald velvet sofa, knees pulled to my chest. Ross stands, wiping his hands on his jeans. The firelight dances over his features, softening the lines of stress, highlighting the new, rougher texture of him.
He looks at me. The air between us pulls tight, charged with the static of proximity.
“Warm enough?” he asks.
“Getting there.”
He hesitates, then sits on the other end of the sofa. Not close enough to touch, but close enough that I can smell him, rain, woodsmoke, and soap.
We watch the fire. Minus the crackling, the house is still around us, stripped of the hum of the refrigerator and the television. It’s just us.
“I missed this,” he says softly. “Just… sitting.”
“You used to hate just sitting. You called it ‘boring.’”
He laughs, a dry sound. “I was an idiot.”
He shifts, turning his body toward me. His hand rests on the velvet cushion between us. Inches from my foot.
“Margot,” he whispers.
His eyes are dark, searching. There is hunger there, yes, but there is also a question. He moves his hand, sliding it across the velvet until his pinky brushes against my ankle.
The contact sends a shockwave. My body remembers him. My skin remembers him. Every instinct screams to lean forward, to close the gap, to let the firelight hide the scars.
I want to. God, I want to.
But then I remember the whisper.Tabitha.
I remember the ease with which he replaced me in his mind. I remember the months of loneliness. If I let him in now, if I let the fire and the rain seduce me, will he think the work is done? Will he think he’s won?
I can’t afford to be easy. I can’t afford to be conquered.
I pull my legs back, tucking them under me, breaking the contact.
Ross freezes. His hand stays on the cushion, empty.
“Not yet,” I whisper. My voice shakes.
The rejection hangs in the air, sharp and stinging. I wait for the frustration. I wait for him to sigh, to get up, to retreat to the guest room in a huff of wounded pride.
But he doesn’t.
He looks at his hand, then slowly curls it into a fist and pulls it back into his lap. Then he nods.
“Okay,” he says. He looks at me, and there is no anger in his face. Only a deep, sad patience. “Not yet.”
He gets up, walks to the fireplace, and adds another log. He tends the flame, keeping the room warm for me, even though I left him in the cold.
“I’m not going anywhere, Margot,” he says to the fire. “Take all the time you need.”
I watch his back, the steady line of his shoulders as he crouches before the fire. The muscles beneath his shirt shift with each deliberate movement. My body responds without permission, a slow, treacherous heat pooling low in my abdomen, my nipples tightening against the thin fabric of my sweater. I press my thighs together, the slight pressure both relief and torment.
His forearms flex as he arranges another log. Those hands. I remember those smooth hands on my skin, but now I imagine how his new, rough palms would feel dragging across my inner thighs. The way his thumb would press into the hollow of my hip bone, holding me down.”
