“I’m coming over.”
She presses the phone to her chest after reading it, eyes closed, breath uneven. Then that nervous little smile appears before she types again.
My phone vibrates.
“If you want to read, sure.”
Didn’t say no.
Good enough.
I snatch my keys from the counter. It’s raining hard, and I need to reach her fast and in one piece.
On the screen, she stands again, moves to the mirror above her couch, tries to fix her hair. Her eyes flutter shut, chest rising and falling as she takes slow breaths.
I kill the feed.
Lock the system and walk out into the storm.
It usually takes me forty minutes to get here.
Tonight? Twenty-eight.
Her panic makes me push the speed limits and cut every red light.
When I reach her door, it flies open, and she crashes into my arms like she’s been holding her breath for days.
She pulls me down hard, lips slamming against mine; the kiss is messy, rough and desperate, not like her. I pull back, but she fights me.
I grab her wrists, spin her fast, and her back presses to my chest as I kick the door shut with my boot.
“What’s wrong, trouble?” I whisper against her ear, locking my arms around her, and I notice how much she’s trembling.
“Isn’t this why you came?” she snaps, her voice breaking. “To fuck me?”
If this were anyone else, she might be right, but I didn’t come for sex. I came because I saw her.
She needed someone.
She needed me.
“You’re shaking,” I murmur, holding her tighter.
“It’s cold.”
“Liar.” I graze my lips against her throat.
“You keep calling me that,” she breathes, voice trembling.
“You keep lying.” I answer with a kiss, slower this time.
Then—
CRACK.
Glass shatters in the bedroom, and she screams.
My body reacts before my brain can catch up, and I shove her behind me, one arm out to block her, the other reaching under my jacket.
