Not Zephyra, I know what that feels like. This is different… worse.
I’m at the kitchen table, staring at a mug of coffee that went cold before I remembered to drink it. I keep stirring it anyway, pretending I’m doing something normal. Ella’s at school. The apartment is still. Too still. It gives my thoughts room to crawl into places I don’t want them.
And they keep going back to him.Of course they do.Because my brain hates me.
Asher Redmont is lodged somewhere behind my ribs, exactly where I don’t want him, exactly where I can feel him if I breathe too deeply.
Heat flickers low in my stomach, unwelcome and persistent. My thighs tense at the memory of his fingers without my permission, and I swear under my breath. This is ridiculous. I’m ridiculous.
Kitten.
That word slides through my head like a warm hand at the base of my neck. I glare at nothing, but my pulse stumbles anyway.
Who even says that? Who walks around calling peoplethatwithout irony? Who looks at me like they’ve already tasted the sound I make when I fall apart?
His voice shouldn’t be stuck in me like this. None of him should.
I wrap both hands around my mug, like holding something steady might fix the chaos in my body. It doesn’t. Nothing does.
I try not to think about the hallway last night, but the memory pushes in anyway—slow at first, then all at once.
My breath catches. There it is.
His body crowding mine, not aggressively, just… deliberately. Like he knew exactly how close to stand to make me forget what I was doing, who I was, and where I was going.
My chest hitting the wall.
His breath warming the side of my throat.
That slow drag of his fingers over my panties—like he was confirming something he already knew, and worse, that he knew I knew it too.
A quiet shiver runs through me, and I close my eyes because looking at the room while remembering him feels like too much at once.
My body remembers him in humiliating detail. The way he started slow, almost patient, like he had all the time in the world to watch me come undone. The way frustration curled in my stomach, hot and embarrassing, because I could feel myself giving in. The way everything sharpened when he pushed deeper and firmer, like he’d been waiting for the exact moment resistance faded.
I grip the edge of the table. The wood presses into my palm, grounding me, but not enough.
He touched me like he’d done it before. Like he’d thought about it. Like he’d thought aboutme.
And then—God. He just walked away.
A breath leaves me in a frustrated rush, half groan, half laugh, because what else do you do when a man ruins you and then leaves before you even get the chance to decide how you feel about it?
I push up from the table too fast. The chair scrapes loudly across the floor. I pretend I don’t flinch.
The sink is cold under my hands when I reach it. My reflection in the dark window looks… unsettled. Lips parted, eyes unfocused, and cheeks warm. Like someone who didn’t get enough sleep and maybe not enough sense, either.
I should hate him. Honestly, I want to.
But I can still feel him and that’s the problem.
Heat coils in my stomach again. Persistent. Annoying. Familiar in a way I don’t want it to be. I press my thighs together like I can stop the ache with sheer willpower.
It doesn’t work.
Would it really be so terrible to want him? To stop pretending this pull isn’t there? To lean into the way he makes me feel instead of fighting it?
Probably.Almost definitely.Men like Asher don’t come without consequences. And I’m already one bad decision away from burning everything down.
