I should have said no.
“Lead the way,” I said instead.
The city sprawled below us, a glittering grid of light and ambition that looked almost honest from this height. Chicago in November—brutal and beautiful, the wind off the lake sharp enough to cut. I gripped the iron railing and breathed it in, grateful for the cold that cleared my head.
He stood beside me, close enough that our arms nearly touched. The silence between us had shifted from charged to something quieter. Almost companionable.
“You never told me your name,” he said.
“You never asked.”
“I’m asking now.”
I considered lying. It would have been the smart move—give a fake name, keep the mystery, protect the story I was building. My mouth said: “Em.”
“Em.” He repeated it like he was testing the weight of it. “Short for something?”
“Probably.” I turned to look at him, and found him already watching me. The city lights caught the angles of his face, the dark scruff along his jaw, the way the wind had done to his hair what it had done to mine—stripped away the careful arrangement and left something more honest underneath. “You never told me yours either.”
“No,” he agreed. “I didn’t.”
The non-answer should have frustrated me. Instead it felt like a game I was suddenly very interested in playing.
“So we’re strangers,” I said.
“For now.”
The way he said it—low, certain, like for now was a promise with an expiration date he’d already calculated—sent heat curling through my chest despite the November wind.
This was stupid. This was professionally catastrophic. This man was almost certainly connected to the story I was building, and I was standing on a balcony with him trading charged silences like we had all the time in the world.
He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear—the ones that had escaped my bun and been whipping across my face in the wind. His fingers barely grazed my cheek.
I stopped breathing.
“You should go back inside,” he said. His voice was different now. Lower. The control still there, but fraying at the edges.
“You should too.”
“I will.” He didn’t move. “In a minute.”
I don’t know which of us closed the remaining distance. Maybe it was simultaneous—two people making the same terrible, inevitable decision at exactly the same moment. His mouth found mine, and the cold night air disappeared.
He didn’t rush. That was the first thing I noticed—the deliberate, unhurried way he kissed me, like he had all the time in the world and had already decided exactly how he intended to use it. Not frantic. Slow and searching, the kind of kiss that asks a question and waits for the answer. His patience was more dangerous than urgency ever could be. I gave it to him, my hands fisting in his jacket, pulling him closer until there was no cold air left between us. One hand slid up my spine, cupping the back of my neck, his thumb tracing the line of my throat like he was reading something written there. The touch was so deliberate—so unhurried—that I felt it everywhere.
He made a low sound against my mouth when I pressed into him — the sound of a man who had not planned on this.
“Still calculating?” I managed, breathless.
“Constantly.” His lips dragged down my jaw, my throat, teeth grazing the sensitive skin below my ear. “My numbers keep changing.”
His mouth found the curve of my neck and stayed there, warm and intent, while his hands began to move. One slid up my ribcage, thumb brushing the underside of my breast through the fabric of my dress, learning the weight of it before his palm closed over me fully. I exhaled sharply.
“You’re very sure of yourself,” I said, though my voice had lost some of its edge.
“Am I wrong to be?”
I didn’t answer. He took that as the answer it was.
