He reached around me, arm brushing mine as he twisted the faucet shut. Theclickcut the room to silence, leaving only the uneven hitch of our breaths hanging between us.
The girl in the mirrorstilldidn’t look like me. Her pupils were blown wide, her lips parted, a blush spread across her chest. She looked caught somewhere between fear and something she didn’t want to name…like she’d fallen straight down a rabbit hole and woken up in a strange new land that had everything she’d ever wanted.
“I’m confused,” I whispered, the words shaking as they left me. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”
He tilted his head slightly, studying me through the mirror. “You don’t?” His voice was quiet, almost thoughtful. “You really don’t feel it?”
Before I could ask what he meant, his hand lifted.
I watched in the mirror, wide-eyed, as his fingers reached for me and traced a slow path along my shoulder. The touch was soft, almost reverent, like he was testing the reality of me.
My breath stuttered and vanished, caught somewhere between my chest and throat as the world narrowed to the heat of his hand on my skin.
The touch was barely there, just the edge of his fingers skimming down my arm, but it might as well have set me on fire.
A small sound escaped me, half gasp, half plea. My eyes stung. I’d imagined this—him—so many times that it felt like a cruel trick for it to finally be real. All those nights I’d pictured what it would be like for him to reach for me, to touch me like this, and now he was.
How could this be happening?
He leaned in, close enough that I could feel his breath ghosting across my neck. “Tell me you don’t feel it, too, pretty baby,” he murmured.
My hands trembled on the sink. “I…” The word barely made it out. My pulse thundered against my ribs.
“Why do you keep running?” he asked softly.
“I’m not?—”
“You are,” he murmured. “Every time I get close, you disappear, Ophelia.”
My name rolled off his tongue like a prayer and a threat all at once. It hit me low in the belly, filthy and sweet. My knees buckled a fraction, and the tiniest whimper slipped past my lips before I could trap it.
His grin was smug and victorious. “Do you like when I say your name, sweet girl?”
Before I could answer, his hands gripped onto my hips and spun me to face him. The mirror vanished, and there was just Matty, inches away, eyes blazing.
Up close, he was brutal in his beauty.
His hair was a dark, careless mess, the kind that begged to be touched, and his jaw was tense enough that a muscle jumped when he looked at me. But it was his eyes that undid me—bright and alive with something I couldn’t name. Looking into them hurt, like staring straight into sunlight and realizing too late you couldn’t look away.
“You don’t know me,” I breathed, the protest thin as paper.
Not like I know you,the voice in my brain whispered.Not like I’ve memorized the way you chew your mouth guard on third down, how you crack your neck before a lecture starts, the brand of cologne you slap on in the morning.
His thumbs dug in, pinning me to the sink. “You’re right. I don’t know you. But I want to knoweverything,” he said soothingly. “Every flavor of lip balm you keep in your backpack.Every song you play on repeat when no one’s listening. The way your breath catches right before you come.” His gaze dropped to my mouth, lingered, and then dragged back up. “I want it all.”
I want to know everything.
The words landed like a fist to the chest. I panicked.
He’d find out, somehow. About all of it.
That I hadn’t come to this school for a degree, but forhim.
That I’d watched every practice from the parking lot, hoping for a glimpse of him.
That I knew his schedule, his stats, his favorite drink before a game.
That I’d waited outside his classes just to see him walk by me once.
