There’s a pause, not the kind where someone’s searching for the right words, but the kind where they’ve already found them and are weighing whether they should be said at all. His eyes glaze over slightly, the green darkening as he turns over the endless chain of possibilities.
“And if you change your mind…” His voice drops lower, slower, like he’s pulling me in without meaning to. “…or shit gets too risky, we burn it all.”
The last part is sharp, certain, and it pulls me out of my own thoughts. I want to ask him whatburn it allactually means, but something about the way his jaw locks tells me I don’t want the details.
My heart kicks against my ribs. “Okay.”
He cups my face, and his touch feels like a confession—warm, steady, careful, as if he’s holding something fragile he’s afraid to drop. His eyes find mine, the look in them robbing me of the very air in my lungs.
“But, Lily…” His voice is low enough to make the air between us shift. “There’s something you should understand.”
My pulse stutters. “What?”
“I’m not sure I can stand other men looking at you like that. Looking at parts of you I’ll never get to see, to touch, to taste.”
The air shifts with his confession, the acknowledgment that recently things between us have been changing. His words—and what they mean—are dangerous, because if the wrong person heard them… but I’m past caring. Past letting marriage contracts keep us apart when I know we could be something incredible, if only we let ourselves.
“Matt…”
“I mean it.” His thumb drags across my bottom lip, feather-light, and I shiver at the touch. “I think about you all the time. The second you walk into a room, nothing else exists. And I know—I fucking know—I shouldn’t want you,can’twant you, because…” He cuts himself off, chest heaving with the effort of getting his words out, and at the same time holding back the words he knows neither of us can stomach to hear.
“Please don’t say it.” My voice is quieter than I intend, but it’s enough to pull his eyes back to mine.
His throat works, his jaw tight. “Yeah. Alright.”
Then, quietly, I ask, “Do you want me to show you what I’d do on my streams?”
His eyes close like the words physically hurt him, like picturing it is more than he can handle. His hands tighten on my hips, his fingers flexing, and his cold rings press against my bare skin where my hoodie has ridden up. Reaching up, I cup his jaw, and his eyes snap open, laser-focused on my touch.
“What if I said you could have me? That they might get to look, but only you get to touch?”
“Fucking hell,” he murmurs, almost too low to catch. “You’re killing me here.”
I shift, the air seeming to thicken around us. Moving from his sideways hold to straddle his lap feels like stepping over a line I can never uncross. My knees bracket his hips, the soft press of my thighs against him, and the hard, thick weight of his cock beneath me sending a ripple of heat through me.
His hands grip the arms of the chair, white-knuckled, and I hear the faint creak of wood under his fingers as I start to roll my hips over him. My eyes roll back, my back arching at the pressure of his cock grinding against my clit.
He exhales through his nose, a shudder running through him. “Lily… you don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Then show me,” I plead, my hands sliding along his arms, desperate for the connection I know I shouldn’t crave.
His gaze locks on mine, fierce and pained all at once. “Tell me to stop.”
I shake my head. “I don’t want you to.”
He swears under his breath, grabbing my hips and stilling me. His grip is firm, almost bruising, and I can feel the tension running through his muscles. And his eyes… his eyes look wrecked—dark, stormy, like he’s battling something inside he can’t control.
“You don’t get it,” he says, voice low, rough with need. “I dream about moments like this. I wake up shaking because I know I can’t have you. And now you’re here, on my lap—” His words fracture; he swallows hard, his throat moving as if every syllable costs him. “And I can’t breathe.”
I can’t stop myself from leaning into him, chest pressing against his, lips brushing against the corner of his mouth in a tentative, testing kiss. His hands tighten, and I feel him shiver beneath me. The air between us hums with everything unsaid—the danger, the desire, the guilt, the part of us that knows the line we’re crossing could destroy everything.
“I wish you could be mine,” he whispers, more to himself than me. His forehead drops to mine, breath hot, and for a heartbeat, the world outside ceases to exist. There’s only him and me, and the pull between us that’s been simmering for too long.
I close my eyes, letting the moment stretch, letting the forbidden, devastating thrill of it wash over me. Every heartbeat, every shiver, every touch is electric—sharp, consuming, and entirely ours.
And in the back of my mind, a warning nags, but it’s drowned out by the heat, the want, the utter impossibility of stepping back now.
My chest aches. “Matt…”
