I drag in a breath, but it shudders out too fast. I should turn away. Pretend he’s just another man in a suit, another stranger who doesn’t know the shape of me. But my feet betray me, longing driving me forward, one hesitant step after another, until the crowd swallows and releases me right in front of him.
“Lily.” His voice is rougher than I remember, deep enough to skim down my spine. My name doesn’t sound like mine in his mouth, it sounds like a secret, like a promise he never kept.
I hate the way my knees weaken. I hate the way my chest aches just to hear it again.
“Matthew.” I manage it without breaking, though my throat feels raw. I want it to land like a blade; instead, it comes out like a confession.
His eyes rake over me, slow and deliberate, and my skin burns everywhere they touch. “You dyed your hair.”
It’s ridiculous—the smallest observation, after everything. But the way he says it feels like he’s cataloguing every inch I’ve changed in his absence, every piece of me he still claims to know.
“And you…” My voice catches. God, why does it catch? “You look the same.”
His mouth curves, not quite a smile, not kind. “No. I’ve been starving.”
The words gut me, sharp and brutal, because I know exactly what he means. Because part of me has been starving too.
The crowd surges and crashes around us, blue and green lights flashing across his face as the bass drops, and for a heartbeat, it feels like the entire room tilts toward him. Toward us. Like the lights, the sound, even the air itself is pushing us together.
He doesn’t rush. He never does. Every step he takes is deliberate, measured, and somehow it makes the space between us shrink, makes the air thicken with anticipation. His presence spills into my space like smoke, thick and irresistible. Then comes the scent—clean, dark, threaded with something dangerously familiar—and I realise I’ve been craving it without knowing it.
Being this close is unbearable. My chest hammers. If I close my eyes, he could still be mine. We could be wrapped around each other, stolen moments, untouchable, unbroken.
I should step back. I know I should. But my body has other plans. It sways forward, drawn to him, pulled by a gravity I can’t resist, desperate and reckless despite every warning in my mind.
“Don’t,” I whisper, more to myself than to him.
But he hears me anyway. His mouth curves, dangerous and knowing. “You say that like you mean it.”
Heat spikes low in my stomach, humiliation and hunger tangled so tight I can’t tell them apart. I want to strike him, I want to kiss him, I want to disappear into the floor before he sees how badly I still bend toward him.
His hand rises—slow, deliberate, a tormenting heartbeat away from brushing my skin—and I don’t flinch. He doesn’t need to touch me; the air between us burns hotter than any contact. My nerves ignite, every inch of me aching as if his fingertips are already trailing along my arm.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I rasp, my voice barely a whisper.
“Maybe not,” he says, eyes locking on mine, hot and merciless. “But I heard you would be.”
The words sink like jagged teeth, ripping through the careful walls I’ve built.
For the first time in over a year, I’m drowning in him—the faint brush of his breath, the ghost of his warmth, the memory of breaking and blooming beneath his hands. My pulse drums in my throat, in my wrists, in the hollow of my stomach, everywhere he isn’t touching but could. Every nerve is awake, trembling, desperate, aching for the moment he crosses the line I’ve been guarding and maybe, I want him to.
And I know, with a sick rush of certainty, that if he reaches for me now, I’ll let him.
The bass drops again, low and punishing, rattling up through the floorboards. The lights cut out for a beat, plunging us into darkness before the strobes ignite again, harsher, faster. The crowd surges with it, bodies crashing into one another, momentum folding me forward before I can stop it.
I stumble into him.
His chest catches mine, solid, and immovable. His hand comes up, instinctive, sliding against my hip to steady me. Just one point of contact and it’s enough to split me open.
The breath shatters in my throat. Heat rolls through me, dizzying, and humiliating. I should tear myself free, but my body betrays me, holding still like I was built for this exact moment.
He leans down, mouth close to my ear, his voice rough enough to cut. “Careful.”
The word isn’t a warning. It’s a promise.
The lights strobe again, the crowd moving around us as the song changes, but all I feel is that hand, burning through silk, tethering me to him as though it never left. A year apart, and one touch has undone me entirely.
His eyes drag over me slowly, hot, deliberate. I feel it everywhere—throat, thighs, soul—every nerve sparking to life under the weight of his stare.
