When I stepped out, steam still clinging lightly to my skin, I reached for the nearest thing within sight.
His shirt.
It lay discarded over a chair like it had been thrown there in passing.
Dark fabric, soft from wear.
I slipped it on without thinking too much about it, the material immediately swallowing my frame.
It smelled like him.
Sandalwood layered with something darker.
Masculine in a way that made my breath catch for no logical reason at all.
The hem barely reached mid-thigh.
Too short. Too intimate.
I paused for a moment, fingers gripping the fabric lightly at my sides, suddenly aware of how exposed I still was despite being dressed.
Dangerous, I thought faintly.
Not because of the shirt.
Because of what it meant.
I left the room.
As I stepped out into the corridor, I caught it immediately—voices drifting faintly from downstairs.
Rafael’s house always felt controlled, almost silent, so sound carried differently here.
His bedroom was on the upper floor, so I moved carefully toward the staircase, drawn by something I couldn’t quite define.
Tension, maybe. Or instinct.
Or the simple need to know where he was after waking up alone.
I took a few cautious steps down.
And then I heard him.
His voice.
Sharp. Ice-cold.
“...Bring him straight to my house. No excuses.”
A pause.
Then the call ended with a decisive click.
Silence rushed back in, but it didn’t erase the echo of what I had just heard.
Rafael stood in the living room, one hand still holding his phone, the other clenched so tightly at his side that the veins along his forearm stood out sharply beneath his skin.
His posture was rigid. Like something inside him had already snapped and was only being held together by force.
