"I don't know yet. But I want it to be."
Something shifts in his expression. Not hope. He's too careful for that. But something adjacent to it. Something raw and wanting that makes the ache in my chest spread lower, settling into places I'm trying not to think about.
He takes another step.
One foot of space between us now. I can feel the cool energy radiating off his body. Can see the faint silver threads in his gray eyes. Can smell that scent, stronger now, making my head swim.
His hand rises. Slowly. Trembling slightly.
It stops an inch from my face.
I can feel the proximity like a phantom touch. The ghost of his fingertips against my cheek. The almost sensation of his palm cradling my jaw. My skin tingles with the anticipation of contact that hasn't happened yet, might never happen, and the wanting is so intense it nearly buckles my knees.
His fingers hover there, trembling. This close, I can see the restraint costing him. The way his whole body has gone rigid with the effort of not closing that final inch. His eyes are locked on mine, searching, waiting.
"Tell me to step back." His voice is strained. Barely controlled. The words seem to scrape out of him. "Tell me and I will."
I should tell him to stay.
Part of me wants to. The part that remembers his face when he found me in that alley, the raw terror in his eyes, the way he whisperedI thought I'd lost youlike the words were being torn out of him. The part that remembers the firelit study and his centuries-old letters and the vulnerability he showed me that night. The part that leaned into his touch and wanted more, wanted everything, wanted him in ways I've never wanted anyone.
His fingertips drift closer. A hair's breadth from my skin. I can almost feel them. Almost.
My whole body aches toward that touch. Every nerve ending screaming for contact. The want is a living thing inside me, clawing at my resolve, demanding I close the distance and take what we both need.
But I need to know something first.
Not whether he would kiss me.
Whether he would stop.
"Step back."
He flinches. Just barely. A fracture in the marble.
But he does it. Immediately. No argument, no negotiation, no pleading. His hand drops to his side, and he takes one step backward, then another, until there's a proper distance between us again.
Three feet of space that feels like miles.
The absence of his almost-touch leaves me cold. My skin aches where his fingers should have been. I want to call the words back, want to close the distance and press myself against him, and forget all the reasons this is complicated.
I don't.
I watch what it costs him instead. The tight jaw. The careful breathing he doesn't need but does anyway. The way his hands curl into fists at his sides, knuckles white with the force of hisrestraint. The way his whole body seems to strain toward me even as he holds himself still.
Everything in him wants to close that distance. I can see it. Feel it. The wanting between us is a tangible thing, a thread pulled taut, vibrating with tension.
But he doesn't move toward me.
"Goodnight, Celeste."
His voice is rough. Wrecked. Like I've destroyed something in him just by asking him to stop.
I don't trust my voice. I just nod.
I make it to the door before I hear him exhale. A shattered sound. Something breaking apart in the silence behind me.
I don't look back. If I look back, I'll go to him. If I go to him, I'll never know if he could have let me leave.
