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My body is screaming yes, please, for the love of god. My brain is doing nothing helpful, just yelling back, how the fuck did we get here?

He nips at my earlobe. “Don’t overthink it. Let me make you feel good.”

Against every shred of better judgment I have left, I nod.

Enthusiastically.

I deserve this.

My brain runs at ninety different speeds on a good day, and he’s offering to shut it up for a few minutes. That alone feels like a public service. Why shouldn’t I let him? It’s not a crime to want a break from my own mind, and it’s not like he’s asking me to meditate or journal about my feelings to make that happen.

If he can do that with his hands, I’m not turning it down.

His fingers feel impossibly large when they slide between my folds.

I’m already wet, and the way his chest vibrates against my back tells me he likes that.

I spread my legs a little more for him, taking the touch he’s offering. Wanting more of it.

I squirm against him, sucking in a stuttered breath as he curls two fingers inside me in a way that tells me I’m not walking out of this unchanged. His mouth clamps over my skin, sucking a mark into the base of my throat with clear intent.

He’s an expert. That’s all there is to it.

The way he fills me so completely with only two fingers has me spasming around them.

I feel the small pull of his smile against my skin, and for a split second I’m lucid enough to wish I were facing him to see it.

“Already, Lila?” he teases. “You needed this, didn’t you? Needed me. Just like I need you.”

He knows exactly how to get me there, knows my body with a certainty even I can’t match. My inner walls constrict and release in a sharp, desperate rhythm, my body so wound tight that the smallest circle of his thumb over my clit could easily push me over the edge.

My mouth falls open in a silent scream. Theo nudges my face until I turn to meet him, taking it in a kiss that drains the last of my ability to hold myself together.

“You’re so good for me, Lila,” he murmurs, disarmingly warm.

The words settle over me, soft and certain, and for a moment I let myself float there—wrapped up in him, in the blissful aftershock, in a version of reality where this is allowed. His lips are warm against the shell of my ear. His hands cradle my hips. Every detail feels perfect. Too perfect.

I turn to face him more fully, and a wash of cold air spills over me from the wind that’s pushed the window open. The chill wakes me fully, and it takes a second to register that I’m facing the window, not Theo.

I have to reset.

The room is dim. Still. My pulse spikes as the dream shakes loose and I’m fully back in my own skin, painfully awake.

I turn my head to find Theo a foot away on the mattress, fast asleep and nowhere near touching me.

I push myself upright, legs unsteady in a way I refuse to think about, and cross to the window. The wind has shoved it open at an angle, the curtain flailing about. I wrestle it shut, latch clicking into place.

I stand there for a second, palms braced on the sill, trying to get my breathing in check. The dream lingers in flashes I can’t shake. My body is still reacting like it happened, like he actually touched me, kissed me, laid claim to every inch of me with that slow, deliberate sweetness I’m never going to forget now that my brain has invented it.

Fantastic. I can’t even trust my own subconscious.

Behind me, Theo shifts in his sleep, the softest groan leaving him, nothing like the things he said in my head.

I crawl back under the blankets, careful not to get close enough to tempt fate. My thoughts are a mess I don’t want to sort through.

God, I am so fucked.

Lila: Emergency.