"Looking at me like that," she managed, her voice barely above a breath. "Like you own me."
She couldn't. God help her, she couldn't. Because the truth — the terrifying, exhilarating truth — was that she didn't want him to stop. She wanted to burn.
The silence between them was charged, electric, a living thing that thrummed with everything they weren't saying. Outside, thunder rolled across the sky like a warning neither of them intended to heed.
The rain hammered against the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse. She pressed her forehead against the cold glass, watching the city below blur into rivers of light. Behind her, she could feel his presence like a physical force — dark, magnetic, impossible to ignore.
The corner of his mouth curved — not quite a smile, but something far more devastating. "Maybe I do." He reached out, his fingers ghosting along her jaw with a gentleness that contradicted every sharp angle of his features.
Tonight, she let herself feel everything.
She finally turned. A mistake. His eyes were the color of a storm at midnight, and they pinned her in place with an intensity that stole her breath. Every logical thought she'd carefully assembled scattered like leaves in a hurricane.
His phone buzzed on the marble counter. They both flinched. The spell shattered like glass, and reality rushed back in with all its sharp, unforgiving edges. He stepped back, his expression closing like a vault.
