She waited, the smile slow coming, almost shy. “Want any?” she asked, holding out the water bottle. The gentleness in her voice felt like a razor to the spine.
I took a step forward, just one, and the kitchen shrank to a box, an old familiar trap. She didn’t move away. If anything, she rooted herself more firmly on the floor, as if daring me to close the gap.
I took the bottle, her fingers brushing mine, a hot-cold shock that made my skin flinch. I pressed it to my forehead, pretending to need the chill, but really it was to keep from letting her see my face, the sick need that must have been painted all over it.
“Thanks,” I said, not meeting her eyes.
She shrugged, the motion pulling the shirt tighter across her chest. “You okay?”
I almost laughed. Was I okay? “Yeah,” I said, lying as I always did. Lying to her, to myself, to the gnawing thing behind my ribs. “Couldn’t sleep. Bad dreams.”
The words came out flat, but she didn’t flinch.
“Me too,” she said, her voice even softer. “It’s been every night, lately.”
My body was at war with itself. I dug the blunt ends of my nails into my palm, hard enough to leave marks, but it did nothing to dull the image of her standing there, legs half-bare, the delicate indent at her hip where my hand wanted to rest.
We were two animals circling the same wound, both pretending not to bleed.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, voice so careful it hurt.
“Not really,” I said, too fast, too harsh.
She flinched, and I wanted to take it back, but I couldn’t. I never could. She stepped closer.
Every inch of me wanted to run, or to grab her, or both. I stood pinned, my hands on the cheap counter, the sweat under my shirt turning to ice.
The only thing that kept me from breaking was the memory of every time I’d split something beautiful in two just to see if the insides were as soft as the outside.
“You should go back to sleep,” I said, but it came out strangled, not a command but a plea. I couldn’t look at her, not with the hunger crawling up my spine, blotting out whatever light was left in my head.
She edged closer anyway, close enough I could hear the scrape of her breath in her throat.
I counted the seconds, counted the inches between us, waiting for her to flinch, or to laugh, or to do anything that would break the spell.
She just looked up at me, eyes wide and bright, mouth slightly open like she was waiting to be devoured.
A war blazed through me: walk away, or feed the fire. I knew which hunger would win.
Her hand was on my wrist, so light it might as well have been a memory.
I barely breathed. I let her thumb circle my wrist bone, soft and slow, and I watched her face for any sign of cruelty or pity. There was none. Only a kind of hot, reckless certainty that made the world shrink to the four square feet of kitchen tile we shared.
“Amelia,” I said, and I meant it as a warning, but it came out broken.
She inched closer, until there was nothing left between us but hunger and air. Her hand moved from my wrist to my forearm, her fingertips tracing the old scar just below the elbow.
She looked up at me, and the calculation in her eyes was gone. Replaced by a need that mirrored my own so perfectly, so exactly, that for a moment I could pretend we were the same beast.
The moment I bent down to her, the air between us ignited with a primal tension that made my cock twitch in my goddamn shorts.
Her lips, chapped and raw from sleep, parted like an invitation I couldn’t resist. I kissed her like I was starving, like she was the only thing keeping me alive.
I devoured her, my tongue sliding against hers, claiming every inch of her mouth like I owned it.
And she kissed me back like she wanted me to ruin her, like she craved the chaos I brought with me.
Our bodies crashed together, a mess of fevered limbs and desperate friction. I backed her up against the fridge, my hands slamming hard on either side of her head.
