The question lands hard.
I glance away, trying to breathe past it. Trying to remember why I can’t just fall into this man like I always do—headfirst, heart open, consequences be damned.
I reach for a strawberry, desperate to shift the focus. Anything to ground me, to pull the moment back from the edge of whatever it’s becoming.
But before my fingers can close around it, his hand finds mine, fingers wrapping gently around my wrist.
“Let me.”
My lips part on instinct. The air hums with possibility. Every nerve ending is screamingdanger. The smart thing would be to pull away, to say something witty, something sharp and self-protective, something that builds a wall between us. But I don’t move, don’t speak.
Because the heat of his skin against mine is a tether. Because in this moment—on this beach, in this realm, with him—there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.
He plucks a strawberry, red and gleaming and still kissed with dew, from the bowl, cradling it between his thumb and forefinger. Then, with a slow, deliberate movement, he dips it into the jar of honey. The thick amber clings to the fruit, dripping in lazy ribbons down his fingers.
His eyes lift to mine and hold.
“You’ll tell me if it’s too much?”
The sincerity in his voice. The gentleness. It scrapes against every raw, aching place inside me, places I didn’tknow were still bleeding.
“I will,” I whisper.
He drags the strawberry across my bottom lip, smearing the honey, letting it linger. The moment stretches, unbearably slow, unbearably tender.
The fruit touches my tongue, and I bite down.
Sweetness bursts against my lips, ripe and sun warmed, tangled with the floral depth of honey. The syrup coats my teeth, my tongue, melting through me like golden sunlight spilling over bare skin. It sinks deep and leaves me flushed, restless, hungry for more.
He watches every second.
Watches the way I lick a bead of juice from the corner of my mouth.
Watches the way my breath catches when his knuckles graze my cheek.
“You are the most dangerous thing I’ve ever wanted,” he says, barely louder than the wind.
My heart squeezes.
I swallow, the flavor of strawberry thick on my tongue, but it’s nothing compared to the taste of that sentence. Nothing compared to the way he’s looking at me like I’ve already ruined him, and he wants me to do it again.
I reach for the stem still in his fingers, but he doesn’t let go. Our hands stay tangled. Our eyes stay locked. And that ridiculous, terrifying hope starts to rise again.
Maybe this is more than lust and loathing.
Maybe this is something real.
Something that could finally be ours—if we don’t ruin it first.
“I want to tell you a story,” he says, his voice low,smoky.
I blink up at him.
“A story about a king who was cursed,” he continues, “starved of every pleasure. Would you like to hear it?”
I nod, the movement small, my breath caught somewhere between my ribs.
There’s this feeling I get—right before I open a book I know is going to ruin me—a kind of electric stillness, like the moment before a storm. That’s what this feels like. Like I’m about to be undone, and I’m turning the page anyway.
