"Show me."
Not a question. Not a request. A command wrapped in restraint so fragile I could feel it fracturing with every breath.
She stared at me—searching my face for something I couldn't name, some answer I didn't have—before her fingers shifted against mine. Trembling. Hesitant.
Then she guided my hand to her waist.
Right side. Just above her hip. The exact spot where his palm had rested with casual familiarity that made violence coil in my chest like a living thing.
My fingers splayed across fabric still warm from her body. Covered the space completely, erasing every trace of him with the pressure of my touch. Too possessive. Too territorial. Too everything I'd promised myself I wouldn't be.
Her breath hitched.
I felt it under my palm—the sharp catch, the way her ribs expanded against my fingers before she remembered to exhale.
"Here?" The word came out darker than I intended. Rougher.
She nodded again. Couldn't seem to find her voice.
My thumb traced the curve of her waist through her shirt. Once. Twice. Memorizing the shape of her even as guilt tried to claw its way up my throat and failed spectacularly.
"Anywhere else?"
The question hung between us—dangerous, loaded, crossing every line I'd sworn I wouldn't cross again.
She swallowed hard enough I watched her throat work. Shook her head.
Something violent and possessive settled behind my ribs. Satisfaction I had no right to feel. Relief that tasted like shame but burned through me, anyway.
"Good," I heard myself say.
I exhaled sharply—the sound closer to pain than relief.
My fingers flexed against her waist, tightening fractionally before discipline caught up and forced them to gentle. Everything inside me pulled taut, every muscle locked down so hard my jaw ached with the pressure of holding myself in check.
She was right there. Close enough I could count the rapid flutter of her pulse in the hollow of her throat. Close enough her scent wrapped around me like a physical thing, drowning out reason and restraint and every promise I'd made to myself about staying away.
I pressed her back against the wall beside her door. Not rough—but unyielding. Inexorable. The kind of controlled pressure that left no question about intent even as I kept my touch careful, deliberate, giving her every chance to tell me to stop.
She didn't.
Her back met painted plaster with a soft sound that shuddered through me. Wide eyes locked on mine, dark and uncertain and hungry in ways that destroyed whatever threadbare control I'd been clinging to.
My hand came up beside her head—palm flat against the wall, fingers spread wide, bracketing her in. Caging her without touching. Giving myself something to lean into that wasn't her body pressed against mine.
It wasn't enough. Nothing was ever enough with her.
I lowered my forehead to hers slowly; the movement measured despite the chaos tearing through my chest. Our breath mingled in the narrow space between us—hers coming fast and shallow, mine controlled through sheer force of will.
I didn't kiss her. Didn't let my other hand drift from her waist, even though every instinct screamed to touch more, claim more, memorize every curve until the shape of her was branded so deep nothing could erase it. Just held her there, trapped in the weight of everything I couldn't say. Everything I shouldn't feel. Everything I'd been trying to bury for weeks that kept clawing its way to the surface every time she looked at me.
Her warmth soaked through my palm where it rested against her waist. Her pulse hammered so hard I felt it echo in my own chest, syncing our heartbeats into something singular and dangerous.
"You're going to be the end of me."
The words scraped out rough and raw, confession wrapped in warning wrapped in truth I could no longer deny. Not with her breath ghosting across my lips. Not with her body trembling under my hand.
Not with the certainty carved into my bones that I'd already crossed every line that mattered.
