He only appears in my dreams now. The thief we call time has changed him in ways that unsettle me. His hands are rough from years of long, calloused work. His shoulders have broadened. His muscles are still carved with that same quiet strength I once obsessed over. But his eyes… those piercing blue eyes are exactly the same. They look straight through me, as if they still recognise every want I tried so hard to bury.

I had him for some time, when we were eighteen and burning for each other.

Our bodies were reckless. Our chemistry was dangerous. Every touch felt like a lit match dropped into petrol.

But I never truly had him. Not the part that mattered. I would check my phone every night to see his name on my screen, but only felt his touch when he decided I was enough.

He fooled around with me, took what I offered in stolen moments, let the tension build until my skin felt electric. Yet even as he touched me like he wanted to set me on fire, he never loved me the way I hoped. I knew if I gave in completely, he would treat me like something casual, something temporary, something convenient.

And I couldn’t let myself be dragged through that kind of hurt. Not even for a relationship that would have set both of us ablaze.

So we ended before we ever really began.

He walked into a life of movement and adventure, and I found someone kind and steady. I built a whole life from that steadiness. I grew older, wiser, whole. I'd change nothing, my own love now sweet and full of life.

But he keeps slipping into my dreams. Ten years later, he still visits.

Tonight he appears again, older but unmistakably him. I reach up before I can stop myself. He cups my jaw, his big hand warm against my cheek, as if ten years have been nothing but an inhale.

He kisses me and the past snaps open like a wound that never fully closed. The years fall away. The heat that once nearly ruined me sparks instantly. We kiss like we remember what we used to do to each other, and what we never allowed ourselves to finish.

When he lowers me onto the sheets, the words he once said to my friend echo sharply in my head, “She’s the kind of girl you marry, not date at eighteen,” a sentence that closed every door I had dreamt of opening.

They echo again when his mouth trails down my neck. Gasps slip out of me. His tongue circles my breasts, licking, sucking, my nipples tightening under the heat of him. His arms wrap around me, firm and certain, and the room falls away.

I part my legs in invitation. His hand slips between them like he has known that place his whole life. Slowly at first, then deeper, faster, reading my body like he still remembers the way I used to shake. Pleasure coils tight inside me. I moan his name without thinking.

He climbs over me, pushes inside before the feeling can retreat, and we both gasp. His rhythm is deliberate. His weight is grounding. I cling to him, nails in his back, breath tangled with his.

For one suspended moment I let myself imagine that he stayed. That everything could have been different. That he felt I was his world the way I thought I could be. My eyes squeeze shut, and my heartbeat pounds in my chest.

The orgasm breaks over me. My body shakes. His name tears out of me. And the dream cracks open.

I wake sweating. Confused. Empty.

It takes an hour before sleep finds me again, and when it does, he returns as if waiting for permission.

This time he comes up behind me, chest pressed to my back, his breath warm at my ear. His hand slides down my stomach, guiding my hips back to him. A needy sound escapes me.

He enters me slowly from behind, pushing me open inch by inch. The sensation rolls through me, heavy and deep. His fingers circle me while he moves, controlling every spark shooting up my spine. I push back into him, desperate, unguarded, all the restraint of eighteen gone.

He groans against my shoulder when I tighten around him, the sound low and familiar. My climax hits hard. I cry out into the pillow as he follows with a rough gasp, pulling me tight against him as if he wants to anchor us both in this moment.

Then he whispers it again, the same words from a lifetime ago. “You mean so much to me. I’ll remember you always.”

And I wake for the second time, trembling.

I lie there in the dark, chest tight, room silent, body still humming.

He only appears in my dreams now.

But after all these years, he still finds me, and some quiet part of me still lets him.