They sold the idea as a team-building exercise. Two days out of the office. Culture in the workspace. Grand ideas, presented by people who lived from selling the agenda. It all looked fine on paper—except: people.

I stood, waiting for the elevator on the fourth floor of the hotel they’d caged us in for a full two days, a lump lodged in my throat—neither swallowed nor shifting.

At least the hallway was empty. At least the voice still had space.

And somehow, strangely comforting, the voice stilled the hum of fluorescent lights and the echoes bleeding in from rooms behind closed doors—the laugh of comfort drifting up from below, warping into mockery before reaching my ears.

The itch of a too-tight collar. The ID badge that sat backward, no matter how many times I tried to fix it.

Yeah, a voice with enough space and quiet to urge me to return to the room. To skip dinner. To disappear until the comfort of corporate discomfort could resurface in the morning. A voice, leaving an itch under my skin I knew not to scratch.

And still, watching the elevator countdown to my floor, I prepared a smile. Because there could be—would be—people.

And yet, the ding of its arrival, the silent sigh of doors parting to reveal an empty car, offered nothing more than a breath of pause. A flicker of relief before the certainty returned—I’d have to do the whole ritual again.

“Let’s meet at the bar. Grab a few drinks before dinner,” Matthew had suggested.

He’d also texted three times to make sure there was no forgetting.

The elevator skipped the third floor, but stopped at the second. Enough to inhale, put on the smile, and say hello.

Andrea, Lloyd, and Geoff from PR.

“Hey, Henry! What’s new in IT?”

I work with application management, but for some reason, my position sits under IT, and I’ll forever deal with paper-jammed printers and retrieving someone’s lost email.

Still frozen in my smile, I searched for the right answer. There’s a folder in my head labeled “small talk”, and I’ve lost the password for it.

“Yeah. Good.”

It was gone before I even realized what I was responding to.

The doors closed, we were in motion again. They resumed their conversation. It felt like half of eternity before the next ding, before the slide of the doors. They laughed. Exited.

I exhaled.

The lobby was familiar, because it was marble and granite and full of faces I couldn’t place or register. I spun the ID tag.

Again.

Tried to lift my eyes from the gray polished tile, only to catch what resembled a spot on the tip of my shoe. I could swear it wasn’t there before, not when I left the room. Neither was the crease in my pants leg. Or the sweat on my brow.

“Hey, Henry!”

Matthew has a booming voice; it always carries a sense of belonging he expects everyone to feel part of.

“Hey,” I said. He means well.

“Let’s grab a beer!” he continued, guiding me to the bar.

The girl asked what I’d have as if I knew what was on offer, like anything on tap wasn’t good enough.

She smiled, though, and poured perfectly. Of course, Matt was already reaching for his card. That’s his way. I don’t even know if it’s kindness or muscle memory; a need to make sure everyone’s seen. Safe.

And then he left me in the company of my beer, the busy girl behind the counter, and the buzz of voices.

There were snippets of conversations. The “how’s it goings” and “good to see yous” and the odd “good work on that thing.” Enough to make me fidget and nod yes when she asked if I wanted another beer.

I sometimes wonder if the soothe of alcohol would make me better somehow. Easier to be around. Easier to breathe, somehow. It only takes one beer to lift my stare, to observe the room, to catch the ease and the tension. Who’s genuine and not. Who’s trying to command the room, who’s trying to find a space within it. And who is trying to survive it.

She’s the quiet beauty. Slipping into the room as if it embraces her, her calm, gentle elegance as she brushes a lock of brown hair away from her matching eyes. She stops in the middle of the room, and for a moment, I wonder what it is to be the air that she breathes. Just before it settles into a sting in my chest.

She’s wore a long-sleeved dress that only let me imagine—or perhaps it was just the beer—what the shapes of her arms might be. She’s stunning. And I doubt she’s ever noticed my existence.

It lasted only for so long, because Matthew.

She smiled as he reached to hug her, and didn’t pull back from him. She listened. I think she laughed. I think she said something before she blushed slightly.

Matt’s eyes shot across the room, and hers followed.

I wasn’t staring. I’m hoping they realize that as I studied the speck on my shoe. The crease in my pants. The heat rising on my face.

I wasn’t staring. Surely she didn’t think I was?

~ ❤️‍🩹~

I had checked and rechecked the look of myself in the mirror. And now, in the empty elevator where the air felt too thin to breathe, pressing against skin drawn too tight beneath my navy blue dress, I watched the numbers light up above the elevator door. A countdown to detonation.

Maybe I’d give up dramatics for Lent.

The mirrored panel caught me on my left, and I found myself adjusting the swooping neckline of my dress. Again. Pulling the long sleeves down over my wrists. Swiping at the edges of my lipstick. A yank on the hem.

A ritual born of nerves. Performed with anxious, trembling fingers and held breath. I still couldn’t see past the anxiety written in the set of my lips, the tightness in my jaw, my shoulders.

As a junior accountant, my job boiled down to Excel formulas and plugging in numbers on a spreadsheet. Not to knock it. But that was to say—it wasn’t as if my position required team building. I was more comfortable in the company of numbers than people anyway.

People were…unpredictable. Too loud. Too curious.

The elevator doors opened on the lobby just as I was adjusting the lanyard for my name badge. The sound of conversation skated across my fraying nerves like a static charge—slow building but impossible to ignore. My black patent heels clicked obnoxiously on granite. Every step sounded like I was announcing my presence with a bullhorn.

I followed signage to the lounge. Wall to wall bodies—suits, cocktail dresses, flashes of teeth. Crowded enough to make my blood surge.

I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat, tried to relax my shoulders into an easy draw, and consciously separated my teeth so as not to clench them as I scooted past those milling about the entrance. Their laughter felt like a foreign language. I didn’t know where to stand. How to stand. What to do with my hands.

I saw him moving through the sea of flesh and bone, and felt like I drew my first breath since stepping into the elevator. Matt reached for me, pulled me into a hug. Tight. Safe.

I exhaled.

“There she is.” His smile curled slowly at the corners of his mouth. “I was starting to wonder if you’d hide in the elevator all night.”

My smile mirrored his, if a little shy. I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.

His eyes darted across the room, quick and subtle. Mine followed. And just in time—I caught the moment another pair of eyes dropped to study their shoes.

Heat crawled up the back of my neck, bleeding into my cheeks. I pulled at my sleeves until the fabric hid my palms, suddenly achingly aware of every inch of exposed skin.

He wasn’t staring at me. Couldn’t have been. Why would he?

Matt’s low chuckle said otherwise.

“You always do that with your sleeves when you’re nervous,” he murmured, nudging my arm.

“You should introduce me,” I said, quiet but clear—a rare moment of bravery piercing through the anxiety.

And instantly regretted it, biting my tongue as penance. My stomach dropped. Why would I say that?

Matt’s palm found the small of my back, warm and sure.

“How about a drink?” he offered instead, gently steering me toward the bar.

Toward Henry.

I didn’t protest. Just nodded, mute. Fixed my eyes on the wood grain of the bar top. Somewhere safe. Tried to breathe through the throb of my pulse in my ears and the heat of too many bodies pressed too close.

It’s not that I thought he’d bite. Not really. It’s just that I knew—after watching him from a distance—that he was just as shy as I was. And what could two mortally shy people possibly have to talk about? What would it sound like when neither of us dared to speak first?

I ordered Johnnie Walker Gold neat. That got his attention. His eyes lifted from his shoes at last—just a glance. Quick, curious. A flicker of surprise.

I wasn’t what he expected. That much was clear.

I almost smiled, amused by the quiet arch of his brow as the bartender set the glass down in front of me.

Matt sucked his teeth.

“Expensive tastes as long as you aren’t buying, right, Alina?” he teased, sliding his card to the bartender without missing a beat.

“Just be glad I didn’t order Macallan Eighteen,” I said, slipping onto the barstool beside Henry. My skirt rode up half an inch more than modesty strictly allowed, and I let it. I cast him a sideways glance. Let a slow smirk ghost across my lips.

“Best I have is fifteen,” the bartender quipped, handing the card back to Matt.

She smiled. Henry did too. And for some reason, the curl of his lips lit something molten under my skin.

I took my first sip. Honeyed smoke, vanilla, toffee, and baked apple. Smooth like confidence, warm as sin, and just smoky enough to linger in memory. The burn hit the back of my throat and slid down like silk.

The background noise dulled to a low hum—just a blur of laugther, clinking glass smoothing the edges—while the heat of Johnnie Walker bloomed across my chest.

I set the glass down, braver than I’d been five seconds ago, and turned toward him.

He was already watching me. And this time he wasn’t hiding it. Maybe it was the scotch. Maybe it was Matt’s easy presence beside me, wrapping the moment in the comfort of familiarity.

Or maybe…he looked because he couldn’t stop. The thought coiled at the base of my spine like smoke. I blushed deeper at the sharp tightening low in my gut, unable to help it.

“This is Alina,” Matt said, reaching to clasp a hand on my shoulder. I wanted to lean into it, like that alone could ground me. “Alina—Henry.”

I offered my hand.

His was warm, grip soft but sure. My fingers settled over the tops of his like they knew the shape of him—easy, unthinking, too intimate to ignore.

The contact lingered just a beat too long. Not indecent, but enough to have heat rising where it shouldn’t.

His lips quirked—just slightly. And I knew he saw it. Saw me.

~ ❤️‍🩹~

I turned quickly, but caught them in the large mirror behind the bar. I envied Matt’s smooth elegance, how the touch of his hand seemed to ease her into comfort, how effortlessly he—

I’m not the jealous type. I’ve no reason to be. I hate that my voice shrinks to nothing, and that my only comfort is knowing how to retreat—but never when. How it always feels too late, and feels like defeat in the silence after. But to have his confidence. If only for tonight?

—guided her through the room.

But no? Not toward me? Surely?

Coward.

Her scent reached me before their words, and I felt the old feeling.

Panic by proximity.

I’ve memorized that scent—lingering over the heat of the copy machine, held in the elevator car long after she exits on the third floor, and I ride one more.

But never close enough to hear her voice.

She ordered.

I’d expected a tall glass of red—deep, dry, clinging to the glass like it knew how to linger. That’s what I’d get her. But she went for smooth and smoky—something that burns slow and finishes warm. Not a drink to be seen, but maybe remembered?

And maybe enough to steal a glance.

Too quick. Too fumbling. Too caught unaware. Too ordinary in my choice of beer.

I think she smiled, or almost. The kind of look that refused my eyes a chance to surrender. How her words slipped out of her, as if they were poured, not over ice, but velvet, and in that same breath, she slid onto the stool next to me. Maybe because that’s what Matt had decided, and maybe, just maybe, because she wanted to?

I repressed the laugh, but it came out as a smile. She caught that, and maybe she winked. Maybe I just needed another beer.

I could watch her sip that drink for hours. The way her lips kissed the rim, and her fingers didn’t hold the glass, but caressed it. The way her hand curved and disappeared into that impossible blue of her dress.

Long sleeves, curling gently as her wrist bent—into an elbow; then a shoulder, too slim for how much space she took up in my chest.

The soft rise and fall as the heat of her drink seemed to settle somewhere behind her collarbone. The ease of her breath. The pale thigh almost brushing mine, where her skirt had decided to give away more than she’d likely intended.

And in that glimpse, I hoped it was intentional.

She set her drink down, then turned to face me. And I couldn’t stop looking. There was something behind her eyes, something in her figure that said she’d arrived—that maybe she wanted me to say something. Anything.

Matt introduced us, as if I hadn’t memorized her name. As if I hadn’t blushed from thinking of her, caught too deep inside myself, riding the bus home from work. As if I hadn’t whispered her name a thousand times. As if I’d never dreamed of whispering it to her.

Her outstretched hand was a gentle invitation, but such an impossible bridge. My palms felt sweaty, dirty, and my hands ten sizes too big.

But her touch, the way her fingers folded into mine—like they belonged there, like they’d done it before—unraveled something in my chest.

I didn’t breathe. I couldn’t. I just held on, afraid that if I moved, I’d ruin it. And if I didn’t let go, she’d think less of me.

But she just blushed politely. As if she’d wanted me to hold her longer. And how could I not smile?

I looked for Matt’s reassurance, but he had slipped away, leaving me to fend for myself.

I inhaled—but she looked like she wanted to speak, so I let all those rehearsed lines scramble a second longer. And when she didn’t say a word, just kept those brown eyes on me, I stumbled over the only two words that would stick.

“You’re gorgeous.”

Moron.

“No,” I hurried, “You look—”

“Thank you,” she said, then sipped her drink again. “You hate this, too, don’t you?”

I nodded to the bartender, and she understood my nod, giving me enough time to try and process what she—Alina—what Alina had said.

“No,” I tried, as if I’d suddenly imagined I had some new skill set for deciphering interaction. “You’re… I… honestly…”

She laughed. A genuine, relaxed laugh.

“No,” she said, voice soft, eyes warm. “This? This is good.” Then she turned her gaze to the room around us. “But that? That’s spent air, right?”

The bartender returned—I think her name was Janet—but when I reached for my wallet, she just smiled.

“It’s taken care of.”

“Matt,” we whispered in unison.

I grabbed my glass, but before I could lift it, she put her hand on mine.

“Say it again,” she said.

It was barely a whisper, but her voice didn’t need strength; her eyes held all of her intentions. Besides, just the faint touch of her skin on my hand was enough to stop the racing thoughts. Enough to still the voice. Enough to feel the thud in my chest—and realize it didn’t feel like panic or angst. Just a need to be closer.

“You’re beautiful,” I said.

She blushed. Again. Then laughed.

“I think your exact word was gorgeous.”

She let go of my hand and turned toward the bar, elbows planted on the counter. Her fingertips touched, and she leaned so the tip of her nose brushed her thumbs. I think she smiled. Then she returned to her drink.

I followed suit. And for once, the silence between two people didn’t feel like awkwardness.

Johnnie Walker—not my kind of drink—but it felt like the right time to be brave. And somehow, it didn’t sting. It only felt soothing. Only left warmth. At first, easing the lump in my throat—then replacing it with courage.

The next sip settled lower. Braver. Manlier, somehow.

She was still smiling when my eyes found her again, but this time, her smile had intention.

“So…” she said. “We could join the dinner party?”

The lump threatened to return—or worse. But her eyes waited for me to respond.

“Or?”

When she lets herself, she is stunning. The kind of girl who lights up any room.

My kind of girl.

“Yeah,” she said. “I like or.”

~ ❤️‍🩹~

Or…

I lifted my glass, let the rim kiss my bottom lip. Paused. Just long enough to feel the chill, to breathe in the warmth waiting within it. Then tipped it back. Not to finish it. Just to give my hands something to do. My mouth. Anything to keep my eyes off him for a moment.

The ambient pressure of presence had started to recede behind us. The crowd had begun to thin—people filtering into the ballroom for dinner, bringing the static of their voices with them. And yet there we remained. Two wallflowers, still and silent. Caught in some strange pause between staying and going.

I set the glass down carefully, the sound barely audible. Soft. Measured. Anything louder would’ve shattered the calm settling between us. I drew my lip between my teeth, risked a glance.

He wasn’t watching me. Not directly—though I didn’t know it yet.

My gaze lingered on the line of his jaw. I wanted to trace it with my fingertips. Wanted to feel the shadow stubble drag across my skin…

Not just against my fingers.

Heat prickled along the nape of my neck, a slow creep down my spine, settling low. I pressed my thighs together beneath the bar. Tried not to wonder if he felt it too.

Gorgeous…

I tore my attention from his profile, let it drift toward the bottle of Macallan sitting on the middle shelf. But I caught something else in the mirror.

Him.

Watching me just as intently as I had been watching him.

My lips parted. We stared at each other through the reflection, and as we did, something flickered behind his eyes.

Hunger, I thought. Or something close.

And I had my answer.

Johnnie Walker had warmed me superficially. Made me bolder than I had any right to be while my palms were hidden inside my sleeves. Ankles crossed too tight. Skirt riding indecently high.

My reflection was jarring. I barely recognized the woman staring back at me. Lips still painted red, but smudging now. Faded. The flush in my cheeks had crept lower—down my throat, blooming faintly across my chest.

I shifted slightly, enough for the low light to catch the dip of my collarbone.

He saw it too.

His gaze dropped—not long. But enough for me to catch it. Enough to feel the prickle of awareness.

My fingertip fell to the rim of my glass. I traced slowly around the lip, eyes still locked to his in the reflection.

The corners of his mouth curled subtly—intimately. Then he lifted his glass, finishing the drink in one smooth pull.

I couldn’t look away.

“I might have used the wrong word,” he said quietly, setting the glass down. He turned to study my profile.

I didn’t have the courage to face him. Not yet.

“Beautiful. Gorgeous.” A pause. “Neither describe what I just saw.”

He watched me inhale—shallow, stuttering—then hold it. Like breath might give me away.

“Being seen feels a little dangerous, doesn’t it?” he asked.

I mirrored him, finished my own drink, tried to find the edge of the boldness I’d had moments before. Before I thought about the warmth of him, still lingering on my palm. Or the way he smelled—dry cedar and a whisper of smoke. Clean skin under sun-warmed fabric. Not loud, but present.

I closed my eyes. Breathed him in. And when they opened again, I turned to face him.

“You tell me.”

The air between us pulled taut. My knee brushed his—light, unassuming. Maybe an accident. Maybe not. Enough to see if he’d pull away.

He didn’t.

“You’re very good at pretending you don’t know what you’re doing.” his voice dropped an octave—lower, steadier. Completely unlike the man who could barely meet my gaze earlier.

And now I felt it—the weight of it. His gaze dragging from my eyes to my mouth—lips parted, breath stalling as I tried to keep it even.

“But the way you watched me just now,” he murmured, “in the mirror…”

My knee brush had been tentative. A whisper of contact. His reply came with pressure—not aggressive, just deliberate. A slow press. A test.

The silence between us thickened, settling like a breath held. And suddenly the world narrowed. His heat became its own entity, radiating from him not like an invitation, but a dare.

My fingers twitched in my lap, aching to touch him again. To feel the slow burn of his warmth against my skin.

“I think you knew exactly what that would do,” he murmured.

And then he did what I wasn’t brave enough to do.

He reached out. Brushed a strand of hair from my face and tucked it behind my ear. His fingertips grazed across my cheek, and my heart leapt—lodging somewhere in my throat.

I gripped the edge of the bar to steady myself.

Then, softer—like a confession:

“And I liked it.”  

I drew my lip between my teeth, slow and deliberate. He didn’t look away. Didn’t take stock of the flush deepening across my chest.

He watched my mouth.

“I think,” I whispered, “I could use some air.”

And just like that, the moment shifted. The tension thinned—bled out at the edges. Too late, I realized how it might’ve looked. Like I was looking for an escape.

And maybe I was, but not from him.

From the low murmur of voices behind us. From curious stares. From the weight of too many eyes.

I rose, smoothed my skirt. Resisted the urge to tug the hem lower. 

Then I turned back to him with a small smile.

“Walk with me?”

~ ❤️‍🩹~

She might have framed it like a question, but I was caught in that almost. The almost disappearance of white noise, the almost quiet left in the wake of people retreating

The almost touch of her lips on mine.

The almost rejection—the near collapse of thinking I could be him—the man she made me feel like I could be.

But when she rose, I would have followed her anywhere. Not to escape the static or the shifting bodies now returning to consciousness. Not to avoid the pestering thought of retreating to the safety of my room.

But to avoid having to watch her walk away.

It wasn’t bravery that moved me. It was panic. The slow breath she took, the way her lips hovered between a question and a smile. The quiet blink of her eye. It all clicked.

If I didn’t follow her, I’d stay exactly who I was.

And maybe she saw someone better in me. Someone I couldn’t afford to lose.

I rose, took her hand.

“Let’s walk,” I said. “Do you trust me?”

I didn’t expect her to blush or lean into my shoulder, wrapping her arm around mine as if making sure I didn’t vanish.

I nodded to the receptionist, but I don’t think Alina registered him at all. She was still holding her breath inside, as if afraid, should she let it out, it might come out as spent as the room we left behind.

Not until the night air urged her to exhale and breathe new, did her eyes meet mine again. And still, her lip caught in her teeth, as if she was still making sure the words would be safe reaching me.

“It’s not you I don’t trust,” she whispered. “It’s the way I almost believe you see—"

Her arm in mine loosened as she met my eyes again. Then let her gaze slip into the dark beyond the pathway curling around the hotel.

“—Me.”

She felt freer, lighter somehow, and her weight shifted from my shoulder as she dared let go of my arm. Dared brush her fingers against mine, dared let the sensation of skin against skin touch and surrender, and only linger with the whisper of potential.

I watched her step ahead—unhurried, unafraid—and maybe it was I who slowed, not from doubt, but so I could see the way her silhouette moved into the space we were making.

Twice her gaze slid over her shoulder to find mine. Just checking. Not asking.

Until she stopped. Turned. Waited.

Arms easy at her sides, not once tugging her sleeves. Not once looking away. Not even when I stood close enough for her warmth to breathe into mine, as if she was daring me to know what she’d already decided.

She didn’t flinch when my hands found hers, when our fingers found the shape of each other, when I pulled her so close there was nothing left to imagine.

Her eyes dropped—just for a second—when she felt the shape of me against her. Her breath caught, but she didn’t pull away. She pressed into it, slow. Certain.

Then looked up. Bit her lip. Voice low and frayed.

“If not gorgeous,” she whispered, grinding once against me, “and if beautiful doesn’t fit...”

Her breath found the edge of my jaw. Her lips brushed my cheek, not quite a kiss.

“Then what, Henry?”

It wasn’t a question I was meant to answer. Not with words. None of them fit.

Not wanted, not stunning, not…

Hot as fuck.

It was gravity. Hunger. Need.

A need I’d repressed when her scent lingered in the elevator. Swallowed when her chair sat empty. A need I’d pretended wasn’t there—until she pressed into me and proved it always had been.

I didn’t say a thing.

Not soft. Not slow. Not careful. Not even a kiss, but the release of every second I’d waited to taste her.

~ ❤️‍🩹~

It wasn’t a kiss. It was collision. A rogue spark of heat curling over dry kindling. A mouth-to-mouth crush, no-lead in, no warning.

My lips parted for him instinctively, offering more, needing him to take it. Everything.

It tasted like a torrent of desire—something held back far too long behind the crumbling dam called decorum. And it had finally given way. Not a trickle. Not a slow, steady build.

A release. All of it. All at once.

There was no careful mapping, no gentle coaxing—just heat and pressure and the scrape of his stubble against my palms as my hands rose to cup his cheeks.

He consumed me like it had cost him to wait. And maybe it had. Maybe it had cost us both.

He pressed a hand to the small of my back, fisting the fabric of my dress like he needed something to hold him steady—to keep from dragging me down into the grass, right there beside the walking path. A means of tethering control. A fight against the urge to settle between my thighs after they’d fallen open to welcome him.

I kissed him back—fully, fiercely. Let him feel how badly I needed this, too.

No. Not this. Him.

My fingers threaded into the collar of his shirt and pulled. I wanted more. More contact, more heat, more proof that this wasn’t just a moment stolen in the dark.

I hitched a leg over his hip, and he caught it there—held it. Grip flexing beneath my thigh, sliding higher. The restrained truth of him pressed firmly to my wanton ache, throbbing behind his zipper.

And I wondered: could he feel me as intimately as I felt him? The heat. The wetness. The want inscribed in the slow, sinuous roll of my hips against him.

The way his tongue dipped deeper into my mouth told me he could. His hand inched higher, hovering at the edge of where I needed him.

My breath hitched. Just enough for him to hear it. To feel it. When he broke away, he did so slowly. My fingers unfurled from his collar by degrees—lips kiss-swollen, body too warm.

I blinked up at him, dazed. Drunk on it, and I was grateful for that. The longer the haze lingered, the longer I could stay lost in the intimacy of this moment—held in the warm surety of his grip on me.

And by those eyes that promised to show me the beauty in the danger of being seen.

~ ❤️‍🩹~

I think we broke free only for breath. Not from fear, not from any worry that the world was watching. Maybe just the faintest nod to the idea that decency still existed.

Her leg, uncurling from my hip now—not as recoil, not as regret—only to let us both be grounded in everything it was to feel. To be seen.

She tugged at her sleeve. Once. A reflex. Nothing more.

“Come,” I said, taking her hand. Because without motion, I might have to start thinking again. Or speaking.

Something that would break the spell.

The pathway curled along the outer wall of the hotel, past ballroom windows, the noise only reaching us like a ghost of unwanted memories. But that faded behind us, as the path trailed off from that world.

I said nothing, nor did she.

The hotel itself sat atop a small hill that fell down into a vast lake, the moon spilling herself wet and longing into the near-still surface of the water.

And when even the path ceased to exist, we found ourselves—not in a garden, not quite. Maybe the hedge had once been planted with intent, but time and trees had grown past their trimming.

Still, someone had thought to place a bench there, lonely and watching only the water. Weathered wood, slightly tilted, and not inviting you to sit. But waiting for those who needed to.

I couldn’t let go of her hand, not even while sitting and inviting her to sit with me.

She refused the invitation. Not the idea of it, but its shy intent. Instead, she climbed into my lap, skirt rising high, pale thighs bracketing me as if they spoke more truthfully than her voice could. And there was no doubt in the way she ground herself onto me, of how finding me already hard for her only made her pulse quicken and breath deepen.

“Fuck,” she whispered. “If only I’d known panties were optional.”

Her hands found my jawline, and there was nothing but hunger in the way she pulled me into her lips, the way her hips rocked, how she ground lust into me in a way that felt hopelessly trapped under too much.

Too much fabric, yes. But too much need, too much blood and pulse. The suffocation of being harder for her than—

I trapped her hands in mine, not to stop her, but to make it last.

“Fuck.”

Repeated under breath that barely held, biting that fuck of a lip again, her eyes trembling with that feeling I recognized as rejection.

“No,” I said, fighting the urge, the image of tearing that blue dress to shreds and feasting on all of her. “I want this to be different.”

The silence between stares. It might have lasted a minute, maybe an hour. She kissed me again. Short. Tasting.

“Hot as fuck,” I whispered.

“Huh?” she asked.

“You asked. What I would call you?”

“Fuck.”

The last one came out with a giggle, a pressed forehead to mine.

I folded her hands into mine, tracing the seams of the sleeve of her dress.

“Why the sleeves?” I asked. “Why the constant tugging?”

There was another tug, as if trying against will to pull her arms from mine.

“It’s stupid,” she said, eyes closed for a breath. “But it’s my stupid.”

The kind of stupid I recognized as my own.

“Maybe,” I said, “It would be less stupid if shared?”

Her lip curled, and I couldn’t tell if it was discomfort or the tremble of allowing trust to settle.

She blushed before she spoke.

“You’ll think I’m a freak…the wrong kind.”

“I doubt it,” I whispered.

She tugged once more.

“I…”

Her eyes met mine, as if asking if it was okay to be safe.

“You’ll laugh, and I’ll embarrass the heck out of myself.”

“I once said your name out loud on the subway,” I said.

“What?”

“I blushed when you sat opposite me at lunch last year.”

Confessions come easier when the only thing at stake is yourself. Or the girl just barely holding it together in front of you.

“I tan in the burning sun,” she said. “The kind of tan that never really fades. And, it’s just my arms. The only part of me that I trust with the light. I’m freakishly two-toned.”

She met my eyes again.

“And it makes the rest of me pale. Fading. Ugly, of sorts.”

It’s so easy to stand opposite that kind of fear. To recognize its familiarity. To me, it’s my slanted left eyebrow that refuses me to wear my glasses, the surgery scars on my right hand, the fact that I swallow my words when…people.

I kissed her again, letting my hands trail up her arms. Her lips, hesitant at first, but softening when my fingers reached the insides of her elbows. I let them linger there, tracing circles until her teeth told me to continue. I found the sharp point where her arms decided whether to shelter her or welcome me.

And she didn’t shelter.

Then, when my fingers found the shape of her arms beneath the dress she wore like armor, her lips turned greedy. And when I reached her shoulders, I wanted to rip it off her. That dress. That lie. That illusion of distance.

She let out a sound—moan, maybe—when my fingers met behind her neck. I had to fight the urge to pull her closer, to be selfish with the ache of my cock pressed to the slow insistence of her hips, her breath burning against my cheek.

But I think she understood. Her fingers found the back of my head—hungry, clawing more than pulling.

I found the tiny tab of her zipper, and she let me be clumsy, like she didn’t notice, like her mind was in my mouth and not in my hands.

She didn’t stop me. Not when I pulled. Not when the fabric loosened.

But she moaned again when my fingers traced the soft dip where her spine curved.

I pulled free from her mouth, just to make sure she was still safe. She just stared at me. Hungry. Eyes wet, lips swollen with—I think it was greed.

She inhaled. Rough. Wet. Filling her entire frame.

“Oh no, you fuck,” she rasped, and pulled me back in.

I don’t think she noticed how I bared her arms. Not when the dress slipped from her shoulders, not when I peeled the fabric down slow, not even teasing—just needing. No, not until I unclasped her grip from my skull and she finally breathed again, just enough to murmur, “Oh, eff me… what are you doing to me?”

Two-toned. Delightfully so. A sharp line on her arm, drawn where sun met sleeve and lingered too long. A contrast she thought shameful, but I found impossible not to trace. Proof of something real. Something lived.

I let my fingers wander higher. Along the curve of her shoulder, where another line revealed itself. Narrower. Paler. Drawn where bra straps must have sat. And the moment I touched that boundary, her breath caught—not in protest, but as if I’d uncovered something private. Sacred.

I traced the straps, reached around, and fumbled.

“Need help?” she whispered. She sat up and smiled at me, her hands reaching as if to shield herself from my eyes. I thought.

“Oh, donkey~ See?” she grinned, reaching the clasp. “It opens at the front.”

I don’t know where Alina from my dreams had gone. This one? She wore her body with confidence, her skin like confession.

She let herself spill free, the kind of freedom that divided our breaths between us, where she dared be all that she was, and I dared to witness.

I found the faded line again, the one that made her skin look untouched, and watched her eyes for permission as I trailed down, letting the soft shape of her fill my palms—the impossible softness of her cut by the aching sharpness of her nipples.

God. She was warm. Alive against me in a way I’d never earned, never expected. And still she gave.

And then, inside my left palm, I found the shape of it—the tiny barbell in her right nipple. Cool metal, stubbornly smooth, defiant against the heat of her skin. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t ask for gentleness. Only held my gaze, steady, as if daring me to pretend it hadn’t undone me.

There was no more patience left in me. Hunger. Greed. And she didn’t ask for gentle—not when I squeezed, not when I tugged. But when my lips found her, waiting, she arched into it.

“Harder,” she groaned, when my teeth found the shape of her.

“Oh, effff,” spat between teeth and lips when my tongue twisted the pin. First slightly, then not so slight.

“I got it to remind me,” she breathed, voice filthy and wet, “When the air is too tight. When things press too close—”

She pulled me off her, both hands gripping my face, her breath messy against mine. She kissed me—open, wet, needy—then dragged her tongue slow and filthy up the line of my cheek, her lips grazing my ear.

Then she whispered, low and wrecked, “I’m still the dirtiest mind in the room.”

~ ❤️‍🩹~

I felt the ragged edge of his restraint begin to fray—revealed in the way his hands tightened on my hips, in the breath he caught as I dragged the heat of my core over him. He stayed perfectly still, like even the smallest movement might tip him past the point of return.

“Last year,” I began, voice steady, “during the sunset of the old accounting task management software—you sat across from me in the deployment meeting for the new, remember?”

The conference table between us had felt like an insurmountable barrier. I could hardly meet his eyes, though I’d caught him looking—quick, fleeting glances that never lingered long enough to be proof. He’d glanced away like he hadn’t been looking at all. Or shifted his focus, feigning interest in something through the glass behind me.

And I’d been trying not to count the bodies in the room. Trying not to notice how the air thinned with every breath.

“I thought about finding myself in that same conference room—with only you.” I confessed, heat curling in my voice, bleeding into my cheeks. “I wanted to conquer the table between us by letting you lift me onto it.”

I rolled my hips, slow and deliberate. A press right where he was hardest, fabric so thin that I felt everything. He groaned, a sound reverberating deep in his chest, and his grip tightened, fingers biting into the soft give of my ass.

“Tell me more,” he rasped, voice thick with arousal, breath hot against my throat.

My fingers trembled as I worked the buttons on his shirt loose. Desperate for the solid weight of him against me.

“I could almost feel your fingers,” I whispered, “warm against my thighs. Hooking into my panties. Pulling them down…slow.”

I flattened my palms against his chest, biting back a moan as his teeth scraped my collarbone, his mouth tracing the contour he’d noticed in the lounge.

He was guiding me—driving the roll of my hips against him, dictating the rhythm. The pressure was sharp. Decadent. Perfect. My eyes fluttered, each drag wringing slick proof of my hunger between my thighs. I chased the spark, working myself over him slower—need cresting into something carnal.

“Alina,” he breathed, a hand sliding up my spine, igniting every nerve it touched. Gooseflesh bloomed in its wake.

“Don’t stop,” he murmured, lips grazing my jaw.

I didn’t. Fuck, I couldn’t.

“My panties were damp,” I whispered, breath catching on the words. And still, they spilled unabated. A torrent I couldn’t stop. “You stuffed them in my mouth to keep me quiet. Then got on your knees, wrapped your arms under my thighs, and pulled me to the edge of that table. My legs were draped over your shoulders and…”

I gasped when his lips closed around my nipple again. Choking on air. On the words.

“F-fuck Henry—”

My nails sank into his shoulders as he tongued the barbell, teeth closing gently over the peak. I arched into him, hips still working in a deliberate, filthy rut against the unyielding ridge of him straining behind his zipper.

“You buried your face between my thighs like it was the only place you’d ever wanted to be,” I rasped. “Licked me…slow at first. Like it had lived in your head since my onboarding as a new hire.”

A thinly veiled accusation, and his body rose to it.

He throbbed beneath me, responding not just to the words, but to every pause. Every falter of breath as I tried to speak them.

“I felt your tongue everywhere—until I couldn’t tell what wetness was me, and what was you. You didn’t stop when my thighs trembled. Or when my hips bucked. You just held me tighter—like you needed to know what I sounded like when I broke.”

He gripped me exactly the way I imagined. Hard enough to hold me there, unraveling bit by bit. Gentle enough to feel me come apart in his hands.

“And when I came,” I whispered, voice high and broken. “It was with your mouth full of me, and my panties still clenched between my teeth.”

I could barely breathe. My thighs trembled around the phantom memory of him, the imagined pressure of his mouth, or maybe it was the press of the reality of him.

“Henry, please—” I choked on the words, not even sure what I was begging for.

His lips found mine again—hungry, unrepentant. The friction was brutal. The press and drag of his cock through too many layers, hard as rebar, seared against the ache between my legs. He swallowed every sound I made as the heat surged, crested, became something unbearable.

I moved against him until I shattered. Body locking tight under the weight of sensation. Thighs quaking against him, my moan low and fractured. It ripped through me with such ferocity that it punched the air from my lungs, pulsing through me like an electric current.

When he pulled back, he cupped my cheek—soft, tender. It breathed life back into me, even as my core shuddered with the aftershocks of my release.

His lips quirked into a wicked smirk. A sort of wickedness I’d never thought him capable of.

“You’re right,” he said softly. “That’s absolutely filthy.”

He paused long enough for me to see the mischief flirt with the hunger in his eyes.

“But I wouldn’t stuff your mouth, Alina.”

He drew his thumb across my lips, tracing their shape, and I couldn’t help the way they parted beneath his touch.

“I want to hear every sound you make,” he whispered.

His gaze fell to my mouth.

“Those are mine.”

~ ❤️‍🩹~

Mine. I’d never even claimed the corner desk by the window as mine. Fuck, I’d never claimed anything that wasn’t offered—always thanking profusely, stuttering through gratitude. Never reached for something that could pull away, even when it came wrapped with my fucking name on it.

Mine.

She’d stripped me raw of everything I’d held to survive; filled me with all of her, and left only greed.

Greed and the certainty that I was ruined. Ruined for anyone else.

She gasped when I lifted her with me, dress bunched around her waist, a fortress taken, fallen, fucking given up. Legs wrapped around me as we surrendered to everything.

I lay her down, as if grass and wilted flowers paid notice to our heat, as if moss, damp earth, and the scent of crushed petals could decide what the night would make of us.

And only then did I break free from her. Only then, clawing at the belt buckle, ripping at the stupid button, did I realize the heat of her caught in all of me. The insane, profuse, disgustingly delightful wet of her. Us. The fuck of it.

And for once, she just lay still. Didn’t try to snarl back, or swallow me whole.

Fever struck, sick with lust, I yanked my pants down, cock throbbing once. No, pounding inside out begging me to take her.

Her panties were soaked through, the shape of her throbbing against the fabric, as if trying to escape its own pulse.

I dragged my hands up underneath her thighs, found the shape of her hips, and hooked her up, pulled, as if she had asked or permitted, lifting her clean off the damp dirt, dragging her back against the mud.

“Henry…”

Ragged. Mine.

Her legs curled as if their shape was intended for my shoulders, coiling behind my neck as if she’d rehearsed it, like she told me she had. Holding her there, locked in the vice that was my arms—braced beneath her ass, fists at her hips, every muscle straining to keep her close, and stretching those stubborn panties into the shape of her.

Mine.

I could smell her. I could smell the fucking heat of her. I could see the throb and filth of her, begging me to feed her fantasy back to her, only harder. Dirtier.

I pressed my tongue against her, filled myself with her filth, and inhaled her lust and surrender. I let it drag until I caught the pulse of her throbbing clit.

I was all teeth.

Gnawing at her need as if her hunger could feed me. Feeling her thighs tremble with each bite out of her until she was nothing but a voice cracked of sense. Filthy moans. Long drawn f’s that sounded like meerkats fighting raccoons behind her teeth.

I think, when the fabric snapped and shuddered against her skin, she thought I’d fall to my knees and fuck her with my tongue.

Certainly not to drop her, thong still bunched in my fist, staring at her.

Mine

Her legs spilled willingly, teasingly. Needful. To make room for me. Her eyes met mine, and I held her there, in my stare, even as my cock found her heat. Her warmth.

I’d fucked before, of course. But nothing this willing. This filled with need. This begging.

“Fuck me,” she pleaded, and I intended to.

Nothing else. No one else. Ruined for all but her.

I slid between her swelling, burning lips, but only a tease.

Again, only slower.

Again, rubbing hard against that stubborn, pleading nub. I knew she’d punish me. Later.

When I pressed down against her, she met my kiss with—

Patience.

Patience and a grin.

“Fuck me, Henry,” she breathed. “Fill me.”

I’d her thong in my fist.

“Want them?” I teased, dragging my fist up the flat of her stomach, feeling each tremor as I ground into her clit. I let it cling to the barbell, that stubborn pin, and let her flinch as it pulled free.I tried not to bite where the sting still bloomed.

But I needed her back in my mouth.

Not metal. Not fabric.

Just her—smeared across her chest, thick on my tongue, and filling me with ruin.

“Please, Henry…” ragged.

Mine

I raised the ruined thong to her neck, let it graze the slope beneath her jaw, then curled it gently around the column of her throat. She arched into it, and I let her, just because it made her…more her. More than I could wish to handle.

“You want it?” I asked, voice hoarse, at the edge of breaking.

Her lips parted, as if begging me to shove her full of her own soaked, filthy need.

“You can’t have it,” I whispered behind my teeth, holding on to the last of my sanity.

I tossed the useless fabric into the bushes, and the sound that escaped her wasn’t shaped for language—wet, cracked, punched out from somewhere below breath.

“Yeah, Alina. That’s it. All your sounds?”

I meant to say mine.

But as I pushed inside her, the earth swallowed me

~ ❤️‍🩹~

My body opened for him, like he’d always belonged as a part of me. My hands flew to his shoulders, nails biting into flesh as he filled me—slow at first, like the stretch was something to be savored. Like he meant to imprint every inch. 

He didn’t thrust, he sank. Deep. Hot. Unrelenting.

My back bowed, and his name tore from my throat—not a whisper, but a cry so raw I swore the earth cracked open with its resonance. I didn’t care if the trees heard. If the stars bore witness. All I could feel was the shape of him cleaving me open, and it wasn’t pain—it was proof. That I wanted to be split apart by something so goddamn good I’d forget every reason I’d ever feared it.

The first drag of his hips felt eternal. A tease and a torment. The way he pulled back just far enough to make me ache, then drove forward again—deeper, harder. The moonlight fractured behind my eyes. Sparks bloomed white-hot against the dark. Whether it was the friction, pressure, or the blistering heat of him—I couldn’t tell. But it lit me up from the inside, an inferno raging just beneath my skin.

I clung to him. Fingernails carving into his shoulders and scoring down the length of his back, breath broken against his jaw.

He fucked me like a man possessed. A man intent on unraveling every truth I’d kept hidden behind carefully architected walls. Like his restraint had snapped somewhere behind his ribs and all that was left was the ruin of his need, wanting to bury himself in places no one had ever dared reach. Like I wasn’t just a smoldering body gasping under the weight of sensation, but like a reckoning.

“Henry,” I rasped, voice breaking over his name. “Don’t stop. Please—don’t stop.”

There was no rhythm to match. Only the slap of skin, the growl reverberating through his chest, and the sweet sting as he drew his teeth across my pulse, dragging the fire of ragged breath across my throat. I took it all. Welcomed it. Arched into it. My legs locked around his back, heels pressing in to draw him deeper, harder, until I thought he may split me from the inside out.

His mouth caught mine mid-moan, swallowing the sound like it was a precious gift—tongue fervent, lips melding to mine.

He struck deep, and I shattered.

My orgasm ripped through me like a fault line cracking open. A sob tore from my chest, hips jerking against him as I clutched at anything—his shoulders, arms, back, clawing at the earth beneath me—trying desperately to hold on while I broke apart at the seams. My body convulsed around him, baring down on the length of him like my cunt refused to let him go.

He didn’t slow. He fucked me through it.

Ground down until the pleasure bled to pain and circled back. I wanted to beg again. For what, I didn’t know—more? Mercy?

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t do anything but take him and everything he had to give, and unravel bit by bit with every unrelenting plunge.

And god, I did take it. I took every fucking inch of him. Every bruise softened around the edges by pleasure. Every breath he gave back to me felt like salvation.

“Henry,” I gasped, thighs trembling in warning.

I came again too fast, too sharp, like an aftershock detonated by the hot press of his body against mine. All I could manage were broken breaths and half-choked whimpers barely bitten back by clenched teeth as I rode the wave, high and helpless. Felt it crest, felt it crash.

“Alina,” he groaned my name like a confession—wrecked and reverent against my throat. I knew he was close. I could feel it in the stagger of his rhythm. In the way his hips stuttered and his body curled over mine.

“Come for me,” I whispered, lips trembling against his ear. “Inside me, Henry. I need to feel all of you.”

And when he did—when I felt him flood me, pulsing, breath hot and heavy against my throat—there was nothing left to do but try to remember how to breathe again.

I lay there, filled and claimed, my body still throbbing around him. My name still caught in his exhale. My soul still tangled with his.

~ ❤️‍🩹~ 

It was rupture. It was every sin man had tried to invent since before dawn, before the universe. A cosmic vortex, lycanthropy under the moon. I didn’t release, I broke. I tried to inhale her pulse through the skin of her throat.

The utter collapse of body, mind, breath—the ruin of everything. And I felt her melt into it—all of it.

I breathed dirt, her lips crushed against the jugular that wouldn’t stop pulsing, like she wanted to drink the echo of me from my skin.

It took all of me to push off her—to roll beside her, chests rising, lungs fighting for air that wouldn’t catch. We didn’t speak. We just lay there, breathing what was left of each other.

“Fuck, Henry…” she whispered, eyes caught on nothing but the moon.

My instinct was to say sorry. To apologize for ruin; the mess, the dress, the grass. The girl.

For taking too much. Giving too much. Being too much.

And, yet, “Fuck,” I agreed.

“No,” she grinned, and I felt her press against me, leg sliding over mine, slow, deliberate. “Yours, donkey?”

“Always,” I whispered, misreading the fuck of her intentions, thinking moonlight and lake was the fade out.

“Oh. That’s cute.”

But there was a snarl in her voice, an intent in how she rolled on top of me.

“I’d better make you mine, then, Henry.”

~ ❤️ ~