The faint sting along my collarbone where his grip had been. The warmth still lingering low in my stomach, heavy and insistent, refusing to be ignored. The way my entire body felt like it had been tuned differently—like something had shifted under the surface and hadn’t settled back.
I turned away from the sink instead.
My shoulder hit the wall, and I let it carry me down, sliding until the cold tile met the backs of my thighs, then my hips, then my spine as I sank to the floor in one controlled, steady motion that unraveled the second I stopped moving.
My knees came up instinctively, one arm wrapping around them as my other hand braced uselessly against the tile.
My hands were shaking. Just enough that I could feel it. Under my skin. In my fingers. In the way I had to press my palm flat against the floor to keep grounded.
I closed my eyes.
That was a mistake.
It came back immediately.
Flashes.
His hand at my waist.
The pull of fabric giving way under pressure.
The sound of my own breath catching—sharp, unsteady.
The way he’d looked at me. Like I was something he’dalready decided on. Like stopping had never been part of the plan.
My fingers curled against my knees, pressing hard enough to remind me where I was, what this was, what it needed to be.
Controlled.
Manageable.
Temporary.
Except—I didn’t want to stop him.
My eyes snapped open.
The words didn’t go away. They didn’t blur or soften or lose their edge. They sat there. Clear. Exact.
True.
I dragged in a breath, then another, forcing my lungs to work, forcing my brain to catch up, to do something with that, to file it, label it, contain it before it spread into something I couldn’t afford.
My hand moved before I could overthink it, reaching for my phone where I’d dropped it into my clutch earlier, fingers still unsteady as I unlocked the screen.
I pulled up the thread with Lucy and Lo, typing quickly.
Had to leave. Work issue. I’ll handle it.
Lucy: Of course you did. What did he do now?
A breath of something almost like relief slipped through me.
Right.
That’s what this looked like.
That’s what it was supposed to look like.