"If you want to know," he said, his voice low and broken, "I'll tell you. But then you can't back down. You won't leave. Promise me."

I looked up at him.

At the desperation swimming in his dark eyes — raw, unguarded, terrifying. At the way his breath came fast and ragged, like he had been running for miles. At the muscle jumping in his jaw, the vein throbbing at his temple, the way his grip on my wrist trembled with the effort of holding himself back.

I wanted to know.

I needed to know what lived in the dark corners of his heart. For me. At least for me.

"Fine." My voice was barely a whisper. "I won't."

His eyes searched mine, hunting for a lie. Then —

"I don't just like you." The words tore out of him, jagged and honest, like he was pulling his own teeth. "I tried to convince myself that you were just my childhood friend. Just a friend. But as I grew up, it became so much more than friendship. It became... this." He pressed his palm flat against his own chest, over his heart, and I could see it hammering beneath his shirt. "You think I hate your touch? The truth is — your touch makes my heart beat so fast I can't fucking breathe. It ignites something inside me. Something I don't know how to stop. I want to kiss you. Every time you open your mouth to argue with me, every time you look at me with those eyes, I want to pin you against the nearest wall and kiss you until you forget every other name. So I stayed away. Because if I didn't..."

His voice broke. He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing.

"So why now?" I asked, my own voice shaking. "What changed?"

"You changed." His forehead dropped against mine, heavy and damp with sweat. "You never fought me over a guy like you did for that Sahil. You never held someone's hand in front of me. You never laughed with them the way you used to laugh with me. And I couldn't —" His fingers tightened around my wrists, not hurting, just anchoring. "I couldn't watch you look at him the way you used to look at me. I couldn't."

"So you're jealous."

"Yes." He pulled back just enough to meet my eyes, and what I saw there made my stomach drop. "I'm jealous. I should be the only one you share those moments with. Not anyone else. No one else. Ever."

His grip on my wrists loosened. His thumbs traced slow, reverent circles against my racing pulse, feeling the chaos he had created. He leaned closer, his forehead nearly touching mine, his nose brushing my cheekbone, his voice dropping to a whisper that vibrated through my entire body like a tuning fork struck too hard.

"So stay." His lips moved against my temple, not a kiss, just the shape of words against skin. "Not because I'm forcing you. Not because of your father. Stay because I can't breathe when you're not near me. Because I've been drowning since the moment you said you were leaving. Because without you, this flat isn't a home. It's just a box where I wait for you to come back."

And I stood there, pinned between the door and his truth, feeling the walls I had built around my heart begin to crack.

I felt happy.

Giddy, almost — a bright, reckless balloon rising in my chest. I wasn't the only one feeling this way. This chaos, this wanting, this impossible, terrifying pull. He felt it too. He had always felt it.

But I needed to know more.

I needed to test the edges of his confession, press my thumb against the wound and see how deep it went.

"And if I still chose Sahil?" I asked, my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands. "Then what?"

His eyes darkened.

Something primal and fierce flashed across his face — not anger, not exactly. Possession. The look of a man who had just laid down his weapons and was remembering he still had teeth.

His grip on my wrists tightened. Not painful. But unyielding. Absolute.

"I won't let you." His voice was calm. Terrifyingly calm. "I don't care if you think of me as a bad guy. Even if you hate me, I won't let you share a single second with that bastard. You are mine, Hazel. You understand that? Mine. Not his. Not anyone's."

And then he kissed me.

It was soft at first — softer than I had imagined, softer than he had any right to be. A brush of lips, a question asked in the language of breath and heat. Gentle, tentative, like he was afraid I would shatter. Like he was afraid he would shatter.

But then it shifted.

His mouth moved harder against mine, his body pressing me flush against the door, his hands releasing my wrists to slide up my arms, my shoulders, my throat, tilting my chin where he wanted it. The kiss deepened. Became the total opposite of soft. It was a claim. A possession. A brand seared into my skin with teeth and tongue and the low, broken sound he made in the back of his throat.

I should have been afraid of it.

I should have pushed him away, fought like I always did, kneed him in the stomach and run. But a part of me — a traitorous, hungry, broken part that had been starving for years — had always wanted this. Had dreamed of it in the dark. Had touched myself to the memory of his hands on my wrist and pretended they were everywhere else.

I didn't kiss him back.

I stood frozen, my palms flat against the door behind me, my heart a screaming mess of what should I do, what does this mean, what happens now. My lips moved beneath his because I couldn't stop them, because my body recognized him before my mind could catch up, but I didn't kiss him back.

I let him take.

And I hated myself for wanting to give.

He pulled back, just barely, his breath ragged against my swollen lips. His eyes searched my face — hunting for a reaction, for permission, for the green light that would let him keep going.

But I just stared at him, my chest heaving, my mind blank with static, my body trembling between the cold door and the furnace of his skin.

I didn't kiss him back.

And he didn't kiss me again.

Not yet.

He let me breathe.

Just for a second — one clean gulp of air — he pulled back until his lips hovered over mine, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from them, far enough that I could still think. His eyes searched my face with an intensity that made my knees weak, that stripped me down to bone and nerve and the terrible truth that I hadn't pushed him away.

"Tell me why you didn't fight back, kitten." His voice was barely audible, rough with restraint. "You're always ready to use your claws."

I didn't have an answer.

I tried to escape — ducking under his arm, my body twisting toward the door — but it was no use. His forearm caught me across the waist, his body caging me in, his presence overwhelming every instinct to run until running felt like a memory from someone else's life.

Then he picked me up.

Just like that. One arm behind my knees, the other beneath my shoulders, and my feet left the ground. He cradled me against his chest — not the way he'd thrown me into the car this morning, not the way he'd dragged me through corridors. Gently. Like I was something fragile. Like I was something he was afraid of breaking.

He carried me to the bed and laid me down, the mattress dipping beneath his weight as he pulled the blanket over me, tucking it around my shoulders with a tenderness that made my chest ache. His knuckles brushed my jaw. His thumb traced my cheekbone.

Then he kissed my forehead.

It lasted longer than it should have — his lips pressed to my skin, warm and soft and reverent, his breath shuddering against my hairline like a prayer he didn't know how to finish. I had never seen him like this. Never. Not in all the years of cruelty and distance and the careful, calculated coldness. This was something new. Something terrifying.

I turned red instantly, heat flooding my cheeks, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard I was sure he could hear it.

He laid down beside me and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me close until my head rested on his chest. I could hear everything — his heartbeat, fast and wild, a frantic drumming against my ear that matched my own chaotic rhythm. It wasn't the steady, controlled pulse of a man at rest. It was the sound of someone who had been holding his breath for years and had finally, finally exhaled.

"Sleep, kitten." His voice rumbled through his chest, vibrating against my cheek. His hand found the back of my head, fingers threading through my hair, cradling my skull like he was afraid I'd disappear if he didn't hold on. "Or I won't be able to control myself."

How could I sleep?

His heart was thundering beneath my ear, his warmth enveloping me, his arms a cage that felt too much like shelter. I lay there, rigid at first, my mind a screaming tangle of this is wrong, this is dangerous, this is everything you wanted. But slowly — so slowly I didn't notice it happening — my muscles unwound. My breathing synced with his. The terror didn't leave, but it changed shape, becoming something that lived next to desire rather than opposite it.

I didn't smile.

I wasn't sure I was happy. But I was here. And for the first time in years, "here" didn't feel like a place I was trying to escape.

Sleep came eventually, dragging me under like a current. The world was hazy, warm, wrapped in the cocoon of his arms and the sandalwood scent of his skin.

Then the phone rang.

The sound cut through the silence like glass breaking. Before I could even reach for it, Advik stirred, his hand shooting out from beneath me, snatching the phone from the nightstand with a predator's reflex. He squinted at the screen, his face soft with sleep for one bleary second.

Then he went rigid.

His jaw tightened. His eyes cleared instantly, the vulnerability of sleep evaporating into something sharp and cold. He looked at the name. Then he looked at me.

He put the call on speaker and held the phone toward me, his expression dark and unreadable.

It was Sahil.

"Are you awake, Hazel?" Sahil's voice filled the room, small and tinny through the speaker, painfully innocent.