~ 🖤
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The air between them was thick — not just with lust, but with the kind of heat that burned through the skin and into the bone.
Elias's breath hovered over Maya's mouth, ragged and trembling, like even he didn't know what he was about to do. Rainwater still dripped from his jawline onto her throat, and she shivered — not from cold.
But from how much she wanted him.
How wrong it felt.
How inevitable it had become.
He dragged the tip of his nose down her cheek, barely grazing her skin. His voice was a rasp.
> "You don't get it, do you?"
Her body tensed beneath him.
> "I've tried hating you," he growled. "I've tried blaming you. I've told myself that if I could just stay angry enough, maybe I wouldn't want to rip the world apart just to touch you like this."
His hand slid down her side — slow, firm, reverent and rough all at once.
> "But none of it works," he continued, his lips ghosting her jaw. "I still want you."
Maya closed her eyes, her heart thudding so violently it hurt.
> "You think I don't feel it too?" she whispered.
> "Then why are you trembling?"
"Because this…" — she opened her eyes, locking onto his — "feels like falling."
His expression changed — that cold, calculating mask slipping again — revealing the boy underneath.
The boy broken by death.
By grief.
By her.
> "Then fall with me," he murmured.
He kissed her.
This time it wasn't sharp or angry — it was deep, consuming, desperate. Like he needed her more than air. Like he'd waited too long and held back too much.
She arched into him as his hand found bare skin under her shirt. He traced her ribs, the soft swell of her side. She gasped against his mouth when he pulled the shirt over her head, baring her to him like a secret finally spoken.
He stared — and for a heartbeat, he didn't move.
Then he leaned down, lips grazing her collarbone, the center of her chest, the slope of her stomach. Each kiss was a bruise. Each touch left her unraveling.
> "You're mine," he muttered against her skin.
"Say it."
She hesitated, her body on fire and her mind drowning.
But she said it anyway.
> "I'm yours."
His eyes met hers — dark, dangerous, full of obsession.
He pulled off his soaked hoodie, and the sight of his bare chest made her breath catch. Not just because of how he looked — sharp lines, pale skin, muscles that flexed with restrained violence — but because of the pain he wore like armor.
There were scars there, old and new. One near his ribs. Another beneath his collarbone.
She reached for them.
He grabbed her wrist mid-air.
> "Don't," he rasped.
"Elias—"
"You touch me like that and I won't stop."
"Then don't."
That was all it took.
He flipped her beneath him, lips on her neck again, biting down as if marking her — as if branding her his. Her hands tangled in his hair, pulling him closer, deeper, harder. She moaned into his mouth as he rocked against her, grinding, teasing, making her lose her mind.
It was too much.
It was never enough.
But even as his mouth traced down her chest, her stomach, even as she felt herself melt beneath him —
A voice whispered in the back of her mind:
> What are you doing?
He hated you.
He still might.
She blinked up at him.
He paused.
> "Tell me to stop," he said, voice tight.
She didn't.
> "Tell me this is wrong."
Still, silence.
> "Tell me she wouldn't want this."
Maya reached up and cupped his cheek.
> "She's dead," she whispered. "And we're still here."
That was enough.
Elias kissed her again — and this time it wasn't about pain, or memory, or regret.
It was possession.
Desire.
Fire.
He slid her underwear down slowly, keeping eye contact the entire time, his fingers moving over her like he was memorizing every inch. She gasped when he slid two fingers inside her, slow and deep, and she nearly choked on a sob when he added his mouth.
He was ruthless.
Unrelenting.
She writhed under him, hands gripping the sheets, legs wrapped around his shoulders, and when she finally came undone, it was like a scream that had waited too long to be heard.
He didn't stop there.
He rose over her again, eyes blown wide with need.
> "One night," he said.
"One night I don't have to hate you."
She reached for him, guiding him to her.
> "Then take it."
And when he pushed into her — finally, completely — they both gasped like the world had tilted.
Because it had.
They didn't make love.
They burned.
And in the ashes, something darker bloomed.
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