Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 54572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
“My life is in DC,” I continued. “My work. My routines. My stability. I didn’t fight this hard to build it just to orbit around the chaos that follows you.”
His mouth opened, then closed.
“I won’t be someone you fit in when it’s convenient,” I laid it all out. “I won’t wait for you to decide you’re ready. I won’t gamble my peace on potential. And truthfully, as much as you don’t fit in my world, I don’t fit in yours.”
He stood then, towering in the space, naked and raw in a way that had nothing to do with skin. “So that’s it? One night and we pretend it didn’t matter?”
“No,” I countered, turning to face him fully. “It mattered. That’s why it ends here. That way it stays good.”
He searched my face like he might find a crack. An invitation. There wasn’t one.
“This was a one and done,” I stated softly. “A good one. A necessary one even because there won’t be a what if between us. But it’s done.”
The silence that followed was thick, heavy with everything we weren’t saying. Finally, he nodded once. “You’ve always been good at walking away.”
I met his gaze steadily. “I don’t think that’s a fair statement, Dante. But I’m not going to continue the back and forth. I want last night to be what it was and let’s not taint it with any jabs over bruised egos or even dancing around with the idea of what if because there is no situation where this works.”
I grabbed my suitcase, moving toward the bathroom. To load up the last of my toiletries. I had packed last night. Changing my clothes, I put on a basic sweat suit and slip on shoes before packing up my robe.
My heart was steady, even if it ached. Because some doors, once opened, had to be closed again before they burned the whole house down.
He didn’t argue, didn’t push. He waiting patiently until I emerged from the bathroom. As I shut the door behind me, I caught one last glimpse of him in the mirror—standing alone beside the bed we had ruined, eyes dark, expression unreadable.
I didn’t look back after that. I made my way out of the hotel room, down the hall, down the elevator, outside, and to my rental car. Not once did I even given a glance behind me.
Some dances are too dangerous to repeat.
And I wasn’t about to make a habit of waltzing with the devil.
DC swallowed me whole the second the plane touched down. Not in a bad way. In the familiar way—like sliding back into a pair of shoes that fit just right. The air was colder than North Carolina’s damp heat, sharper in my lungs, and the airport was its usual churn of bodies and noise and impatience. Everyone moving with purpose. Everyone pretending they weren’t tired.
I pulled my coat tighter as I walked through the terminal, my carry-on rolling behind me like an obedient shadow. Sunglasses on, even though it was cloudy. It wasn’t about the light. It was about hiding the fact that I still felt him.
Not in some poetic, romantic way. In the very real way my body reminded me with every step. That slow, deep ache between my thighs. The tenderness in my hips. The faint bruises that bloomed under my skin like secrets.
Three rounds.
I hated myself a little for how my mind kept replaying it in flashes—his mouth at my throat, his hand steady on my neck, that rasp of his voice when he whispered like he was worshipping life itself. You’re alive. You’re safe.
I swallowed, jaw tightening. Compartmentalize. File. Lock it down.
By the time I got to the rideshare pickup zone, I could almost pretend it had been a dream. A strange, reckless detour that had nothing to do with the woman I was here.
The woman with a career and a security clearance level for a job that chewed people up and spit them out daily. The woman who didn’t get to fall apart because she slept with an old ghost and liked it too much.
The driver asked if I was heading home. I gave him my address and stared out the window at the passing gray skyline, the monuments half-hidden behind scaffolding and low clouds. DC always looked like it was under construction.
So was I, I guess.
My phone buzzed in my coat pocket halfway across the bridge.
I didn’t need to look to know. Somehow my instincts told me who it was without looking. But I looked anyway—because I was still me, still curious, still incapable of fully committing to denial.
Unknown number from North Carolina.
My throat tightened.
I stared at the screen until it stopped ringing.
Then I slid the phone back into my pocket like it was nothing. Like I hadn’t just felt my pulse spike at the sight of it. Why he blocked his number, I didn’t know. But for years any time he reached out, the phone number always came up blocked or unknown.