The drive back from the cliffs was quieter.
Not in an awkward way.
Just the kind of quiet that settles over people who've said things they can't take back-and don't want to. Jake kept one hand on the wheel, the other holding hers. He didn't need to speak. His thumb traced lazy, thoughtless patterns along her wrist, like even in silence, he needed to stay connected.
Hriva watched the sun lower through the windshield, turning the sky into a bleeding watercolor. She didn't want the day to end. Not this one. Not after everything it had opened in her.
By the time they reached his apartment, the sky was inked in twilight, and the city lights blinked to life one by one.
Inside, the air felt warmer. Familiar. Lived-in. His place smelled like cedar, faint cologne, and the ghost of morning coffee. Hriva toed off her shoes and walked in without hesitation, like she belonged there.
Jake dropped the keys on the counter. "Hungry?"
"Not really," she said, glancing at him over her shoulder. "But I could eat."
His eyebrow arched. "Is that code for something?"
Hriva stepped closer, smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "You tell me."
Jake didn't answer. Not with words.
He crossed the distance between them in three slow steps, hands cupping her face like she was something sacred, like the entire day had been leading to this-just this. Their lips met, unhurried but charged, like neither of them wanted to rush the storm building under their skin.
He kissed her like he was learning her again.She kissed him like she already knew everything.
When she slid her arms around his neck and pressed her body against him, Jake let out a breath that sounded like surrender.
"I don't want to think tonight," she whispered against his lips.
"You don't have to," he said, voice low and rough. "Just feel."
He lifted her off the ground effortlessly. Hriva's laugh spilled out, soft and breathy, as her legs wrapped around his waist.
They didn't make it to the bedroom right away.
The hallway caught them first.
Jake pressed her against the wall, hands gripping her thighs, kisses turning hungrier, more reckless. The kind of hunger that comes after hours of restraint. The kind that says I've waited all day for this.
"You keep doing that," Hriva murmured between kisses.
"Doing what?"
"Looking at me like I'm a dream you don't want to wake up from."
Jake paused. Forehead pressed to hers.
"That's exactly what you are."
The heat between them twisted, deepened-more than lust, more than tension. It was intimacy in its rawest form. A silent conversation between their bodies. A promise spoken in touch.
By the time they collapsed in bed, tangled in sheets and breathless laughter, the world outside no longer mattered. They lay there skin to skin, chests rising in sync, her fingers drawing invisible circles on his chest.
Jake turned his head to look at her, eyes heavy but bright. "You scare me."
Hriva blinked. "Why?"
"Because I've never wanted something to last this much."
Her throat tightened. She touched his jaw gently, then leaned in, kissing him slow-soft, but certain.
"Then let it," she whispered. "Let it last."
And in the dark that followed, as sleep curled its fingers around them, their hands remained linked under the covers-tethered. Quietly claiming each other.
Tonight wasn't just another night.
It was the night.
The one that would echo, long after the fire came.