You can't scrub off someone who's still inside your bloodstream.
The ceiling wasn't unfamiliar. But it felt different this morning—like it had been watching me all night, like it knew. I had barely moved. Just lay there, limbs twisted in sheets that didn't feel like mine anymore, heart pacing a rhythm my mind refused to name.
There was no sound in the apartment. No footsteps. No voices. Just the hum of a room that remembered things I wanted to forget.
I didn't need to touch myself to know I was wet. Not from pleasure. Not from pain. From something in between—something deeper. A memory that hadn't even made it to skin. Just… eyes. Breath. Tension. The kind that wraps itself around your spine and lingers.
He hadn't even laid a hand on me.
That was the worst part.
He hadn't touched me. Hadn't kissed me. Just stood there like a ghost made of fire, staring like he could see all the parts of me I'd never let anyone name. And I'd stood just as still, knees locked, heart open like a wound.
Dante Morelli.
The name alone was enough to heat my chest. To tighten my thighs. To make me hate myself all over again for ever wanting more than just safety.
I turned my head. The other side of the bed was cold. Still perfectly made.
And still—it felt like he'd been there.
I pressed the heel of my hand against my chest, trying to slow whatever the fuck had replaced my heartbeat. My body ached, not in a physical way, but in that subtle, violent way it does when you've let someone look at you too long. When you've let someone back in without realizing you left the door open.
The phone on the nightstand lit up.
Twice.
Cassian.
Fuck.
I pushed myself upright, the sheets slipping, skin still feverish. I was late, and he'd know. He always knew. He didn't need proof. He could smell deviation like smoke. Could read a lie before it left your lips.
I stood, walked naked to the mirror, and stopped.
My reflection stared back.
Not guilty. Not broken. Just... off. Something was missing. Something was glowing under the surface. And I knew it had a name. One I hadn't said out loud since that night in the alley.
I washed my face. Pulled on the kind of black dress that clung in all the right places and said nothing in particular. Fastened heels that made me look taller, sharper, more dangerous than I felt.
The phone buzzte again.This time I looked.
You're late.
Three words.
No affection. No punctuation.
Just certainty.
The kind that makes your stomach turn and your spine straighten all at once.
I didn't answer.
Because there was nothing I could say that wouldn't smell like another man.
And as I locked the door behind me and stepped into the hallway, I knew two things for sure:
Cassian was watching.
And Dante hadn't even started yet.