He wasn't dreaming.
He knew the difference.
Dreams didn't burn like this.
His blood felt too thick in his veins. His skin too tight. Everything inside him coiled like a spring wound beyond its limit.
He was burning alive and the only thing grounding him was her voice.
"You're safe. Just stay with me. I won't let them find you."
He sucked in a breath.
That voice.
Those words.
Why did they feel like… a thread from another life?
He didn't know her face. Not yet. The room was still dark. His vision was fogged from whatever the hell they'd slipped into his drink. But her voice… it wrapped around something deep inside him. A part of him he thought had died a long time ago.
I won't let them find you.
He didn't know her name.
But his body,his heart,recognized her.
She touched his cheek again, fingertips brushing lightly along the stubble on his jaw. Her skin was soft, warm. It didn't feel like a stranger's touch. It felt like a memory.
A memory with no shape.
Only feeling.
And then she kissed him again.
Not rushed. Not hungry.
A kiss like a question.
He answered with his body.
She was shaking and not from fear.
From how right this felt.
From the heat pooling between her thighs.
From the ache in her chest that had lived there since she was seven years old.
She didn't plan to kiss him again. She didn't plan any of this.
But when he looked at her with those dazed, broken eyes and whispered "I'm sorry" something inside her shattered. The boy she had loved all these years wasn't lost. He was here. In her arms. On her bed. Needing her.
And for once, she didn't want to think.
She wanted to feel.
She leaned into the kiss, deepening it, her fingers threading through his hair, gripping tight when he groaned against her lips. His body trembled above hers not with hesitation, but restraint.
He was holding back.
"Don't," she whispered, barely audible. "Don't hold back. Not with me."
He froze.
Then something inside him broke open.
His mouth crashed into hers like a dam bursting. His hands once gentle now clutched at her waist, sliding beneath her dress, gripping her thighs like he needed to feel her to stay sane.
His touch wasn't polished.
It was raw. Frantic. Honest.
He lifted her dress, pushed it up her hips without breaking the kiss, his hand grazing the bare skin of her stomach. She arched beneath him, breath hitching as his thumb found the waistband of her panties.
"You're real," he murmured between kisses. "Tell me you're real."
"I've always been real," she whispered back, eyes stinging. "You just didn't know."
His breath caught.
He didn't understand the words.
Not yet.
But he felt them.
His mouth left hers only to kiss down her neck, his stubble scratching gently against her skin. She gasped as he bit her collarbone, licked the mark, then moved lower. His hands cupped her breasts through the fabric of her dress, thumbs brushing over the stiff peaks until she moaned softly.
"Kai…"
He stilled.
Her voice. The way she said his name. Like a prayer. Like a promise.
Something inside him trembled.
But his body was already falling apart.
He tugged her dress down, slowly, reverently, until her chest was bare to him. Her nipples peaked under the cool air, but her body was on fire,every inch of her screaming for his mouth.
When it finally came, she cried out.
His lips closed around one nipple, tongue circling slowly, deliberately. His hand teased the other, squeezing gently, pinching just enough to make her writhe beneath him.
She couldn't believe how wet she already was.
His mouth moved between her breasts like he was worshipping them,kissing, sucking, biting softly.
When he moved lower, she whimpered.
And when his hand slipped beneath the last barrier between them,her soaked panties,she nearly arched off the bed.
"God," he whispered, voice rough. "You're drenched."
She couldn't speak. She only nodded, hands in his hair, thighs trembling.
One finger slid into her slowly.
She moaned.
Then two.
Her body opened to him like it had always belonged to him.
He kissed her again, swallowing her cry as his fingers curled inside her, his thumb brushing her clit in lazy, perfect circles.
She was unraveling.
Coming undone.
Twenty years of want collapsing into one, beautiful moment.
And when she looked up at him,his face above hers, lost in pleasure, fighting for control she whispered what she had never said out loud.
"You were always mine, Kai. You just didn't know."
His eyes locked on hers.
And something clicked.
Like a door in his soul had creaked open,just enough to let the memory in.
The girl in Toronto.
The promise.
The voice.
But before the thought could take shape—
She came.
Hard.
Her body arched, mouth open in a silent cry, thighs clenching around his hand.
And he watched her like she was the only thing that had ever mattered.
Because maybe, just maybe…
She was.