If I close my eyes, I can still feel it.
The weight of his gaze.
The heat of his breath brushing too close to mine.
The silence that burned louder than any words ever could.
It wasn't a kiss. Not really.
It was worse.
It was that suspended second—the breath before the fall, the heartbeat that stretched too long—where everything I knew was about to shatter and yet I wanted it anyway.
I shouldn't have wanted it.
Lucien wasn't mine to want.
He was hers. My sister's.
But in that moment, with the air trembling between us and his storm-gray eyes locked on mine, I forgot who I was supposed to be. I forgot loyalty and rules and blood ties. I only knew the hunger in his stare, the unspoken confession lingering on his lips, and the terrifying, beautiful truth:
We were already past the point of no return.
Not in what we did.
But in what we almost did.
Because sometimes the most dangerous line isn't the one you cross.
It's the one you stand on—barely balanced, swaying between desire and destruction—knowing one wrong move will ruin everything.
That was us.
Lucien and me.
Balanced on the edge of almost.